Chapter 18: Microsoft Outlook Forms and Templates

This chapter looks at how to make Outlook work more efficiently with custom templates and forms. A "Tips and Tricks" section offers some practical applications for templates and forms that you can put to work right away.

Do you frequently send the same message to the same group of people? Do you have an idea for streamlining the way information is posted in a public folder? Just as you might create standard letter templates in Microsoft Word, you can build standard messages and other templates in Outlook. These can also be “published” as forms to bind them even more tightly to Outlook.

In this chapter, we look at how to make Outlook work more efficiently with custom templates and forms. Absolutely no programming skills are needed to get started, though we will give you a peek at how templates and forms can include program code to make them do even more. At the end of this chapter, in the “Tips and Tricks” section, we look at some practical applications for templates and forms that you can put to work right away.

WORKING WITH FORMS AND TEMPLATES

Whether or not you realize it, you use Outlook forms all the time. The window where you compose a new message is a form, for example. So is the window where you enter a new contact. Every Outlook item is created and viewed through a form.

So, first and foremost, a form is a way of presenting information in a particular format. It can also be a means for gathering information in a structured fashion. An example would be a form that provides a way to report vacation and sick leave or a form to duplicate the “While You Were Out” message pads found in every office.

Templates and forms are basically the same thing. The primary difference is how they are stored. Templates are saved as .oft files, forms either as .fdm files or in the forms libraries within Outlook. We highlight other differences as we go along.

Using Templates and Forms

You can start using templates and forms through the Compose menu.

To use a template, choose Compose, Choose Template, then pick a template from the Choose Template dialog box, shown in Figure 18.1.

In addition to the Mail, Contact, and other basic templates, Outlook also installs a While You Were Out template. If you installed WordMail (see “Using WordMail” in Chapter 10) when you set up Outlook, you’ll see other templates on the Outlook tab for creating messages with fancy backgrounds. (Use these sparingly because not everyone wants to receive a large message that forces them to use WordMail to open it.)

Using the While You Were Out Template
Let's look more closely at the While You Were Out template. Choose Compose, Choose Template, then pick the While You Were Out template from the Choose Template dialog box. In Figure 18.2, you can see that the While You Were Out form differs from the standard New Message form in several obvious ways:

• It uses a completely different layout, with its own title, section headings, and options to choose from.
• There is no Cc field, only a To field for addressing it to one or more people.
• There is no Subject field. The subject changes, depending on what you select under “You received” and the name you enter under Please Contact.
• You can change the Importance, not just with the toolbar buttons, but also by picking from the Importance list.

Figure 18.3 shows how the recipient sees your While You Were Out message in the Inbox. With AutoPreview turned on, a short While You Were Out message can be read without even opening it.

Using a Form

Outlook can store forms in four different types of locations, called libraries:

Application Forms:
Basic forms, such Message and Contact, included with Outlook

Personal Forms:
Forms for your personal use

Organization Forms:
Forms kept on a Microsoft Exchange server for everyone in the organization to use

Folder Forms:
A library for each folder, holding forms for use in that folder

To use a particular form, choose Compose, Choose Form, then select the form from the New Form dialog box. If you do not connect to an Exchange server and have no Personal Forms yet, then you’ll see only Application Forms. Later in this chapter, we discuss how to publish a form to your Personal Forms library.

Adding More Outlook Forms

Useful Outlook forms are available from many sources. The Office 97 or Outlook 97 CD contains four more forms in the ValuPack, some of which work with your Calendar or other folders. To install these, run the Valupack\Template\Outlook\Outlfrms.exe file. (Windows NT 3.51 users should run Outfmsnt.exe.)

You can also find many other new forms at Microsoft’s Web site (choose Help, Microsoft on the Web, Free Stuff).

Understanding Form Limitations

Some of the sample forms you may find are designed to facilitate interaction among people in the same organization. You need Microsoft Exchange Server to use any forms that are designed to work in Public Folders or with Outlook group scheduling. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t send messages based on forms to people outside your organization. As long as they’re also using Outlook, recipients can work with form-based messages. The only requirement is that the recipient address must be marked to use RTF (see “Plain Text vs. Rich-Text” in Chapter 10).

CREATING A TEMPLATE

It takes no special skills to create a useful Outlook template, largely because you never have to start from scratch. Any existing template, form, message, or other Outlook item can be used as the basis for a template. The steps involved are very simple:

1. Open the item you want to use as the starting point for the template.
2. Modify the item.
3. Save it as a template or publish it as a form (or both).

Example: Modifying the While You Were Out Template

The easiest way to show you how to design a template is with an example. Imagine that you take messages for your boss. You use the While You Were Out template but wish you didn’t need to fill in the boss’s name every time. Follow these steps to modify the template so that it has the boss’s name already filled in.

1. Choose Compose, Choose Template, and open the While You Were Out template.
2. In the To field, enter your boss’s name, then press Ctrl+K to run Check Names and validate the address. It should now be underlined.
3. Choose File, Save As to save the modified form as an Outlook Template in the Templates or Templates\Outlook folder under your Office folder.

Now, every time you use this modified template, the boss’s address is already filled in. All you have to do is enter the other information.