How to Find and Make Templates for Microsoft Outlook 2007

The Beauty of Templates

Unlike its predecessors, Outlook 2007 doesn’t come with built-in templates. After all, Microsoft Office contains a lot of data. Good news: Microsoft Office Online’s Web site has an entire section devoted to templates for Office products. Search for “templates” in the Help file (F1) and most link to the Web site.

Email templates are great for emails you write often with only a few changes. For example, responding to customer service inquiries and sending weekly status reports.

To obtain the templates, you first need to download and install an ActiveX control, which downloads and opens templates, media clips and other files.

Note: If you have trouble downloading the ActiveX control, it may be because you lack administrative rights. Try contacting your system administrator or ensuring you have an administrator account for PCs not on a network.

Also, add Microsoft Office Online to your trusted sites list in Internet Explorer:

1. Select Internet Options from the Tools menu.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Click the Trust Sites icon and click Sites.
4. Enter https://office.microsoft.com into the add this website to the zone box.
5. Click Add.
6. Click OK twice.

The ActiveX control also requires Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 or later and Internet Explorer 5.01 or later.

If you go to https://office.microsoft.com, you should be able to click your way to Templates. Microsoft’s template site doesn’t let you filter Outlook 2007 templates on the home page. Searching for “Outlook 2007” to see a list of templates doesn’t work either. If you move around the template site and then look at “Filter by Product” drop down list, Outlook 2007 will eventually show up.

Most of the templates for Outlook 2007 contain designs for E-mail Business Cards, agendas. invitations, letters, minutes, newsletters, and e-mail.

Make Your Own E-mail Template

The following steps show how to create an e-mail template:

1. Click New from the Standard Toolbar to create a new e-mail message.
2. Enter text into the Cc, Bcc and Subject box, if it’s going to appear in every e-mail message using this template.
3. Enter a message that will appear in every e-mail message.
4. Click the Microsoft Office button and select Save As.
5. Select Outlook Template from the Save as type list.
6. Leave the File Name the same, which comes from the Subject of the message. If you ever edit the template and save it again, it’ll copy over the old one.
7. Click Save.
8. Close the e-mail message or fill it and send it. If you close the e-mail message, Outlook asks if you want to keep the message. You’ve saved the template. Unless you plan to send a message, click No.