Bold font with System generated Email (Outlook 2002 SP2)

Topic

New Reply

I’ve got some macros that create emails on various things. One in particular scans my outlook files and sends me an email showing all the unread mail that I have. Why do I want an email telling me that I have unread email? I usually leave mail as unread if I need to do something with it.

Anyway, as I’m building the body of the message, I would like some sections to be bold and some sections not. How do I do this?

Any suggestions?

Reply | Quote

Replies

I don’t have the answer to your question, but do have a suggestion that may eliminate the need for it, and your “unread email” email.

I too used to leave email that needed further action unread, but found a better way (for me).The better way is to use the Follow-Up flags. With the flags, you can use the default descriptors, or enter your own specific ones, and set a Due By time. Then modify, or create a view(s) that shows Flag Status (flagged, completed, blank) and/or Follow-Up Flag (description) and/or Due By (date & time), sorted to suit. If you want the follow-up reminders to pop up at the due by date & time you’ll need to keep all (active) email in your Inbox.

An alternative would be to create an “Action” category and assign any email needing more work to it (removing it from the category when done). Again, you would use views to track your categorised emails.

Reply | Quote

Yes, I had thought of flags – but will this work if I have ‘follow up’ emails spread over a number of folders and over a number of pst files?

Reply | Quote

(Edited by TimOz on 19-Jun-03 13:40. OL2K shortcomings maybe fixed in OL2002)

Yes, I always prefer to use built-in features, if possible (sometimes in unorthodox ways). Unfortunately flags and other reminders only work in the primary, or default, folders (in OL2K). If you’re lucky, this “feature” may be fixed in OL2002. And I don’t know what the deal is with multiple PSTs, but I guess it’s a simple experiment to try. My workaround for this silly limitation was to use categories and custom views for much the same functionality. Also, once you are done with the emails, they can be moved to other folders to keep your inbox reasonably uncluttered.

btw, I think there’s at least one add-in at Slipstick that supports reminders in all folders, but it’s shareware. I never tried it because my workaround works well for me.

ps Just scratching, but I suppose using “SendKeys ^B” to toggle bold on/off doesn’t fit with the way your macro generates the email? Similarly, I suppose using a “template” with bold in place, and replacing text to suit is also inappropriate? Also, if you post (the affected part of) your macro for perusal, someone might get an “Aha!”.

Reply | Quote

If you’re creating the message in HTML format (writing to the HTMLbody property), can you use standard HTML tags? (For RTF, I have no idea.)

Reply | Quote

I started to play with the .body and .HTMLbody items yesterday. I was thinking that I could just build the message part of the email as per normal (.body = .body & “blah blah blah”) and when I wanted to add a bold item, use the HTMLbody part (.HTMLbody = .HTMLbody & “bold blah blah blah“).

It worked on a quick test that I did but I couldn’t get it to work if I swapped between the two. I really don’t want to code the whole silly email in HTML just to get bold comments.

Reply | Quote