Utilize Quick Parts in Outlook to Build Emails

You can view lots of helpful information on Microsoft’s support pages. There’s a helpful video walk through here.

The Quick Parts feature in Outlook provides building blocks, reusable pieces of content or other email message parts that are stored in galleries. You can access and reuse the building blocks at any time. You can also save building blocks and distribute them with templates so that other people can use the building blocks you created.

This can replace using signatures to quickly populate messages you send often, for example, “Thank you for your email. We will review and get back to you shortly.”

HOW TO CREATE A REUSABLE BUILDING BLOCK

1. To start, open a new outlook email message, appointment, or task and type in the desired text, format it the way you want, and include graphics if needed. Technically, it does not matter where you create a new building block - the steps are the same for emails, appointments, contacts and tasks.
2. Select the content or email message part that you want to store as a reusable building block.
   • This can include images, tables, graphics, and formatting.
3. On the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Quick Parts.
4. Click Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.

 

5. Fill out the information in the Create New Building Block dialog box:
   • Name               Type a unique name for the building block.
   • Gallery             Select the gallery that you want the building block to show up in.
   • Category         Categories belong to galleries and you can regard them as kind of sub-folders for further grouping. The default category is General.  If you have over 10 reusable pieces, it's a good idea to organize them in your own categories. For this, click the drop-down arrow and choose Create New Category.
   • Description     Type a description of the building block.
   • Save in         Save to the default NormalEmail.dotm template if you want the new Quick Part to be available in all emails and other Outlook items. If you use your own Outlook templates, you can isolate your building blocks by template. A template must be open to appear in the drop-down list.
   • Options     Choose one of the following:
     • Select Insert in its own paragraph to make the content into its own paragraph, even if the user's cursor is in the middle of a paragraph.
     • Select Insert content in its own page to make the content into its own page.
     • Select Insert content only for all other content.

Find and use a building block

You must have at least one building block saved to perform this task.

1. Click where you want to insert a building block in the email message.
2. On the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Quick Parts.
3. Right-click in the gallery pane. If you see the building block you want, select it. If you don't see the building block, on the shortcut menu, click Organize and Delete.

If you know the name of the building block, click Name to sort by name.

4. Select the building block, and then click Insert.

Insert Quick Parts by pressing F3

The fastest way to put a reusable piece of content into an email message is this:

1. In a message, type the quick part name where you want to content to appear.
2. Press F3, and the name is immediately replaced with the full content. Done!

For example, to insert the Quick Part named "Map", you type "map" and press F3. The image below shows the result:

In most cases, you do not need to enter the whole name. It is enough to type the part of the name until it becomes unique.

Let's say, you have two Quick Parts named "Thanks for support" and "Thank you":

• To insert the entry named "Thanks for support", type "thanks" and press F3.
• To insert the "Thank you" entry, you must at least type "thank" and a space character before pressing F3.

 

SAVE AND DISTRIBUTE BUILDING BLOCKS WITH A TEMPLATE

You can access and reuse building blocks at any time. You can also distribute building blocks with templates. For example, you can create building blocks in a template and distribute the template to other users, who can save the template to the building blocks folder and use the building blocks you created.

1. Click New to create a blank email message.
2. Click File > Save as.

Outlook 2007 only: Click the Microsoft Office Button  , and then click Save As.

3. In the Save As dialog box, from the Save as Type list, click Outlook Template .
4. Type a name for the new template, click Outlook Template in the Save as type list, and then click Save.

Outlook 2007 only: You can also save the template as a Word Macro-Enabled Template (.dotm file) or a Word 97-2003 Template (.dot file).

5. In the open template, create and save the building blocks that you want to provide to other users. When you fill out the information in the Create New Building Block dialog box, be sure to click the template name in the Save in list.

Use the same category name for all of the choices that you want users to have for a particular building block.

Note: After you save the building block to a gallery, you can delete the content from the template. The content will remain associated with the building block.

MODIFY A QUICK PART

1. If you want to edit your Quick Parts entries, first launch a new message. Then move to the Quick Parts list, and right-click on any entry to display several options to modify your entries.
2. Pick Edit Properties to change the name, category, or description.
3. Choose Organize and Delete to open the Building Blocks Organizer where you can not only change properties but also delete entries you no longer need.

 

DELETE A BUILDING BLOCK

1. Open the template that contains the building block that you want to delete.
2. On the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Quick Parts.
3. Right-click in the gallery pane, and on the shortcut menu, click Organize and Delete.

If you know the name of the building block, click Name to sort by name.

4. Select the entry, and then click Delete.
5. Close the template, and then click Yes when you are prompted to save the template.

The building block that you deleted is no longer available in galleries when you distribute the template, although the content might still appear in the template.