See Outlook's Reply Format for reasons why you shouldn't change the format.
Originally posted as a comment in Tip 434: Change Reply Format August 2007
This code sample was checked (by me) against Outlook 2007 and 2010. Others report that it works with Outlook 2003.
To switch this code to always use plain text, locate and change this line in the code to comment out the HTML code (2) and remove the comment from plain text format (1). Note that Outlook 2003 and later have the ability to always use plain text.
olFormat = olFormatPlain '(*1) - always use plain text'olFormat = olFormatHTML '(*2) - always use HTML
Copy and paste the code from this page into your ThisOutlookSession project. To do this, click in the text box, Select All using Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C to copy.
In Outlook, press Alt+F11 to open the VBA editor and expand Microsoft Outlook Objects then double click on ThisOutlookSession to open it in the editing pane and Ctrl+P to paste the code.
How to use VBA code samples in Outlook
Option Explicit Private WithEvents oExpl As Explorer Private WithEvents oItem As MailItem Private bDiscardEvents As Boolean Private olFormat As OlBodyFormat Private Sub Application_Startup() Set oExpl = Application.ActiveExplorer bDiscardEvents = False 'olFormat = olFormatPlain '(*1) - uz.ywaj zawsze formatu "zwyk?y tekst" olFormat = olFormatHTML '(*2) - uz.ywaj zawsze formatu HTML End Sub Private Sub oExpl_SelectionChange() On Error Resume Next Set oItem = oExpl.Selection.Item(1) End Sub ' (*3) Uz.ytkownik wybra? polecenie "Odpowiedz" Private Sub oItem_Reply(ByVal Response As Object, Cancel As Boolean) If bDiscardEvents Or oItem.BodyFormat = olFormat Then Exit Sub End If '(*4) Anuluj domys'lna; akcje; Cancel = True bDiscardEvents = True ' (*5) Utwo'rz odpowiedz' na wiadomos'c' w formacie tekstowym Dim oResponse As MailItem Set oResponse = oItem.Reply oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat oResponse.Display bDiscardEvents = False End Sub ' (*6) Uz.ytkownik wybra? polecenie "Odpowiedz wszystkim" Private Sub oItem_ReplyAll(ByVal Response As Object, Cancel As Boolean) If bDiscardEvents Or oItem.BodyFormat = olFormat Then Exit Sub End If Cancel = True bDiscardEvents = True Dim oResponse As MailItem Set oResponse = oItem.ReplyAll oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat oResponse.Display bDiscardEvents = False End Sub ' (*7) Uz.ytkownik wybra? polecenie "Przes'lij dalej" Private Sub oItem_Forward(ByVal Forward As Object, Cancel As Boolean) If bDiscardEvents Or oItem.BodyFormat = olFormat Then Exit Sub End If Cancel = True bDiscardEvents = True Dim oResponse As MailItem Set oResponse = oItem.Forward oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat oResponse.Display bDiscardEvents = False End Sub
You can copy and paste from the text box above or download a text file containing the VBA code: http://www.outlook-tips.net/files/always-reply-using-html.txt
Related posts:
« « Get Internet Header code sample for Microsoft OutlookRemove the To field from an Outlook message form » »
tested on 2003?
Yes, according to the comments in the original post, it does work in Outlook 2003 (along with 2007 and 2010, which i tested it with).
Another comment from the old blog, author unknown:
“Very nice piece of code. However, I had my own fonts specified and by running this, they kept changing to the default “Times New Roman”. A small change to the code fixed that for me.
Just flip the order of the following code:
oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat
oResponse.Display
to
oResponse.Display
oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat
and my own specified font formats stays. It takes less than a fraction of a second to change the format. So displaying it first does not cause any problem. “
Thanks for this.
I have save the code exactly as it says above into this ThisOutlookSession project in Outlook 2010. But how do i run this? When i click ALT+F8 it comes up empty. Also when i open a plain text email and click reply or reply all it still opens up as Plain text instead of HTML which is what i want. Appreciate all your help
It runs automatically when you reply to a message. You also need to have macro security set to medium or sign the macro. (Medium, warn for all macros, is better for most users or while tweaking macros.) Set macro security to medium and restart outlook. A VBA dialog will comes up, ok it and then the macro should work.
ik ging naar Bar le Duc water en wilde een email versturen,maar kreeg iets met replycode niet goed of zo telenet 220 met 2 namen beide telenet.Vandaar mijn zoektocht wat is reply code Zag er 2 replycode Alpha en reply invalid codes.Ik ben geeindigd met snap er niks van vr.gr.mariehut
Something may have gotten lost in translation… but if i understand it correctly, you couldn’t send an email while using public internet? This is common – many sites block smtp port 25 and make you use a different one or authenticate with your server. If its something else, sorry :(
This works great on Outlook 2010 (14.0) 32 bit version except that my custom fonts on the signatures do not propagate. HTML yes, my fonts and colors no. Any ideas?
Are you using the
oResponse.Display
oResponse.BodyFormat = olFormat
change?
I’ll have to check it, but it could be because the signature is added before the conversion.
Yes I made that change in all 3 places.
I also found both the original and changed version will not run under 64bit Outlook 2010 :/
Thanks for you help!!
Hi
We still cannot get the HTML Signature to come up when using this code. The code does work and i can confirm the email is now in HTML, but its still using the plan text version of the sig?
Any way to fix this?
Based on discussions with Outlook developers, they believe the signature is added before the code makes the conversion.
Right click on the signature – do you see the signature menu or the standard context menu?
I found this page in the search for making all my replies HTML so that I could always include my classy html signature with image links for self-promotion purposes.
I simply hate the vba editor and all the silly macro stuff, I always seem to get some error message. I fiddled round for hours trying to get this script (and another modified one on some other site) to work, but at best, it would make the font Times New Roman no matter what order of those two lines there, and my html signatures still don’t work fully anyway, which was the whole point of the exercise. So it’s not really very adequate.
But I found a cool solution, albeit a commercial one: a brilliant third-party outlook add-on, bells & whistles: http://www.emailaddressmanager.com/outlook-bells.html. 30 bucks was worth it for me. it does some other cool things which I’m using now too.
It does the change from plain text to html in some other way which is as if you clicked the html button in the ribbon on every email. I guess it loads the macro at the loading of every new message reply. And what satisfies my needs is its signature option. voila!
it very smartly inserts the third party html signature that you make and assign, as a second step after the change to html. so it’s PERFECT in other words!!!!!
hope my comment helps someone out there.
Thanks for this, with the altering of Macro security this now works just fine.
I had the problem mentioned by other poster whereby the signiature is inserted in plain text not HTML.
My way round the problem is to set outlook to not automatically add a sig to replies.
I then click reply and then click insert signiature
The sig has a few lines of text in my preferred font above the sig image, so I can then just click in that section and start typing in the desired font.
Yes this is a bit of a faff, but it leaves me with $30 to spend on beer instead :)
Beer is better than outlook. :) Depending on your version of Outlook, you can customize the toolbar, ribbon, or QAT to make the Insert signature command a step away, reducing your effort further.