How to create and use template shortcuts

In Shared Email Templates for Outlook

This feature is inspired by our customers' requests and feedback. Template shortcuts can be viewed as templates for templates. You can create a number of template shortcuts and use them in different combinations and order to construct your templates and email messages.

Click the button below to open or download a quick How to use template shortcuts cheat sheet:

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• Template shortcuts: What's this
• How to create shortcuts
  • Add shortcuts to new template
  • Add shortcuts to existing template
• How to use shortcuts
  • Use shortcuts in email messages
  • Use shortcuts in templates
• How to find all your shortcuts
• How to edit and remove shortcuts
• More about shortcuts

Template shortcuts: What's this

A template shortcut is a shortened name of a template that you can use to insert the template into an email message, another template, a dataset, or a profile or team property.

To insert a template that has a shortcut into your email, simply type two hash signs and the name of the shortcut in the message body, and then click the Handle Shortcuts button. The hash signs and the name of the shortcut will be replaced with the full text of the corresponding template, and it doesn't matter how big that template is (a few lines or a few pages).

For example, this is a typical salutation you might begin your emails with:

Instead of typing this text in each and every template, create a separate template and add a shortcut to it, say, "hello1". Then begin all your templates where this salutation should be used with "##hello1":

As a result, your messages will look like this:

Feel free to create as many templates of this kind as you need. The shortcuts might be as follows: "hello1", "hello2", "hello3".

Also, you can create a speedy reply with a few shortcuts. For example, if you have shortcuts for salutations, follow-ups and reply requests, you can insert the following:

Then click the Handle Shortcuts button to get something like this:

How to create shortcuts

You can add a shortcut to an existing template or to a new one.

Add shortcuts to a new template

To start creating a template, select a folder and click the New Template button:

Enter the name and text of your template and click the Edit Shortcut icon:

Type in the name of your template shortcut (you can use both upper case and lower case) and click OK:

You'll see the name of your shortcut in blue:

Click the Save button to save your template.

Add shortcuts to an existing template

You can take an existing template and add a shortcut to it. Select a template and click the Edit Shortcut icon on the preview pane:

Name your template shortcut (you can use both upper case and lower case) and click Save:

The template shortcut will be shown in blue:

How to use shortcuts

You can create a number of template shortcuts and insert them right into the message body in your Outlook. Also, you can use shortcuts to design ready-made reply templates.

Use shortcuts in email messages

To use template shortcuts in your email messages, type the names of the shortcuts directly into the message body in the order you want them to appear in your email. To turn the shortcuts into text, click the Handle Shortcuts button in the lower-right corner of the add-in pane:

The shortcuts are processed, and you can enjoy the result:

Use shortcuts in templates

You can use template shortcuts as building blocks when constructing your templates.

Create a new template and enter the names of your shortcuts in the order they are supposed to appear there:

Save your template.

When you paste this template into your email message, the shortcuts will be replaced with text:

How to find all your shortcuts

To see all your shortcuts, click the Shortcuts icon at the top of the Shared Email Templates pane:

Note. Template shortcuts that have the same name are displayed in red:

How to edit and remove shortcuts

Select a shortcut and click its name on the preview pane:

Using the Edit shortcut dialog, you can rename your shortcut or delete it by removing the text in the Edit shortcut field.

More about shortcuts

To learn more, visit our blog and the Tips and tricks for Shared Email Templates page.