Outlook – How to send an Outlook 2007 email containing a linked image

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I want to send an Outlook email that contains an externally hosted image, but I can find no options in the UI that lets me do this.

I want to insert the image's URL somehow, and have it appear as an image in the email (as if I'd inserted a picture from my file system), rather than as a clickable link.

It's the sort of thing that can be done easily enough in code, just by including an HTML <img> tag in the body.

Is there a way of doing this with the Outlook UI?

Edit:

The external image I'd tried this with was a .png, which, using the Insert Picture dialogue and pasting in a URL, appeared as a clickable link.

Following Ivo's answer, I had another go with a .JPG, and it displays as an image. However, this image is embedded, not linked.

Perhaps I wasn't clear – apologies. I don't want to take a copy of the image and send it. I want to include the link, not the image, in a way that

a) Ideally, renders the image in the email while it's being composed

b) Much more importantly, downloads the image from the external link and renders it when the email is received and then opened.

Outlook can render newsletter-type emails that have linked images – I want to compose one like that.

Best Answer

I found this here.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\Options\Mail 
Insert New DWORD "Send Pictures With Document" (note the spaces)

With a value of 1 you’ll include the picture with the message instead of as a link. If the value is set to 0 or when the key is missing you’ll send a link.

3rd party Edit: Here's a screenshot of what the "Send Pictures With Document" setting should look like: Screenshot of Send Pictures With Document value in registry

Related Solutions

Email – How to Create a Link to a Specific Email Message in Outlook

You can do this with a little bit of code in Outlook and a little bit of code in Emacs.

First, if you're using Outlook 2007 you'll need to enable Outlook URLs with a registry addition. Instructions and the registry file can be found here courtesy of David Tan.

Next, this macro can be added to Outlook and will get the GUID of the current email message, create a Org-Mode link and deposit it into the clipboard.

'Adds a link to the currently selected message to the clipboard
Sub AddLinkToMessageInClipboard()

   Dim objMail As Outlook.MailItem
   Dim doClipboard As New DataObject

   'One and ONLY one message muse be selected
   If Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Count <> 1 Then
       MsgBox ("Select one and ONLY one message.")
       Exit Sub
   End If

   Set objMail = Application.ActiveExplorer.Selection.Item(1)
   doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][MESSAGE: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.SenderName + ")]]"
   doClipboard.PutInClipboard

End Sub

As koushik noted in the comments, the doClipboard.SetText part can be expanded to differentiate between different item types:

If objMail.Class = olMail Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][MESSAGE: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.SenderName + ")]]"
ElseIf objMail.Class = olAppointment Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][MEETING: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.Organizer + ")]]"
ElseIf objMail.Class = olTask Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][TASK: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.Owner + ")]]"
ElseIf objMail.Class = olContact Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][CONTACT: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.FullName + ")]]"
ElseIf objMail.Class = olJournal Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][JOURNAL: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.Type + ")]]"
ElseIf objMail.Class = olNote Then
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][NOTE: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + " " + ")]]"
Else
    doClipboard.SetText "[[outlook:" + objMail.EntryID + "][ITEM: " + objMail.Subject + " (" + objMail.MessageClass + ")]]"    
End If

Almost there, add this little bit of lisp to your emacs lisp directory to enable Outlook links.

;;; org-outlook.el - Support for links to Outlook items in Org

(require 'org)

(org-add-link-type "outlook" 'org-outlook-open)

(defun org-outlook-open (id)
   "Open the Outlook item identified by ID.  ID should be an Outlook GUID."
   (w32-shell-execute "open" (concat "outlook:" id)))

(provide 'org-outlook)

;;; org-outlook.el ends here

And lastly, update your .emacs file to include the Outlook link code. Just add this somewhere after org-mode is setup.

(require 'org-outlook)

Now you can call the macro (I added it to my toolbar in Outlook for quick access) and you can quickly create a link to the email in Emacs.

One gotcha, GUID's change when you move a message between document stores, so if you get the GUID to the message while it's on your Exchange server and then move it to your local PST file the link will change. Move the message before you get the GUID.

Outlook 2007 – How to Insert Remote Image into Email Without Attaching

It's been a while since I used Outlook 2007, but it being similar to 2010, You may be able to go to the Insert tab and click Picture, then Paste the URL in the filename box and click insert.

Best Answer

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Email – How to Create a Link to a Specific Email Message in Outlook

Outlook 2007 – How to Insert Remote Image into Email Without Attaching

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