Streamline your workflow and send an Outlook email right from Excel

Streamline your workflow and send an Outlook email right from Excel
—by Kara Soos

Application:
Microsoft Excel 2002/2003, Microsoft Outlook 2002/2003
Operating Systems:
Microsoft Windows

I often send Excel workbooks to colleagues and clients through Outlook, but sometimes an attachment doesn’t transmit properly or inflates the size of the email. Is there any way I can quickly send a worksheet in the body of the email instead of as an attachment?In the interest of increasing usability across several Microsoft applications, Excel includes quick ways to send email without the hassle of alternating between applications or attaching unnecessary data. To answer your question, there is a way to send a worksheet as part of an Outlook email body. We’ll go over this method, along with a few other quick ways to deal with email right from Excel.

Note: To use the integration features discussed in this article, you must set up Outlook as your default email client.

To send a worksheet in an email body: 

1. Open the workbook you wish to send in Excel.
2. Choose File | Send To | Mail Recipient from the menu bar.
3. Enter information in the email header that appears above your workbook, such as the recipient’s email and the subject line, as shown in Figure A.
4. Type any text outside of your worksheet that you’d like to include in the email in the Introduction field.
5. Click the Send This Sheet button on the toolbar that appeared with the email header.

Once you send the worksheet, you return to the Excel workbook.