Markdown in outlook

Question

Because this is not the kind of company where wiki's are accepted, we tend to do a lot of communication through outlook. Sending code snippets through it is painfull. Is there some way to get the markdown thing we have here, but in outlook?

Sorry, could you be more specific? What kind of behavior would you like to have in Outlook? — Dirk Vollmar, Dec 01 '08 at 10:09
He wants to be able to use markdown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) syntax in Outlook — Gonzalo Quero, Dec 01 '08 at 10:40
More context on the question at: Markdown vs markup - are they related? — nik, May 20 '09 at 20:06
Can you use thunderbird ? if yes, this might plugin might work: https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here — nassimhddd, Mar 18 '13 at 13:40
This should be marked as the answer to the question: http://stackoverflow.com/a/17409971/73025 — Dennis, Jul 05 '13 at 15:59

score 46 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 12 '19 at 17:53

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For future visitors: https://github.com/mmanela/MarkdownOutlook

Per their wiki:

A simple plugin for Outlook 2013 which adds a button to the compose mail menu to enable Markdown mode. When enabled your email will be turned from Markdown syntax to html when sending.

Uses MarkdownSharp for the markdown conversion

Uses VSTO to integrate with Outlook

Uses an Installer Project to build an installer

edited Mar 12 '19 at 17:53

Community

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answered Jul 01 '13 at 17:10

Mrchief

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The project now says for Outlook 2013. :-/ – David Murdoch Sep 29 '14 at 19:37
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Are there any build instructions for people that use Outlook but aren't familiar with the C# ecosystem ? – ereOn Feb 10 '15 at 21:14
For visitors from the future! :) – Prof. Falken Apr 14 '15 at 10:09
@DavidMurdoch, it works on my Outlook 2010 anyway – Prof. Falken Aug 28 '15 at 09:34
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It seems to work with Outlook 2016 as well, though I haven't tested it too much yet – Tobias Kienzler Aug 23 '16 at 10:00
Visitors from future here :-) This works with Outlook 2016, but I had a difficult time to adjust the image size if I use image syntax and it's also a pain on inserting a word document as attachment in the middle of the email. – BrandonSun Mar 21 '17 at 03:37
This works with Outlook 2016, but the code syntax (starts/ends with ```) doesn't seem to work. Some great person worked on this feature/fix, but there is no installation package at the moment :-( – Jaeyoung Chun Apr 16 '18 at 07:13
@JaeyoungChun where did you find the project that had the code fixed? – Victor Uriarte Apr 17 '20 at 21:01

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 06 '11 at 06:16

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I haven't been able to find an editor BUT you can write your email where I'm typing now which will show you the result in the preview pane. (including code snippets)

You can then copy the result from the preview pane into outlook (I've tried thunderbird too and it works)

If at first your code doesnt render nicely (ie colour coded) then ensure you are editing in the 'Ask Question' editor (not in the Your Answer section) - this made a difference for me.

answered Apr 06 '11 at 06:16

wal

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Although not extremely practical, this is the best suggestion so far :) Thanks – Boris Callens Apr 13 '11 at 21:25
There are live markdown render websites out there. – John Alexiou Feb 08 '17 at 00:15
nice one! It's really helpful! I use Markdown Viewer++ plugin for notepad++! – shanwu Aug 21 '17 at 08:12
Outlook has problems dealing with some styles though. – Gabriel Espinoza Oct 26 '18 at 13:08
Unfortunately Outlook corrupts numbered lists when pasted. Specifically: It adds numbers to code sections under numbered items. – pabouk - Ukraine stay strong Jul 30 '21 at 09:36
I write in emacs markdown mode and @wal's suggestion works best for me. I use `https://stackedit.io/app#` online to then get my rendered text and it seems to work pretty well :) – agent18 Apr 04 '22 at 19:27

score 9 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 04 '14 at 14:21

Since Outlook uses Word as an email editor (Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003 can be configured to use Word) you could use the AutoCorrect feature to apply simple formatting to your email. __text__ will trigger italic and **bold** will trigger bold. List can be created automatically when typing - or 1.

Another option might be to run a VBA macro on sending the email which converts the Markdown formatting to (X)HTML.

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 23 '12 at 15:29

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I've taken to running Markdown Pro on my Mac and pasting the preview pane results into the message. Painful but workable.

There is a similar editor, MarkdownPad, for Windows, but I have not tried it.

answered Jul 23 '12 at 15:29

Ralph

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Looks promising. Download is blocked by corporate FW however, so it'll have to wait 'till later. – Boris Callens Jul 24 '12 at 11:38
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MarkdownPad works well for Windows. And the solution isn't terribly inconvenient. But, it takes some effort to modify the default CSS to match fonts and sizing in Outlook so that they email *look and feel* flows. That is very nit-picky, but it's a reality if you care. – Mike Perrenoud Dec 17 '12 at 18:10
I'm here 11 years later still frustrated at outlook for not supporting markdown. But copying the preview pane from MacDown works for me. – mkeathley Jul 28 '23 at 20:33

lante · Answer 5 · 2014-10-05T15:45:23.800

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If you use Thunderbird, then you can use the markdown-here extension.

edited Oct 05 '14 at 15:45

answered Feb 15 '13 at 19:48

lante

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you can added directly in your browser as an extension an **M** icon will be added that enables markdown in your emails . https://markdown-here.com/get.html – A.HADDAD Aug 05 '18 at 14:38

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered May 20 '09 at 17:40

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My outlook 2007 works with basic markdown _italic_ and *bold* with no configuration.

answered May 20 '09 at 17:40

Andrea Balducci

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That's the most weird thing. It seems they fired the dev or scraped the team before they could finish implementing the full set of markdown. :) – Mrchief Jul 01 '13 at 17:11
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Kids these days, with no collective memory for usenet conventions. ;^) – ruffin Jan 02 '14 at 15:36

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 05 '13 at 20:15

I'm new to development on OS X, but -- I've been using the simple-but-it-works MarkdownLive for the same purpose. I think I've been using the free version of MarkdownPad on Windows, although I keep meaning to check out the MD functionality in WriteMonkey. Going forward, I almost certainly will just be using Sublime Text 2.

You might check out what Brett Terpstra is doing ... doubt he is running Outlook, but it might be a problem he has addressed all the same. I also want to look at this package of scripts for Marked

Hm. My work email is accessed through Outlook's web UI ... I think I smell a Chrome extension around here somewhere ...

Markdown in outlook

7 Answers7