How should I use Outlook to send code snippets?

If you are using Outlook 2010, you can define your own style and select your formatting you want, in the Format options there is one option for Language, here you can specify the language and specify whether you want spell checker to ignore the text with this style.

With this style you can now paste the code as text and select your new style. Outlook will not correct the text and will not perform the spell check on it.

Below is the summary of the style I have defined for emailing the code snippets.

Do not check spelling or grammar, Border:
Box: (Single solid line, Orange,  0.5 pt Line width)
Pattern: Clear (Custom Color(RGB(253,253,217))), Style: Linked, Automatically update, Quick Style
Based on: HTML Preformatted

Years later I have a response.

  1. Use an online code highlighter like http://tohtml.com/ to highlight your code so you can paste marked up code from your IDE into Word. Depending on your IDE you may be able to skip this step.

  2. In Word 2010, go to insert->object->openDocument Text. Steps 2-3 are documented at How do you display code snippets in MS Word preserving format and syntax highlighting?.

  3. Paste your highlighted code into the object.

  4. Copy the whole object.

  5. Right-click-> paste special the object into Outlook.

This gives you a highlighted, contained box of code for use in emails in Outlook 2010.


I came across this looking for a way to format things better in an email to a co-worker. I ended up discovering that if you copy from Visual Studio Code (FREE) it retains the formatting, highlighting and everything else. This editor works with everything and has modules for every programming language I've ever encountered.

Looks beautiful in the email.


If you have notepad++ installed in your pc, then you can copy text as RTF (Rich Text Format) and paste it in your outlook mail.

1) Paste you code snippet into notepad++

2) From Menu bar navigate to "Plugins -> NppExport -> Copy RTF to clipboard"

3) Paste into your email

4) Done