How to insert images with the same name from different OneDrive folders into Outlook emails
In this article
Adding an image to the body of an Outlook email message doesn’t seem like a big deal, especially if you use the InsertPicture macro ;) But what if you have several groups of same name images located in several folders on your OneDrive and you want to firstly select a folder and only then to decide which image to insert? Don’t you think that a touch of interactivity is badly needed? :)
In Shared Email Templates, you can create a dialog with two dropdown lists displayed one below the other: the first dropdown list will contain the names of the folders where you want to look for the images to be inserted and the second one will be for the names of the image files themselves. So you’ll be able to choose both a folder and an image that is stored in it, provided that the image file names are the same for each folder.
Create a dialog to select a folder and an image in it #
The first thing you need to do is create a simple dataset that will contain the names of your OneDrive folders and their full paths.
To add a path of a folder to your dataset, click the Insert macro icon in a dataset cell. The Select macro sidebar will appear in your browser. Select Insert picture from OneDrive.
Choose any of the folders that you’re going to add to the first dropdown list and click the name of any file that is located there. Then click the Copy link icon.
The full file path will be copied to the clipboard. Paste it into the dataset cell, and then delete the file name and the file extension. By doing this, you’ll convert the file path you copied into the folder path you need.
Finally, your dataset will look like in the screenshot below. Save the dataset.
Now it’s time to add a dialog with two dropdown lists to your template. You’ll need to put two of the Shared Email Templates macros into play: InsertPicture and WhatToEnter. These are the steps to follow.
Start editing your template, choose a place for a picture, place the cursor there, and click the Insert picture button on the template editor toolbar.
Select Insert picture from OneDrive, choose any image file that you’re going to use, and copy its link by clicking the Copy link icon shown in the screenshot below. Then click Select and OK.
The InsertPicture macro placeholder will be added to your template. Right-click the placeholder and select Edit macro text.
In the macro text, delete the “fileName”, “driveId”, and “fileId” parameters. Then click Save.
On the template editor toolbar, click the Insert macro icon. Then select What to enter (WTE). In the What to enter dialog that will show up, select Dataset. Then specify the field name by entering the text you want to see above the first dropdown list. Choose the dataset you’ve just created and the column that contains the folder paths. When you’re done, click OK.
The WhatToEnter macro placeholder will appear in the text of your template. Right-click the placeholder and select Copy macro text to clipboard.
Right-click the InsertPicture macro placeholder and select Edit macro text. In the “filePath” parameter, delete the part of the file path that comes before the file name, but keep the first and last slash characters between which the part to be deleted sits.
In place of the part you’ve just deleted, put the copied WhatToEnter macro text. Make sure there’s a slash before and after it. Then click Save.
In your template, delete the WhatToEnter macro placeholder that you added in Step 5.
Another WhatToEnter is needed. When inserting it, select Dropdown list, then enter the field name (it will be above the second dropdown list in the dialog), and specify items: image file names along with their extensions.
Right-click the WhatToEnter macro placeholder and select Copy macro text to clipboard.
Right-click the InsertPicture macro placeholder and select Edit macro text. In the “filePath” parameter, delete the image file name and extension.
Instead of the deleted image file name and extension, insert the copied WhatToEnter macro text. Then select Save.
Delete the WhatToEnter macro placeholder that you added to your template in Step 10.
And don’t forget to save the template, of course :)
When you insert such a template into an email message, the trio of the macros will start performing to make the embedded dialog show up.
By using the two dropdown lists that the dialog contains, you’ll easily select the necessary folder and image.