Send Word document as email body

Sometimes I write a short document or letter in Word which I like to be reviewed by someone else first.

While I could send it as an attachment, I’d rather send the contents of the document in the email itself as it often allows for quicker review and replies for the reviewer.

Is there a quick way to achieve this?

Send to Mail Recipient buttonThere is quite a list of commands in Word which are hidden or otherwise not directly available via a button in the Ribbon layout.

Sending the contents of your current document directly in the body of an email is one of those “hidden” commands.

Add “Mail Recipient” command to the QAT

To use such a hidden command, you can still add it to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) the following way;

  1. Open Word Options; File-> Options.
  2. On the left, select; Quick Access Toolbar.
  3. Set the “Choose command from” drop down list to “Commands Not in the Ribbon”.
  4. Select “Mail Recipient” and click the button “Add > >”
    • This command used to be called “Send to Mail Recipient”. So if you are using an older version of Office, look for that command instead.
  5. Press OK to close the dialog.
  6. The command will now show up in the Quick Access Toolbar at the top of your Word window.

Excel and PowerPoint

Note that both Excel and PowerPoint also have the “Mail Recipient” option available as a “hidden” option and can be added in the same way.

Word Options - Quick Access Toolbar - Send to Mail Recipient
After adding the Send to Mail Recipient command to your QAT…

Word with mail header enabled via the Send to Mail Recipient command.
…you can directly turn a Word document into a mail messages.

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