Result of conditional formatting in Outlook 2013. (Image Credit: Daniel Petri) The result is that all external senders, even the ones that appear to be sending email from the same organization are.

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Original KB number: 4020759

Outlook Conditional Formatting Reset

Symptom

Outlook 2010/2013 conditional formatting via GPO/Script/PowerShell. Get answers from your peers along with millions of IT pros who visit Spiceworks. Our employees receive encrypted messages from time to time. In order to highlight these messages in their inbox, I would like to add a conditional formatting to every outlook client in our company. Conditional formatting allows you to set formatting rules for Outlook emails. You can set different colors, fonts, and styles to your email messages as they appear in your inbox.

Outlook Conditional Formatting Not Working

Assume that you create a new MailItem, AppointmentItem, or MeetingItem object by using the Outlook Object Model. You then set the HtmlBody property of the item to some previously created well-formed HTML source that contains Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) styles. After you call the Display method and the Send method to send the item, the formatting that's dictated by the configured CSS styles may disappear, or the paragraph styles may be replaced by the MSONormal class.

Cause

Microsoft Outlook uses Microsoft Word as its editor. Loss of formatting may occur when the HTML source is validated by the Word HTML engine when the item is sent.

Outlook Conditional Formatting Multiple Words

Workaround

Outlook Conditional Formatting Not Saving

We recommend that you use the underlying WordEditor object of the inspector to edit the HTML and Rich Text Format (RTF) bodies of Outlook items when you use the Outlook Object Model, instead of editing the HtmlBody property. See the following example.

An Outlook tutorial by Peter Kalmstrom Q. I want all e-mails that come from outside my organization to be highlighted in one color. Is this possible? A. Yes, it's possible, and there are two ways to do it. Automatic formatting rules If you use Exchange server, create an automatic formatting rule in a view to apply the color. The only criteria is the @ symbol in the From field on the Filter's General tab. This works because messages sent from other Exchange server users don't have an @ in the sender's address. If you don't use Exchange it's trickier to set up but still possible with two automatic formatting rules. The views filter does not offer exceptions, so you need a rule that applies a color to messages From @yourdomain.com and a second rule that applies a color to every message (don't set up a condition). The rules are applied in the order listed, with the formatting set by the first rule that applies to the message. This method also works with Search folder and filters on Views. If you want to filter messages using Rules and Alerts, create a rule that looks for messages from a person or distribution list. Enter @ in the address field and when Outlook asks you to resolve the name, click Cancel on the Check Names dialog. This tip comes from from a Slipstick Newsletter. Conditional formatting Another way of highlighting e-mails is to create conditional formatting rules. Go to the View tab >View Settings >Conditional Formatting. Add a new rule, 'From Outside' and set font and/or color. Then click Conditions. Under the Advanced tab, set a new field with From not containing your own domain. Follow kalmstrom.com on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter!