Open message in Internet browser

Outlook uses Word as the HTML rendering engine and although many features have been added over the years and marketers have compensated for these limitations, it could still sometimes end up in a malformed display of the email message.

In short; The Word HTML rendering engine doesn’t provide support for things like animated gifs (unless you are using Outlook as part of a Microsoft 365 subscription), advanced css formatting and HTML forms, accessibility and more.

To overcome this, there is the “View in Browser” command in Outlook but that still opens the message in the ancient Internet Explorer.

This guide explains how you can render the message in a browser of your choice like Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Firefox by a click of a button.

An additional benefit of opening the message in an Internet browser is that you have the printing options of the browser available to you and therefore also the option to only print your selection.

• Examples
• OpenInBrowser VBA macro
• Quick Install
• Macro Code
• Modifications

Examples

Before we start this procedure, let me show you some examples of the results you can achieve by using this macro.

Example 1 in Outlook	Example 1 in Browser	Example 2 in Outlook	Example 2 in Browser

OpenInBrowser VBA macro

The OpenInBrowser macro allows you to open the selected message in a browser of your choice instead of the ancient Internet Explorer.

By default, the macro evaluates whether or not it can take the raw HTML of the message (for as little distortions as possible) or whether it has to take Outlook’s pre-rendered version.

Once it message is opened in the Internet browser of your choice, the message will display with various features and formatting which lack in Outlook such as animated gifs, print selection and the browser’s accessibility support.

Quick Install

Use the following instructions to configure the macro in Outlook;

1. Download this code-file (openinbrowser.zip) or copy the code below.
2. Open the VBA Editor (keyboard shortcut ALT+F11)
3. Extract the zip-file and import the OpenInBrowser.bas file via File-> Import…
   If you copied the code, paste it into a new module.
4. Sign your code so you won’t get any security prompts and the macro won’t get disabled.
5. Add a button for easy access to the macro or press ALT+F8 and select the macro you want to execute.

Add a button of the macro to the QAT for quick access to it.

Macro Code

The following code is contained in the zip-file referenced in the Quick Install. You can use the code below for review or manual installation.

'================================================================= 'Description: Outlook macro which allows you to open the selected ' message in a browser of your choice instead of the ' ancient Internet Explorer. ' 'author : Robert Sparnaaij 'version: 1.0 'website: https://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/openinbrowser.htm '================================================================= Sub OpenInBrowser() Dim BrowserLocation As String Dim AlwaysConvert As Boolean Dim EvaluateHTML As Boolean '=============Set your variables in the section below========================== 'The default settings are optimized for viewing newsletters and receiving 'messages with HTML forms or animated gif-files embedded in the message. 'Set the location of the executable of the browser you want to use. 'Standard value: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" BrowserLocation = "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" 'When set to True, we will let Outlook convert the message to HTML. 'The message will be opened in the configured browser just as it 'appears in Outlook. 'Standard value: False AlwaysConvert = False 'When set to True, we will look for embedded resources in the HTML message and 'determine whether Outlook should convert the message or whether we can strip 'the HTML directly. When set to False, we will always strip the HTML and ignore 'embedded resources. 'For this setting to take effect, AlwaysConvert must be set to False. 'Standard value: True EvaluateHTML = True '=======Don't modify the code below unless you know what you are doing========= 'Get the user's TempFolder to store the item in Dim FSO As Object, TmpFolder As Object Set FSO = CreateObject("scripting.filesystemobject") Set TempFolder = FSO.GetSpecialFolder(2) 'Get all selected items Dim objOL As Outlook.Application Dim objSelection As Outlook.Selection Dim MySelectedItem As Object Set objOL = Outlook.Application Set objSelection = objOL.ActiveExplorer.Selection 'Make sure at least one item is selected If objSelection.Count <> 1 Then Response = MsgBox("Please select a single item", vbExclamation, "Open in Browser") Exit Sub End If 'Retrieve the selected item Set MySelectedItem = objSelection.Item(1) 'construct the filename Dim FileName As String strname = "www_howto-outlook_com" FileName = TempFolder & "\" & strname & ".htm" 'If the message is in HTML format we directly capture the HTML from the message 'to construct our htm-file. This will allow us to capture as many HTML elements 'as possible. If it is a different format, or if the HTML mail includes embedded 'resources we let Outlook convert it to HTML. Dim OutlookConvert As Boolean OutlookConvert = True If MySelectedItem.BodyFormat = olFormatHTML And AlwaysConvert = False Then Dim rawHTML As String rawHTML = MySelectedItem.HTMLBody If EvaluateHTML = False Then OutlookConvert = False Else 'Check if there are embedded resources in the message. 'If it does, we let Outlook convert the message. If InStr(UCase(rawHTML), UCase("src=""cid:")) = 0 Then OutlookConvert = False End If End If End If 'Write the temp-file If OutlookConvert = False Then 'create the htm-file in the temp folder and write the HTML code to it Set objFile = FSO.CreateTextFile(FileName, True) objFile.Write "" & rawHTML objFile.Close Set objFile = Nothing Else 'let Outlook convert the message and save the selected item 'as htm to the temp folder MySelectedItem.SaveAs FileName, olHTML End If 'open the saved item in the browser Shell BrowserLocation & " " & FileName, vbNormalFocus 'Cleanup Set FSO = Nothing Set TempFolder = Nothing Set objOL = Nothing Set objSelection = Nothing Set MySelectedItem = Nothing End Sub Click in the area above and press CTR+A to select all. Press CTRL+C to copy the code.

Modifications

This macro allows for a couple of modifications which are explained in the “Set your variables” section at the top of the macro.

By default, the macro will only take the raw HTML of a message when there are no embedded images in the message itself. This usually is the case for newsletters since they load the images directly from the Internet instead of embedding them into the message.

Most importantly, you can define which browser to open the message with by editing the following line;

BrowserLocation = "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

As you can see, I’ve left the default to Internet Explorer. This is because currently Internet Explorer is still the Internet browser which exists on all currently supported Windows versions.

Below are some default paths for common Internet browsers;

• Microsoft Edge
  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe"
• Google Chrome
  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"
• Firefox
  "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"
• Opera
  "C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Programs\Opera\launcher.exe"