Have you ever wondered how to use HTML to format text for your email temples? This blog can show you how! Microsoft Dynamics CRM has a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for building HTML-based Email Templates, though the options for formatting the text in your messages are limited to the basic text formatting options like bold, italics, underline, basic font options (size, color, etc), and some rudimentary bulleting options.

It is not widely known or documented that you can extend the formatting options by adding raw HTML into the Email Template. For example, you can see in the below screen print that to include a table in the Email Template, we added the proper HTML tags to create the table and saved it into the Email Template:

When using the HTML in this manner, CRM will render the HTML as a table (no tags) when the template is inserted into a new email message:

Notice that the table is rendered after inserting the template into the new email. Also, take note that the template didn't use the HTML tags to bold the words "Sarah's Hours" and "Tom's Hours". Instead, we used the WYSIWYG editor to make that text bold, and CRM was smart enough to render both the raw HTML and the WYSIWYG formatting into one result! This is a simple and powerful trick for adding some additional formatting options to CRM Email Templates. Look to our blog for more information and keep up to date via our CRM book and educational offerings! Happy CRM'ing!
I'm trying to add html to an email in the form of a picture. Is there an additional step that I need to take? Or does this html use in the templates exclude images?
Hi Sarah - Yes - you can do that with images, but the images need to be in a public facing site. Here's a blog we wrote related to crm 4.0 but it still applies to crm 2013.
https://powerobjects.com/blog/2009/10/05/crm-4-email-templates-adding-graphics-images-and-formatting/
Hi Joe,
I have tried to insert the basic HTML tags in the email template (CRM 2013) but it's not showing the tables as shown in one of the above given images.
JillSmith 50
EveJackson 94
Regards
Kumar
Hi, I have built an email template in dream weaver that includes a coloured background and a boarder above below and either side of the text. I have put it into a process/workflow. It looks perfect in dream weaver and when I build the email in the workflow, but when I run the workflow the boarder disappears and it's the same when it arrives at it's destination. When I then view the email in IE the text seems to have shunted to the left. I know this is a shot in the dark but any advise? I have tried using MS Expression same result.