2

Examples...

This is happens in Office 2007/2010

In Windows Explorer, right click on file > Send To > Mail Recipient... This opens a modal new message window, I can't access anything else in outlook. So that bit of text from another email I wanted to copy/paste into the new email, can't.

In Excel, Send > E-Mail... This opens a modal new message window and locks out both Excel and Outlook. So the few cells of data I wanted to copy/paste into the email body, can't.

Is there anyway to prevent this? I don't want the new message windows to be modal.

1
  • Still the case in Outlook 2013. So irritating. Aug 5, 2014 at 9:03

4 Answers 4

2

Is there anyway to prevent this?

Have another instance of Outlook/Excel open. No other way to go about this

1

I have made VBA procedure to generate Outlook message. The result is the same, but Outlook and Excel are not blocked when you want to send Active Workbook. You can put button on Quick Access Toolbar and call this procedure from automatically loaded module from XLSTART.

Sub SendActiveWorkbook()
    'Create Outlook Message and add Active Workbook file to it
    Dim temp_file_full_name As String
    Dim folder As String
    Dim base As String 'File name without extension
    Dim ext As String

    'Create temp copy of ActiveWorkbook
    With ActiveWorkbook
        folder = Environ$("temp") & "\"

        'Workbook name
        base = .Name

        'If workbook did not saved on disk, it does not have extension
        If InStr(base, ".") > 0 Then
            ext = Split(base, ".")(UBound(Split(base, ".")))
            base = left(base, Len(base) - Len(ext) - 1)
        Else
            Select Case .FileFormat
                Case xlExcel8: ext = "xls"
                Case xlOpenXMLWorkbook: ext = "xlsx"
                Case xlOpenXMLWorkbookMacroEnabled: ext = "xlsm"
                Case xlExcel12: ext = "xlsb"
                Case Else: ext = "xlsx"
            End Select
        End If

        temp_file_full_name = folder & base & "." & ext
        .SaveCopyAs temp_file_full_name
    End With

    'Create Outlook message with attachment of temp file and display it
    With CreateObject("Outlook.Application").CreateItem(0)
        .Subject = base
        .Attachments.Add temp_file_full_name
        .Display
    End With

    'Delete temp file. We don't need it anymore
    Kill temp_file_full_name
End Sub
1

More of a work around than an answer. Once the message has gone Modal simply press the save button in the message. This will save the email in your draft emails. Then close the message. Open the draft message and it will no longer be modal.

-1

A few questions on this. - Is this a home computer on a home network? - Is this a government or company computer on their network - If the case is a Government or Industry/Company this might be a windows configuration issue or a Microsoft office corruption issue. I have literally done this many times and never had this issue. - Maybe checking your system resources to ensure that there is not a version of excel already open in memory that does not show up. The open in memory/ghost excel, I have seen block access to a file and cause all sorts of glitchy issues. - Also, you might want to make sure your Microsoft outlook is the version being used "If you are using the Microsoft office pro version". Just to make sure to set the version to the one required. - Also, have you tried from inside of excel with the "file > send to" drop-down menu did change in later versions of Microsoft Office. The later versions they took out the file send. You can re-enable this through similar steps to this "https://www.technipages.com/word-enable-send-to-mail-recipient-option". That is using Microsoft office 2016.

You might want to try opening the excel container with no file loaded. Then go back to the explorer and try the same process.

Try to keep calm and carry on. I know sometimes it is hard not to get mad at Microsoft since they often send out their applications half-baked/buggy since they have millions of testers willing to report issues with there products for them for free.

I hope this helps, have a great day.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .