Visual Studio copy/paste into Outlook with standard formatting?

Question

I have custom settings in Visual Studio that include a dark background. Copy/pasting to Outlook produces a crime against eyeballs with a dark background in code on a white background of the mail.

Does anyone have any ideas of how I can paste code in standard VS formatting (NOT unformatted text from paste special, and not paste with my custom VS formatting)?

(Alternatively, does anyone know a quick way to switch between themes in VS? Thinking that could also work...)

Still a problem in VS 2013. Here's the uservoice for this issue http://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/121579-visual-studio/suggestions/3516267-improve-dark-theme-text-copying — Josh, May 22 '14 at 21:15

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered May 17 '13 at 12:12

9

The following blog post details how to address this issue in VS2012:

http://codinglifestyle.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/copy-and-paste-formatting-with-visual-studios-dark-theme/

answered May 17 '13 at 12:12

codinglifestyle

179
1
10

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 16 '09 at 00:38

2

Ok so the closest I got was using CopySourceAsHtml which also allows you to define custom css styles for that copied html. I peeked at the css styles when copying code from the default VS theme and copied them over.

Got me 90% there which is good enough - no black code backgrounds on white email backgrounds!

answered Dec 16 '09 at 00:38

Mark Gibaud

2,061
23
35

Sorry, I know it's been a long time. Could you please post the style you used to make it default VS style? – theknut May 22 '13 at 08:58
2

FYI for anyone reading this now... the CopySourceAsHtml add-in only supports up to Visual Studio 2008. – Holistic Developer Apr 17 '14 at 19:56
"Copy as HTML" (different tool, similar name) supports up to VS2012, which is a bit more helpful – Niall Connaughton Oct 15 '14 at 02:01

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 15 '14 at 17:11

1

This free VS Extension (named "Copy As HTML") allows you to choose the background color when copying to clipboard:

This is a lightweight tool that allows you to copy code from the Code Window and convert it into HTML while preserving syntax highlighting, indentation and background colour.

answered Aug 15 '14 at 17:11

Kamran Bigdely

7,946
18
66
86

Sadly this doesn't support VS2013+ at this staage – Niall Connaughton Oct 15 '14 at 02:01

score -2 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 08 '09 at 15:48

-2

This add-in adds a command to copy in plain text: VSHelper

answered Dec 08 '09 at 15:48

msergeant

4,771
3
25
26

It is clearly stated in the question that he does not want to copy plain text. – Kamran Bigdely Oct 15 '14 at 20:47

Visual Studio copy/paste into Outlook with standard formatting?

4 Answers4

Linked