---
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title: Considerations for Using Content from External Sources in Email Templates
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/sales/264-0-0/creating_emailtemplates_cut_n_paste.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sales.creating_emailtemplates_cut_n_paste.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: bcaeedc443eb4a122670d1663534e5d8487e79ef219d32c9431ddbaea5f9f13e
description: If you copy and paste content from external sources, such as Microsoft Word or a web page, to an email template, you can get strange formatting results. Review these suggestions to avoid the problem.
products:
  - Sales Cloud
  - Cross Cloud
  - Service Cloud Voice
release: "264"
---
# Considerations for Using Content from External Sources in Email Templates

If you copy and paste content from external sources, such as Microsoft Word or a web page, to an email template, you can get strange formatting results. Review these suggestions to avoid the problem.

### Required Editions

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small edition"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: Salesforce Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic</td></tr><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>All</strong> Editions</td></tr></tbody></table>

When getting info from external sources, you could be pasting hidden formatting or nonstandard characters. The result is unusual formatting, content that looks like stray programming code, or question marks instead of apostrophes or quotation marks.

![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-sales-sales_productivity-264-0-0-production-enus/b2f6c36a-fa61-4a3c-9752-032ce1818a69/images/icon_note.png)

Note The following suggestions apply to email templates in Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience, including templates created in Email Template Builder.

- Type content directly into the HTML email template. In Lightning Experience, use the Email Templates page. In Salesforce Classic, use Setup.
- In Salesforce Classic, change your template encoding to UTF-8. In Lightning Experience, all templates are in UTF-8.
- If you’re copying from Microsoft Word, turn off the AutoFormat function or undo the automatic formatting as it occurs.
- Use a text-only editor such as Microsoft Notepad (for PCs) or TextEdit (for Macs) in plain text mode to strip out unwanted characters. Copy the content from your source, paste it into the text-only editor, copy it again, and paste it into your template.