Using Draftable Redline in Email

Redline in Email is an Outlook add-in that opens your email in a tracked-changes editor. See what changed since the previous email, edit with tracked changes, accept or reject changes, and send the redline without leaving Outlook.

Draftable must be installed on your computer, and it must be running in the background for Redline in Email to work properly. If Draftable is not running when Redline in Email needs to check your license, the pane starts it in the background for you, as long as you have used Redline in Email with Draftable on this computer before. The first time, the pane asks you to launch Draftable yourself.

This article describes the current release of Redline in Email (version 3.2). Version 3 opens straight into an editor where your changes are tracked as you type. If your task pane instead opens on an “I want to…” menu, you are using version 2.1 or earlier: see Earlier versions of Redline in Email at the end of this article. To move to version 3, your IT administrator needs to deploy the version 3 add-in manifest and update Draftable to 26.9.0.1 or later. See Configuring Redline in Email.

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How Redline in Email works

Redline in Email lets you mark up an email and review changes without leaving Outlook. Everything happens in one task pane:

1. When the pane opens, you see the email you are reading or writing, with its changes already marked up as tracked changes.
2. You edit the email in the pane. Everything you type, delete or move is marked as a tracked change.
3. You accept or reject changes, one at a time or all at once.
4. You send the result on. When you are writing an email, Apply to Email puts the tracked result into your draft. When you are reading an email, Reply opens a reply draft that carries the tracked result.

Nothing in your email changes until you select Apply to Email or Reply.

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Open Redline in Email

1. Open or reply to an email

   To review an email you received, open it. To redline your own reply, open the email and select Reply (or Reply All) so you have a draft to work in. You can also open Redline in Email on a new email.

2. Select Redline

   Select Redline on the Outlook ribbon. The Redline in Email task pane opens on the right-hand side.

   • Classic ribbon: Redline is the only button in the Compare group. It is there whether you are reading or writing an email.
   • Simplified ribbon: the group name is not shown, so look for the Redline button. If the Outlook window is narrow, it may be under the More options (…) menu.
   • New Outlook and Outlook on the web: add-in buttons can also appear under Apps.

   

   The Draftable button in the separate Draftable in Outlook group opens a comparison panel inside Outlook, where you can select files or text, run comparisons and choose how to open or export the results. It uses your installed Draftable desktop app for processing. This article covers the Redline task pane.

3. Wait for the editor to load

   Redline in Email checks your Draftable license, finds the email to compare with, and opens the editor. This usually takes a few seconds.

   When the pane needs to confirm your license with Draftable, it shows a Validating License screen (“Checking your license with Draftable Desktop. This can take a few seconds.”). You do not need to do anything:

   • If Draftable is not running and you have used Redline in Email on this computer before, the pane starts Draftable in the background.
   • If Draftable is renewing your license, the pane waits for the renewal to finish, so the check can take a little longer.

   The editor opens as soon as the check is complete.

   If the check cannot finish, the pane shows a message with Launch Draftable and Refresh License buttons instead. Make sure Draftable is running (select Launch Draftable if it is not), then select Refresh License. See Messages you might see for what each message means.

   

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What you see when the pane opens

The pane has four parts, from top to bottom:

• The status line. It names the email the marked changes are measured against, for example Comparing with Alex’s email · 22 Jul, 11:11 am. An email you sent yourself is named your email. When there is no comparison, it reads Editing your draft or Editing this email. When the email is part of a conversation, a button next to it opens the email picker: Change while you are comparing, or Compare with… when you are not. The Settings (gear) and Help (question mark) buttons sit at its right-hand end.
• The review toolbar. Track changes, Accept, Reject, and the previous and next change buttons with the change count.
• The formatting toolbar. Bold, italic, underline, font, size, lists, links and tables.
• The editor, with Apply to Email or Reply at the bottom.

What the editor starts with depends on the email:

The email you opened	What the editor shows	Status line
Already contains a redline (for example, a redlined reply you received)	The existing tracked changes, ready for you to accept, reject or add to	Editing your draft or Editing this email
A reply you are writing, or an email you received, in a conversation	The email compared with the previous email in the conversation, with every difference marked as a tracked change	Comparing with, followed by who sent the earlier email and when
A new email, or the first email in a conversation	The email as it is, with Track changes on so your edits are marked from now on	Editing your draft or Editing this email

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Which email your changes are compared with

• When you are writing a reply, Draftable compares your draft with the email you are replying to. If it cannot identify that email, for example on a forward, it uses the latest email in the conversation.
• When you are reading an email, Draftable compares it with the email before it in the conversation.

The comparison marks every difference, including edits made directly in the Outlook message body without tracking. New messages written above the earlier email, such as “see my changes below”, appear as normal text rather than as insertions, so only the changes to the earlier email are marked.

If the status line names the wrong email, you can choose a different one. See Compare with a different email.

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Compare with a different email

1. Open the email picker

   Select the button on the status line at the top of the pane: Change if the pane is already comparing, or Compare with… if it is not. The button appears when the email is part of a conversation.

2. Pick the email

   The picker opens under a Compare with heading. The first choice is Don’t compare (“Just track my edits to this email” or “this draft”). Under it are the other emails in the conversation, newest first, with who sent each one, when, and the first line of what it added. Emails you received show an incoming arrow and emails you sent show an outgoing arrow. The email you have open is not listed, because it cannot be compared with itself.

   When the picker opens, the email the pane is currently comparing with is selected, or Don’t compare if there is no comparison. Select an email to see the changes it would give in the preview underneath the list. The preview is headed Changes: followed by the two sides of the comparison, for example Alex’s email 22 Jul, 11:11 am ⇄ your draft, and is tagged Preview. You can drag the divider to resize the list and the preview.

   When you are reading an email, any emails that arrived after it are folded into a row at the top of the list that counts them, for example 3 later emails. Expand it if you want to compare with one of them, and each one is marked After this email. If there is nothing to compare with, a line tells you there is no earlier email in the conversation.

   
3. Select Compare with this email

   Select Compare with this email (or double-click the email in the list). The editor rebuilds with the changes measured against the email you picked.

   If you have already made edits in the pane, Redline in Email asks first, because the edits do not carry over to the new comparison. Select Discard edits to continue, or Keep editing to go back. Your email itself is not changed.

   To leave the picker without changing anything, select the back arrow next to Compare with.

When you choose an email to compare with, any tracked changes already in your email are treated as accepted before the comparison runs, in the same way as Microsoft Word.

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Edit without a comparison

To stop comparing and simply edit the email with tracking on, select Change on the status line, select Don’t compare at the top of the picker, then select Edit without comparing. The preview shows the email as it stands, tagged No comparison. If you have edits in the pane, confirm with Discard edits, or select Keep comparing to stay where you are. The status line then reads Editing your draft or Editing this email. You can pick an email to compare with again at any time with Compare with….

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Edit with tracked changes

Edit the email in the pane as you normally would. With Track changes on (the default), your edits are marked for the next person to review:

• Typing is marked as an insertion.
• Deleting is marked as a deletion.
• Moving text: cut the text (Ctrl+X) and paste it (Ctrl+V) where it belongs, and it is marked as a move.
• Retyping text you just deleted cancels the change word for word, so the text goes back to plain. Retyping only part of a word leaves it marked as a replacement.

To make an edit without markup, select Track changes to turn it off, make the edit, then select it again to turn tracking back on.

The formatting toolbar has Bold, Italic, Underline, Font, Size, Bulleted list, Numbered list, Link and Table:

• Link opens a dialog with Address and Text to display. Select Insert (or Update for an existing link). New link text is tracked like any other insertion.
• Table is available when your cursor is in a table. It offers Add row above, Add row below, Add column left, Add column right, Delete row and Delete column, and these changes are tracked.

Formatting changes such as bold, font and size are applied to the email but are not marked as tracked changes.

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Review, accept and reject changes

1. Go to a change

   Select a change in the editor, or use the up and down arrow buttons (Previous change and Next change) on the review toolbar. The counter between them shows how many changes there are, or which one you are on, for example Change 3 of 10.

2. Accept or reject it

   When a change is selected, a small bubble appears next to it naming the type of change, with Accept change (✓) and Reject change (✕) buttons. Most changes read Insert or Delete. Moved text reads Moved from where it used to be and Moved to where it now is.

   You can also use the toolbar. Accept accepts the selected change and moves to the next one. Reject rejects the selected change and moves to the next one.

3. Accept or reject everything at once (optional)

   Open the arrow on the Accept button and select Accept all changes, or open the arrow on the Reject button and select Reject all changes.

In a narrow task pane, the Accept and Reject buttons show only their tick and cross icons. Hover over any button to see what it does, or drag the left edge of the pane to make it wider and show the labels.

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Send the redline

When writing an email

Select Apply to Email. The body of your draft is replaced with the tracked result from the pane, with the markup your recipient will see. Review your draft in Outlook, then send it as normal.

You can keep working in the pane after applying, and select Apply to Email again to update the draft.

When reading an email

Select Reply. Redline in Email creates a reply to the sender that contains the tracked result, and opens it in a new window. Add any other recipients you need, review the draft, then send it as normal.

Outlook limits the size of an email body. If the tracked result is too large to apply to your draft, you see a message that the changes exceed Outlook’s 1MB limit for the email body. Your edits stay in the pane. The message also suggests applying a smaller selection or copying the changes. Redline in Email has no Copy button and cannot apply part of a result, so ignore that part of the message. Shorten the email instead, or see Redline in Email workaround: create a text redline in Draftable Legal.

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If the pane closes before you apply

Outlook can close the task pane without warning, for example when you select Reply in the Outlook message itself. To protect your work, Redline in Email saves your unsent edits in the pane as you go.

The next time you open Redline in Email on the same email, a Saved draft message asks whether to continue. Select Continue draft to pick up where you left off, or Start fresh to discard the saved edits.

If you were editing while reading an email and then selected Reply in Outlook, open Redline in Email in the new reply. It offers the edits you made so you can continue in the reply.

• Saved edits are kept for 24 hours on the computer where you made them, and are removed once you select Apply to Email or Reply.
• Images you pasted into the pane are not included in a saved draft. Images that were already in the email are.
• If Not autosaving appears on the review toolbar, your edits cannot be saved for recovery. Apply your edits before you close the pane.

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Settings: include images in comparisons

Select the Settings (gear) button on the status line to open Settings. Compare images is off by default, and its description reads “Include image changes. This can slow compares, especially in large emails.” Turning it on includes image changes in the comparison. Select Back to return to the editor.

If you change Compare images while a comparison is open and you have already made edits, Redline in Email asks whether to Rebuild comparison (your edits since the comparison opened are discarded) or Keep edits (the new setting applies to your next comparison).

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Quick help and reporting a problem

Select the Help (question mark) button on the status line to open Quick help. It summarizes the workflow (See what changed, Make your edits, Accept and reject, Send it on) and has a Good to know section on moves, tables and Track changes. Select View full documentation to open this article, or Back to return to the editor.

If something does not look right, select the bug button in the bottom-left corner of the pane. This opens a bug report screen where you can choose to include the email chain, include an obfuscated copy of it, or leave the emails out. Select Report Bug to open an email draft, then describe the issue and send it.

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Check your Redline in Email version

The footer at the bottom of the pane shows Powered by Draftable, followed by the version of Redline in Email in brackets, for example 3.1.0.0 261022-0541. Include the whole string, build stamp and all, when you contact support.

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Messages you might see

Message	What it means	What to do
Draftable not detected	Redline in Email cannot reach the Draftable desktop app.	Select Launch Draftable or open Draftable, then select Try Again.
Validating License	Redline in Email is checking your license with Draftable, starting Draftable if needed, or waiting while Draftable renews your license.	Wait a few seconds. The editor opens when the check is complete.
Draftable Desktop Not Detected	Redline in Email needs to check your license, but Draftable is not running. This happens the first time you use Redline in Email on this computer, because the pane only starts Draftable for you once it has been used here before. It can also appear if Draftable could not be started.	Select Launch Draftable, then Refresh License.
Draftable Desktop Required	Draftable is running but has not been activated.	Activate Draftable, then select Refresh License. If you need a product key, contact your IT administrator.
Could Not Validate License	Draftable did not answer the license check in time.	Make sure Draftable is running, then select Refresh License.
Could Not Renew License	Draftable could not reach the Draftable license server to renew your license.	Check your internet connection, then select Refresh License. If your organization uses a proxy or firewall, ask your IT administrator to check that Draftable can reach the license server.
Restart Draftable Desktop	Your license needs renewing, and your version of Draftable renews it only when it starts.	Close Draftable completely, including from the system tray, open it again, then select Refresh License.
Draftable Desktop Upgrade Required	Your version of Draftable is too old for this version of Redline in Email.	Ask your IT administrator to update Draftable to 26.9.0.1 or later. In the meantime, they can deploy an earlier Redline in Email release that matches your version of Draftable from Older versions in the deployment guide.
License Expired or License Invalid	Your Draftable license is not valid for Redline in Email.	Contact your IT administrator or [e-mail].
Could not apply the changes	The tracked result could not be written to your email. Your edits are still in the pane.	Try again. If the message mentions Outlook’s 1MB limit, reduce the content or use the text redline workaround below.

Redline in Email not working for a text change? If the panel will not load, you hit a message size limit, or the redline will not apply to your email, you can build the redline manually in Draftable Legal and paste it into your email. See Redline in Email workaround: create a text redline in Draftable Legal.

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What changed from version 2.1

If you used an earlier version of Redline in Email, this is how the familiar actions map to version 3:

Version 2.1	Version 3
”I want to…” menu	Removed. The pane opens straight into the editor.
Redline my changes	The editor opens with your changes already marked. Edit in the pane with Track changes on.
Redline my selection and Show surrounding context	Removed. The whole email is shown in the editor.
Compare against an earlier email and Change Baseline	Opening the pane on a received email compares it automatically. Use Change on the status line to pick a different email.
Accept or reject changes screen and its toolbar	The Accept and Reject buttons, and the bubble on each change, work in the same editor.
Synced with email / Not synced badge	Removed. You edit in the pane, and nothing reaches your email until you apply it.
Revert a change in the preview	Reject the change instead.
Copy and Copy selection	Removed. Use Apply to Email or Reply.
Create New Email (when reading)	Replaced by Reply, which opens a reply draft carrying the tracked result.
Totals for changes, insertions and deletions	The review toolbar shows the number of changes.
Undo button on the accept or reject toolbar	Removed as a button. Press Ctrl+Z in the editor to undo an accept, a reject or an edit.

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Earlier versions of Redline in Email

Show the guide for Redline in Email 2.1

These instructions apply only if your task pane opens on the “I want to…” menu. Version 2.1 drives everything from one menu that adapts to what you are doing: Compose actions when you are writing a reply, and Read actions when you are reviewing a received email.

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Opening Redline in Email (2.1)

1. Open or reply to an email

   To review a received email, open it. To redline your own reply, open the email and select Reply (or Reply All) so you have a draft to work in.

2. Launch the add-in

   On the Outlook ribbon, open Apps (the apps launcher) and select Redline in Email. The Draftable task pane opens on the right-hand side.

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The Redline in Email menu (2.1)

The task pane opens on the “I want to…” menu. The actions available depend on whether you are reading or composing, so options that do not apply are greyed out (hover a greyed action to see why).

When composing a reply

The Compose actions are active: Redline my changes (“Show the changes that you have made to the current email.”) and Redline my selection (“Redline only the selected text in your email.”). Accept or reject changes is also available.

When reading an email

The Read actions are active: Compare against an earlier email (“Compare this email against your previously sent email in the chain.”) and Accept or reject changes.

Accept or reject changes is the one action available in both modes. The menu also has Settings and How to use Redline in Email (quick help).

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Redline my changes (2.1)

1. Edit your reply, then select Redline my changes

   Make your edits in the reply, then choose Redline my changes. Draftable compares your draft (including the conversation history below your reply) against the baseline email and shows a redline of your changes, with deletions struck through and insertions underlined. The totals for changes, insertions, and deletions appear beneath the preview, and the Synced with email badge means the preview updates automatically as you keep editing.

   
2. Apply or copy the redline

   Select Apply to Email to write the redline into your reply. Once applied, the change appears as markup in the email body and the badge changes to Not synced, because the email now contains the redline and the preview no longer tracks further edits. To copy the redline instead of applying it, use Copy.

   

Applying is a one-time action per preview. If you keep editing after applying, run Redline my changes again to get a fresh, synced preview.

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Redline my selection (2.1)

1. Select the text, then choose Redline my selection

   Highlight the text you want to redline in the email body first, then choose Redline my selection. The preview shows a redline of just that selection. If you run it without selecting anything, the pane prompts you: “No content selected. Please select text before running Redline.”

   
2. Show surrounding context (optional)

   Select Show surrounding context (the eye button beneath the preview) to see the selection within the wider email, with the surrounding text greyed out. Select Hide surrounding context to return to just the selection.

   

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Compare against an earlier email (2.1)

1. Choose Compare against an earlier email

   Open the received email and select Compare against an earlier email. Draftable compares it against the previous version in the conversation (including the conversation history) and marks every difference, with the totals shown beneath the preview.

   
2. Change the baseline (optional)

   Select Change Baseline (“Change the older email being compared against.”) to compare against a different earlier email. Choose the email you want, then select Select This Email.

   
3. Move on to Accept or reject changes

   When you are ready to work through the changes, select Accept/Reject Changes.

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Accept or reject changes (2.1)

Select a change in the preview, then use the toolbar to accept or reject it. A counter tracks your progress: the current change, how many you have accepted and rejected, and how many remain.

Button	Tooltip	What it does
‹ Back	Return to menu	Returns to the “I want to…” menu
⌃ Up chevron	Go to previous change	Selects the previous change
⌄ Down chevron	Go to next change	Selects the next change
✓ Single tick	Accept selected revision	Accepts the currently selected change
✓✓ Double tick	Accept all revisions	Accepts every remaining change at once
✕ Single cross	Reject selected revision	Rejects the currently selected change
✕✕ Double cross	Reject all revisions	Rejects every remaining change at once
↶ Undo	undo (ctrl + z)	Reverses your last accept or reject (also Ctrl+Z)

Undo is greyed out until you accept or reject at least one change. As you accept or reject, the counter updates and the selection advances to the next change automatically.

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Copy, Apply, and Create New Email (2.1)

• Copy copies the preview to your clipboard so you can paste it into an email. If you have selected text within the preview, Copy copies only that selection (the button reads Copy selection). After copying, Draftable reminds you to paste using Keep Source Formatting so the markup is preserved.
• Apply to Email (compose) writes the finished redline into your reply.
• Create New Email (read) opens a new email containing your accepted and rejected changes.

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Settings and quick help (2.1)

Open Settings from the menu to control whether images are compared. Compare images is off by default.

Select How to use Redline in Email from the menu for a reminder of each workflow, including the Good to know notes on Change Baseline, Synced with email and Revert a change.

That’s how you use Draftable Redline in Email. If you have any questions or issues, please get in touch with the support team at [e-mail].