Using Outlook to Cut/Paste, Annotate and Post Screen Clippings into Yammer

In my last post (“Drag and Drop Files into Yammer”) I showed off my new fave feature of Yammer.

The inspiration for the post came from a colleague wishing for the ability to cut/paste images right into the post field in Yammer, eliminating the need to save a file to the desktop and upload it.

The new drag-and-drop functionality saves you a step, but still requires you to save a screen clipping or screenshot to the desktop. Fortunately I dreamed up a decent little workaround that I’m going to share with you now:

1. Capture your screenshot (Print Screen button) or a OneNote screen clipping (Windows + Shift + S).
2. If it’s already captured and inserted in a document or a page, use Ctrl + C to place the image into your clipboard.
3. Paste or Ctrl + V the image into an Outlook email.
4. Annotate the screen clipping in Outlook using the Inking tool.
5. Take another screen clipping of the annotated image to “flatten” all the markup into the image.
6. Send the email to the Yammer Group you wish to post on.
7. If you don’t already know the email address to post to the group or network, you can find it by navigating to the Yammer group.
8. Look under Access Options (located on right hand side of screen.)
9. Click on the “Post to this group by email” link. Select Allow when the popup window asks “Do you want to allow this website to open a program on your computer?”

This method eliminates the need to use SnagIt to annotate an image when you’re in a rush. And it doesn’t degrade the quality too badly.

Typical Format of Email to Yammer Network: [email protected]

Typical Format of Email to Yammer Group: [email protected]