Do you use the right character for replaceable text placeholders?

Email templates are a great way to save time and keep communication consistent. Many templates include parts that must be updated for each message, so it’s important to clearly show what needs to be replaced.

Use a consistent placeholder style so these sections stand out and are easy to spot.

This makes it obvious what needs to be updated and helps prevent people from accidentally sending emails with placeholder text still in them.

However, everyone has their own preferences about which placeholder character to use 🥸

For example:

• SSW Rules historically used xxx

The quick brown fox xxx over the lazy dog

• SSW Intranet | Sales templates use ❌❌❌

The quick brown fox ❌❌❌ over the lazy dog

• SSW GitHub Sprint Templates use ✏️xxx

The quick brown fox ✏️xxx over the lazy dog

• SQL developers are used to [ ]

The quick brown fox [ action ] over the lazy dog

• Word Mail Merge users are used to « »

The quick brown fox « action » over the lazy dog

• API and React developers are used to { }

The quick brown fox { action } over the lazy dog

• Angular developers are used to {{ }}
  (currently the standard in SugarLearning and SSW Rules)

The quick brown fox {{ action }} over the lazy dog

The quick brown fox {{ ACTION }} over the lazy dog

• Visual Studio code reviewers are used to TODO:

The quick brown fox TODO:action over the lazy dog

So, double curly brackets are recommended instead of square brackets to indicate replaceable text.

In certain places such as Sales templates, you cannot afford to miss a single placeholder

Of course, if you want to make it even more obvious then highlight the text in yellow... however you can't do it in many places like Microsoft Forms... so another option is to use an emoji like the ✏️ or to make it super obvious the three ❌❌❌.

To draw even more attention to text you should make the placeholder all caps.

❌ Figure: Bad example - Using square brackets for replaceable text

✅ Figure: Good example - Using double curly brackets for replaceable text... with spaces, and words in UPPERCASE

More info on the origins

[] are commonly used to label things. On sensitive emails, the text [Sec: Official] gets appended or prefixed to the subject, for example.

Using [] for replaceable text can be confusing since there is already the common usage for labelling.

{ } are used frequently in popular APIs like Microsoft Graph, Microsoft PowerPlatform Facebook, Riot, Amazon and also in React

Angular interpolation uses {{ and }} as a delimiter. They indicate a variable and we think this is a very clear way to indicate that something needs to be replaced because it is very uncommon to see this syntax outside of Angular code.