Creating and using Signatures

Outlook 2007 will allow you to customize your e-mail messages by adding Signatures to them. To configure Signatures, simply open a new e-mail message. In the Ribbon, in the Include group, you'll see a button for Signatures. And when you press it, it'll allow you to choose from any Signatures you have configured, and also click Signatures to configure them. You can see that I currently have two different Signatures set up, one for Work (Business Card), one for Work (plain), and they just look a little different. I can also choose to associate different Signatures with different e-mail accounts, so if I send it using one of my alternate e-mail accounts, it may have a different Signature attached.

I can control when I create a new message versus a reply or forward, if any of my Signatures are attached by default. Even if you don't attach any by default, you can always of course add your Signatures using the Signatures button in the Ribbon. Well I've got a couple of work Signatures configured, but I need a personal one. So let's go and create a new one. First we'll need to give it a name. Once you've named it, you'll need to use the Edit Signature box to edit and create the Signature itself. Type in the information you need, and then we can use the Editing tools to configure it.

So I think I'd like my name to be a little bit bigger, I'll choose a larger font. Or maybe bold it. I could also choose a different font for the rest of the message if I'd like. And of course I have my Bold, Italics and Underline options here. In addition, you can change the colors. Automatically, it will just be black, or if you're using a theme for your e-mails, it will use one of the colors that fit with the theme.

I can pick one of the colors on a theme or I can choose another standard color. Here, let's just choose dark blue. In addition, you can also choose the alignment of the text, you can add picture or hyperlink in here, or, and this may be the easiest way to do it, especially if you're creating your own and you already have a Business Card in your Contacts, just click Business Card. and it will allow you to choose from your Contacts and pick a Business Card.

So I've added the Business Card. Now this is my personal one, so the Buisness Card might not be appropriate, I'm going to take it back out. I've configured my Personal Signature, I'm just going to choose OK. Now currently I've got a message here that has my Work (Plain) on it, if I want to different one, I'll click the Signature button, and instead I'll just choose Personal. Notice I don't have to go back edit it. If you choose a different Signature, it just changes it for you.

So there's no need to directly edit the message. Also notice, one of the bonuses of having the Business Card in your signature, is it will also attach it to the e-mail, so if you send an e-mail to someone and your using your Business Signature, and they're using Outlook, they'll be able to add your information directly to their Contact database quickly and easily using the Business Card.