The Time Management Toolkit: MicrosoftВ® Office OutlookВ® 2007 Step by Step and Take Back Your Life (Step By Step (Microsoft))

When you create a paper-based message, you can add a signature at the end of the message by writing your name. When you create an Outlook message, you can add an e-mail signature at the end of the message by manually or automatically inserting a predefined block of text (with optional graphics). An e-mail signature provides consistent information to message recipients. You can include any text or graphics you want in your e-mail signature; you would commonly include your name and contact information, but depending on your own situation you might also include information such as your company name, job title, a legal disclaimer, a corporate or personal slogan, a photo, and so on. When using Outlook 2007, you can choose to include your electronic business card as part or all of your e-mail signature.

See Also For more information about electronic business cards, see "Personalizing an Electronic Business Card" in Chapter 2, Managing Contact Information."

You can create different signatures for use in different types of messages. For example, you might create a formal business signature for client correspondence, a casual business signature for interoffice correspondence, and a personal signature for messages sent from a secondary account. Or you might create a signature containing more information to send with original e-mail messages, and a signature containing less information to send with message replies. You can format the text of your e-mail signature in the same ways that you can format message text.

In this exercise, you will create an e-mail signature and then instruct Outlook to insert the signature in all the new messages you create. There are no practice files for this exercise.

BE SURE TO start Outlook and display the Inbox before beginning this exercise.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

   The Options dialog box opens.

2. On the Mail Format tab, click Signatures.

   The Signatures And Stationery dialog box opens.

3. On the E-mail Signature tab, click New.

4. In the New Signature dialog box, type Professional as the name of your new e-mail signature, and then click OK.

   Outlook creates the Professional signature.

5. In the Edit signature area, type Regards followed by a comma, press the key, and then type your name.

6. Select your name, click the Font arrow, and then in the list, click Lucida Handwriting (or any other font you like).

7. Click the Font Size arrow, and then in the list, click 14.

8. Click the Font Color arrow, and then under Standard Colors, click the Purple box. Then click away from your name to see the results of your changes.

9. Apply any other types of formatting you want.

   Tip

   If you would like to include your electronic business card as part of your signature, click the Business Card button. Then in the Insert Business Card dialog box, locate and click your name, and click OK.

   You can manually insert any signature you create in an e-mail message, but it is more common to instruct Outlook to automatically insert it for you.

10. In the Choose default signature area, click the New messages arrow, and then in the list, click Professional.

    Outlook will now insert your signature into all new e-mail messages you send from this account, but not into replies or forwarded messages.

    Tip

    If you have more than one e-mail account set up in Outlook, you can instruct Outlook to insert a different signature in messages sent from each account. To do so, click the account in the E-mail Account list, click the signature you want to use with that account in the New Messages and/or Replies/Forwards list, and then click OK.

11. Make any other changes you want, and then click OK in the two open dialog boxes.

12. On the Standard toolbar, click the New Mail Message button.

    A new message opens, with your e-mail signature in the content pane.

    Tip

    You can remove the automatically inserted signature from a message by selecting and deleting it as you would any other text.

CLOSE the message window.

BE SURE TO reset the New Messages signature to <none> if you don't want to use the Professional signature you created in this exercise.