Signatures in Outlook 2007

With Outlook 2007, you can create signatures that are automatically added to the messages you write. These can come in handy whenever you need to add a set of standard information to the end of messages. For example, email messages created at corporations are often required to include a bunch of legal stuff, along with detailed contact information for the person sending the message. Having to type all this in by hand every time you create a new message would be an incredible waste of time. With Outlook's signatures, you can store this information and automatically insert it into your messages.

Note: The signatures you create can include your Electronic Business Card. Information on creating these cards is available here.

Creating and Assigning Signatures

The basic approach to creating signatures in Outlook is to create specific signatures for each email account that needs one, and have Outlook automatically include the relevant signature every time you create a message with that account. You can also choose to assign signatures to messages manually. We'll talk about this shortly.

To create a signature, follow these steps:

1. With the New Message window open, go to the Message tabbed page on the ribbon. In the Includes section of the ribbon, click Signature. This opens the Signatures and Stationery dialog box shown here:

2. Click the E-mail Signature tab if that tabbed page is not already visible. To create a new signature, click the New button. A box will appear for you to enter the name of the new signature you will be working on. If you have already created signatures and want to edit one, click its name in the Select signature to edit box.
3. In the box at the bottom of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, create your new signature exactly the way you would like it to appear in your messages. You have the ability to choose fonts, insert graphics, create hyperlinks, as well as paste in existing text and images (in case you already have something you want to use as your signature). Once you have the signature the way you want it, proceed to the next step.
4. Click Save to save the signature you just created. From here you can create additional signatures using the steps you just followed, assign signatures to email accounts (for automatic insertion into messages), or get back to what you were doing before by clicking OK.

To assign a signature to a specific email account, follow these steps:

1. In the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, look at the Choose default signature section. Select the account you want to assign a signature to in the E-mail Account field.
2. In the New messages field, select the signature file you want to appear when creating a new message for this account.
3. In the Replies/Forwards field, select the signature file you want to appear when replying to or forwarding a message sent to this account.
4. Repeat the process for any additional accounts you want to work with, then click OK when done.

Manually Insert Signatures into Messages

You may not want to always include a signature in messages on a certain account, but with the ability to insert them manually, you can still include them when appropriate. The instructions for doing this are pretty straightforward. Simply do this:

1. With the message window open, and the cursor at the spot in the message body where you would like to insert the signature (typically the end of the message), select the Message tabbed page of the ribbon. In the Includes section of the ribbon, click Signature. You should see a list of the available signatures.
2. Click the signature you want to insert in the message.

That's it. The signature you clicked appears in the message at the position of the cursor.

Return to the Composing Email Messages page.