Enhance Message Content in Microsoft Outlook 2016

Create and use automatic signatures

When you send an email message to someone, you will most likely “sign” the message by entering your name at the end of the message text. You can have Outlook insert your signature text in outgoing messages by creating an email signature and assigning it to your email account. Your email signature can include additional information that you want to consistently provide to message recipients.

Click to view larger image

An email signature can include formatted text and graphics

A typical email signature would commonly include your name and contact information, but depending on your 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. You can even include your electronic business card as part or all of your email signature.

See Also

For more information about electronic business cards, see “Personalize electronic business cards” in Chapter 8, “Manage contact records.”

You can create different signatures for use in different types of messages or for use when you’re sending messages from different email accounts. 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 another account. Or you might create a signature that contains more information to send with original email messages, and a signature that contains less information to send with message replies.

You can format the text of your email signature in the same ways that you can format message text. If you want to apply formatting that’s not available from the selection of buttons across the top of the signature content pane, you can create and format your signature in an email message composition window, copy the signature, and then paste it into the signature content pane.

A signature can include inline images, but the signature content pane doesn’t support wrapping text around images, so if you want to do something fancier, create the signature look you want in an email message composition window, save a screen clipping of it as a graphic, and then insert the graphic into the signature content box.

TIP

All Office apps share the Microsoft Office Clipboard, so you can easily copy and move content between apps. You don’t need to work from the Clipboard to paste the most recently cut or copied text into another location; it’s stored in the shared Clipboard, so all Office apps have access to it. For example, you can cut or copy text or an image in a Word document and then paste it into an Outlook email message without ever directly accessing the Clipboard.

If you have Outlook configured to connect to multiple email accounts, you can assign the same email signature to multiple accounts, or assign a unique email signature to each email account. The signature you assign to the specific account will appear automatically in new messages you send from that account. You can also manually insert any email signature you’ve created in any message. Outlook inserts the email signature at the end of the message, replacing any existing email signature.

To display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures And Stationery dialog box

1. From any module, open the Outlook Options dialog box and display the Mail page.
2. In the Compose messages section, click the Signatures button.

Or

1. In a message composition window, display the Message tab or Insert tab.
2. In the Include group, click the Signature button and then click Signatures.

To create a simple signature

1. Display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box. Any existing signatures are listed in the Select Signature To Edit box.

2. Below the Select signature to edit box, click the New button. Outlook prompts you to supply a name for the new signature before you can work with the signature content.

   

   Click to view larger image

   Assign a name that will make it easy for you to differentiate signatures when inserting them

3. In the Type a name for this signature box, enter a name that will help you differentiate the signature from others you create, such as Work or Disclaimer. Then click OK to create the signature and activate it for editing.

4. In the Edit signature box, enter the text that you want to include, and format the font if you want to.

   

   Click to view larger image

   Formatted elements of your signature will appear in email messages exactly as they do here

5. When you’re done with the simple signature, click Save.

To edit an existing email signature

1. Display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.
2. In the Select signature to edit box, click the signature you want to edit, to display it in the Edit Signature pane.
3. Make any changes you want, and then click the Save button.

To add an inline image to an email signature

1. Display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.
2. Create a new signature or choose a signature to edit.
3. In the Edit signature pane, click to position the cursor where you want to insert the picture.
4. On the toolbar above the pane, click the Insert Picture button (the second button from the right).

5. In the Insert Picture dialog box, browse to and select the image you want to insert, and then click Insert.

   

   Click to view larger image

   You can position an inline graphic anywhere within the text

6. Make any other changes you want, and then click the Save button.

To add fancy images to an email signature

1. In an email composition window, Word document, PowerPoint slide, or image editing app, create the signature you want and save it as an image file. Trim all empty space from the edges of the image.
2. Display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.
3. Create a new signature or choose a signature to edit.
4. In the Edit signature pane, select and delete any existing content that you don’t want to include with the image.
5. Click to position the cursor where you want to insert the image.
6. On the toolbar above the pane, click the Insert Picture button (the second button from the right).

7. In the Insert Picture dialog box, browse to and select the image you want to insert, and then click Insert.

   

   Click to view larger image

   You can include text in addition to the graphic if you want

8. Make any other changes you want, and then click the Save button.

TIP

Not all email message apps automatically display embedded images. If your email message signature contains an image, some message recipients will get it as an attachment.

To automatically add an email signature to outgoing messages

1. Display the E-mail Signature tab of the Signatures and Stationery dialog box.

2. In the Choose default signature section, do the following:

   • In the E-mail account list, click the account you want to assign the signature to.
   • In the New messages list, click the signature that you want Outlook to insert into all new email messages you send from the selected account.
   • In the Replies/forwards list, click the signature that you want Outlook to insert into all response message you send from the selected account.
3. In the Signatures and Stationery dialog box, click OK.
4. Create a new email message to verify that the signature appears.

TIP

If you have more than one email account set up in Outlook, you can configure different signatures for each account.

To manually insert an existing email signature in a message

1. In a message composition window, display the Message tab or the Insert tab.
2. In the Include group, click the Signature button.
3. In the Signature list, click the name of the email signature you want to insert.

TIP

If you have not previously set up a signature, clicking the Signature button displays a short list that includes a Signatures option; clicking this option opens the Signatures And Stationery dialog box in which you can create a signature.

To remove an email signature from a message

1. Select and delete the signature content as you would any other message content.