Email Signatures in Outlook

Have you ever noticed a nice signature in an email you received from someone and wondered how they did that? Email signatures are a great way to provide a professional and consistent salutation and include your contact information for future correspondence.

Please note that email signatures are application based, so you will need to set one up for Outlook on your PC and one for your phone, tablet, etc. Further, the steps for each application or device will vary. A Google search of "email signature for Outlook on Android or iPhone" is a great place to start.

First, some email signature guidelines:

1. Check with appropriate personnel for specific organizational guidelines as some companies have certain procedures they follow for uniformity and may have legal disclaimers that must be included.
2. Keep it short and simple. Include your name, phone number, title, and company name. This information is especially important when submitting a support ticket to the 415 Group Helpdesk if you are a managed IT partner. It helps us know who to contact and how.
3. Keep your fonts and sizes simple and consistent. Try to avoid using different fonts and drastic size changes for each line in your signature.
4. It is not necessary to include your email address in the signature as users already have it from the email itself.
5. On mobile devices, in addition to your signature, keep the "sent from iPhone/Android" tagline built into most mobile email applications. People are often more forgiving of spelling errors knowing it was sent from a mobile device.

Now, to add a signature in Microsoft Outlook, follow these steps:

1. Open Microsoft Outlook
2. Click on the File menu, then select “Options”
3. Click on “Mail” in the left column, then select “Signatures” on the right. You will see a window like this:

4. Click on “New” and enter a name for your signature, such as 'My Signature,' and click on “OK”
5. Click in the body area of the ‘Edit signature’ area and press the Enter key to add a space
6. Enter a salutation such as "Thank you," or “Regards,” and press Enter for the next line
7. On the following lines, enter your name, title, company name, and phone number; again, following your company’s guidelines and the guidelines provided above
8. You may work with fonts and text size to edit your signature, such as making your name larger, etc.
9. If you have an official company logo, you can add it by clicking on the icon and selecting the appropriate graphic file Once you have your signature formatted how you want it, you need to select it for your email. Navigate to the ‘Choose default signature’ area in the upper right corner of the ‘Signatures and Stationery window’ and select the name of your new signature for the ‘New messages’ and the ‘Replies/forwards’ fields. Your window should now look something like this:

10. Click on “OK,” then “OK” again
11. Check your new signature by creating a new email. You should see your new signature at the bottom of the otherwise blank email

If you have any questions and are a 415 Group managed IT partner, please submit a ticket to the Help Desk for further assistance.

Written by: Charles Shamblen