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Managing Signature Templates

Managing Signature Templates¶

Table of Contents [Hide/Show] Managing Signature Templates    Signatures Overview    Editing Signature's HTML Format    Editing Signature's RTF    Editing Signature's Plain Text Format    Previewing Signatures    Creating a New Signature    Adding Images and Logos To Signature       Inserting a Linked Image       Inserting an Embedded Image       How to style your email signature links    Changing Outlook Options: Format, Editor, and Font

To begin administering signatures double-click the eMailSignature Cockpit shortcut that has been added to your Desktop during the installation. The Cockpit opens and you are ready to get started using your new software.

Signatures Overview¶

To view a full list of all signatures, click 'Signatures for all' in the 'Signatures' tab.


A list of all signatures with their names and descriptions, when they were last modified and by whom, appears. How the signatures are used is shown and can be changed in the respective columns.

Editing Signature's HTML Format¶

To edit signature's HTML format, proceed as follows:

1. Click 'Design'. From the signatures list that appears, select a signature to edit.
   
   
   
   
   The signature is opened in the design view and ready for necessary changes.
   
   
2. Edit the following general signature information:
   

In addition, available formats for the selected signature are displayed. In the example above, the signature has only the HTML format, and does not have the RTF and plain text formats.

3. In the signature's editor, to insert a new field, place a cursor in the desired place and click 'Insert Field'. From the list of available fields that appears, select a field.
   
   The field is added to the signature and will extract custom user information from the Active Directory when signatures will be generated in user emails.
   
4. To edit signature's design, you can edit signature's HTML code manually, or you can use the Cockpit's editor.
   It is out of this manual's scope to describe HTML coding, but it you have your own ready signature look, we can help you write the HTML for it. Please send an email with your design to support@emailsignature.com to get your personal quotation.
   Editing signature's design in the Cockpit's editor is simple and very similar to Microsoft Word editing controls. The following table lists and describes these controls.

5. To save the changes made to the signature, click 'Save'.

Editing Signature's RTF¶

In general, we do not recommend using rich text format (RTF) signatures for new emails, but instead using the HTML format for all outgoing new emails. However, RTF signatures can be used for replying to RTF emails. Therefore, we recommend creating RTF signatures only for replying emails.

To edit signature's RTF, proceed as follows:

1. Click 'Design'. From the signatures list that appears, select a signature to edit.
   
   
   The signature is opened in the design view and ready for necessary changes. Available formats for the selected signature are displayed.
   
   
2. If a signature does not have the RTF format, to create the RTF format, click the Rich Text icon.
   
   
   If the RTF format is created successfully, the following message appears.
   
   
   
   
   The RTF format is created and can be now generated directly from the HTML format or edited in the built-in editor.
   
   
3. To generate the RTF format from the HTML format, click 'Generate from HTML'. However, note that complicated signature designs containing tables can be difficult to convert from HTML to RTF. Therefore, we recommend more simple design for the RTF format.
   
   
4. To edit the RTF format manually in the built-in editor, simply use the editor's controls to achieve the necessary signature's design.
   

   
   Note: We do not recommend having logos in signature's RTF at any time. Please avoid any logos in Rich Text Format.
   

   
   It is possible to use a code editor for editing RTF, but we do not recommend spending too much time on this.
   
   
5. To save the changes made to the signature, click 'Save'.
   

Editing Signature's Plain Text Format¶

Plain text signatures are widely used in replies and forwards, but not as the default signature.

To edit signature's plain text format, proceed as follows:

1. Click 'Design. From the signatures list that appears, select a signature to edit.
   
   
   The signature is opened in the design view and ready for necessary changes. Available formats for the selected signature are displayed.
   
   
2. If a signature does not have the plain text format, to create the plain text format, click the Plain Text icon.
   
   
   The plain text format is generated automatically and the following message appears.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   This functionality is so powerful that rarely any additional changes are necessary.
   
   
3. If, however, changes are necessary, edit the plain text format, and to save the changes made to the signature, click 'Save'.
   

Previewing Signatures¶

Prior to deploying signatures for use, they can be previewed.



To preview a signature, proceed as follows:

1. Click 'Preview'. From the signatures list that appears, select a signature to preview.
   
   
   
   
   The Preview Signatures window appears displaying the signature that is currently being edited. If no signature is being edited at the moment, select a signature from the 'Choose a signature to preview' drop-down list in the Preview Signatures window.
   
   
   It is also possible to preview a signature from the editing mode by clicking 'Preview' in the editor.
   
   
   The signature is opened in the preview mode with the custom user information extracted from the Active Directory for the currently logged on user.
   
   
   
   
2. To preview the signature for a different user, in the 'Preview as' field, enter account's initials for which you want the signature to be previewed.
   
   
   A list of most recently previewed users appear on the left.
   
   
3. To preview different signature's formats, click the 'HTML signature', 'Rich Text signature', or 'Plain text signature' tabs.
   
   
4. To preview the signature together with a disclaimer or a campaign, select them from the respective drop-down lists.
   
   

   
   Note: The campaign drop-down list only appears if the campaign module is licensed or one of the Enterprise Editions is licensed.
   

   
   

Creating a New Signature¶

To create a new signature from scratch, proceed as follows:

1. Click 'New'.
   
   
   The New Signature window appears.
   
   
   
   
2. In the respective fields, enter the signature name and description. The name will appear in MS Outlook, but the description will be for your own record only.
3. From the drop-down list, select the data source from which custom user information is extracted when generating signatures. If in doubt, leave 'Active Directory'. For more information on data sources, see Managing Data Sources – Using Other Databases Than AD.
4. In the editor window, design or paste your signature. If the signature has been already designed in HTML, first, use the toggle button to switch to the HTML editing mode and only then paste the code. You can recognize the HTML editing mode, if line numbers appear on the left side like in the following example.
   
   
   
   
5. To insert a merge field for custom user information, click 'Insert Field', and from the available fields that appear, select the field.
6. To finish creating signature, click 'Create'.
   
   
   The signature now is ready for images and logos to be added.
   

Adding Images and Logos To Signature¶

When adding an image or a logo to a signature, the following two options are possible:

Linked image	An email does not contain the image, but only a link to a place on the Web, where the image appears. Thus, the image in the email can be seen only when the recipient is online. Linked images do not take any bytes in signatures.
Embedded image	An embedded image is included in emails, and, thus, email size is increased by the size of image, but recipients can see the image regardless of being or not being online.

There are no general recommendations on when to use the linked over the embedded images. It is up to you as the administrator of eMailSignature to choose which solution is best for you. Both options are equally good.

It is recommended to insert images only in HTML email signatures.

Inserting a Linked Image¶

To insert a linked image, proceed as follows:

1. Open a signature in which you want to insert an image, in the editor window, click the cursor in the place, where the image is to appear.
2. Click 'Insert linked' in the 'Images' section.
   
   
   
   
   The following window appears.
   
   
   
   
3. In the URL window enter or paste the http address of the image. To do so, you must know the exact location of the image on the Web and it must end with an image file extension, for example, PNG, GIF, or JPG. An example URL is http://www.yourcompany.com/images/a_logo.gif.
4. When the URL is entered, click 'Insert'. The image now appears in the email.
5. To add the image height and width:
   • click the toggle button to switch to the HTML editing mode,
   • locate the image tag, for example, <img src=YOUR IMAGE URL>,
   • edit the image tag by adding the height and width parameters, for example <img src=YOUR IMAGE URL height=XX width=YY>, where XX and YY must be replaced with respective height and width.
6. To save the changes made, click 'Save'.
   

Inserting an Embedded Image¶

To insert an embedded image, proceed as follows:

1. Put images to be inserted as embedded in a central location, for example, network share. All users must be able to read the image file, and eMailSignature will copy it from this location when generating signatures. Image files can remain write-protected. Do not put these image files only on your own C drive, as users will not be able to access them.
2. To create image collection in the Cockpit, click 'Manage embedded' in the 'Images' section.
   
   
   
   
3. To add images to the collection, click 'Add New Image' and browse to the central location, where you have placed the images.
4. In the file browser, select an image, and click 'Open'. The image preview appears in the collection.
   
   
   
   
   

   
   Note: It is not advisable to use the name logo.gif for your company logo or any name with 'logo' in it. Use the company name and avoid spaces in the file name.
   

5. Click 'Save' and then 'Close'.
6. When the image collection is ready, open a signature in which you want to insert an image, in the editor window, click the cursor in the place, where the image is to appear.
7. Click 'Insert embedded'. From the list of all added images that appears, select an image.
   
   
   
   
   The image appears in the signature's edit mode. In the signature's code editor a special code is also added to the image. This code must not be changed, as it might destroy the embedment.
8. To save the changes made, click 'Save'.
   

How to style your email signature links¶

Your corporate email signature will stand out and look more professional:

Changing Outlook Options: Format, Editor, and Font¶

To have a more unified look-and-feel to your company e-mails, you may control some Outlook settings for your users from within eMailSignature:

• Default message format for Outlook messages: HTML, RTF, or plain text
• Using MS Word as e-mail message editor
• Options related to font used in outgoing messages
  To change Outlook options proceed as follows:
• Click 'Email Font' in 'Outlook Settings' tab.
  
  
  
  
• A window displaying all Outlook-related options appears.
  
  
  
  
• To change the default format in which messages are composed, select HTML, RTF, or TEXT in the drop-down list.
• To allow users edit their messaged in MS Word, select the 'Allow users to select "Word as Editor"' check box. This potion only works for Outlook 2000, XP, and 2003.
• By default eMailSignature sets Verdana size 10 font to be used when composing outgoing messages and replying/forwarding e-mails. To change the font, click 'Choose Font'.
  
  
  
  
  In the Font dialog that appears, select the necessary font, style, size and script. Click 'OK'.
• To allow users to choose their own font for new e-mail messages, select the 'Do not change email compose font' check box.
• To allow users to choose their own font for reply/forward messages, clear the 'Make the reply/forward font the same as compose font' check box. (This option is selected by default.)
• Click 'Save' and then 'Close' to keep the changed settings.
  The settings will take effect the next time the users run sign.exe.
  

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