How to create Microsoft
Outlook Stationery Templates with Header, Signature & Footer
Overview
Many businesses want to present the right image
when contacting their customers by email, and
the possibility for Microsoft Outlook
® (whether Outlook 2000, 2002 or
2003) and Microsoft Outlook Express ®
to send either Rich Text or HTML
format e-mail messages are becoming more
popular than using basic Text format.
Microsoft Outlook ® allows
the use of Outlook Email Stationery and
Outlook Signatures to create
a personalised "look" for emails, however
often these can have a rather basic and even "twee"
appearance, and in their basic form are not particularly
suitable for corporate use.
Often businesses may want to make their emails
appear like their corporate headed letter paper,
including logo etc, at the head of the email.
Unfortunately the basic Outlook Stationery
templates do not allow for headers.
At least not without a little work!
This free downloadable PDF document explains
how you can create a Microsoft Outlook Email Message
Stationery Template for your e-mails to contain
both a corporate header and footer,
and be able to tab into the email body and start
typing your message without thinking about it,
as in the example below:-
Outlook Stationery templates are very simple.
In their basic form they pose some problems:-
- Templates do not allow Headers
to be created in the standard Outlook
Stationery Picker template designer
- it is a very simple tool, offering very basic
functions only.
- When writing new emails, Signatures
get inserted before any text/graphics added
in a template. If you add text and graphics
straight into the Stationery Picker template
designer (in which you can type text, or you
can right-click and choose Insert Image), when
you create a new email, Outlook inserts your
Signature above them! To work around this, instead
of adding your header graphic directly into
the main body of the template, you can add it
as a Background to your message,
but....
- ...unfortunately Background graphics
get repeated all the way down the page,
just making the message look a mess. It's fine
if the background is the kind of graphic designed
to tile and cover the rear of the message, but
for a corporate logo which we want to act as
a header graphic it just doesn't work - unless
we can do something clever!
Signatures can be set up and
used to provide a personal sign-off and contact
details, but they are designed to add information
at the tail end of the email. You could
add your text and logo for a header
into a Signature, but you would find that every
time you write an email you would have to re-position
your cursor after the header before starting to
type the main body of your email message.
For business use, having to remember to reposition
your cursor every time before typing in each and
every email would be tiresome. You just want to
Tab into the body of the message after entering
the Recipient and Subject, and get typing!
So how do we achieve it?
Simple - for the full answer just download my
free PDF Format document which explains all the
above issues, complete with screenshots,
and then describes how you can setup and modify
Outlook Express, 2000, 2002 or
2003 Email Stationery Templates to
work with a corporate heading, signature and footer.
This document covers the following topics:-
- Introduction
- Enabling Microsoft Outlook Stationary
- Shortcomings of Templates
- Shortcomings of Signatures
- Explanation of What Needs To Be Done
- Explanation of the CSS Code Used
- Tidying the Footer
- Todying the Signature
Click below to download - no catch, just a quick
simple download!
How
to create Microsoft Outlook Stationery Templates
Download
PDF of OLStationery.pdf - 1.1Mb (requires
Adobe Acrobat Reader to view) |
