Sign Your Name (Across My Heart)

I’ve fielded some requests to explain how to create a signature block that automatically gets put at the bottom of outgoing email. First I’ll explain how to create a signature, then I’ll give some tips on how to make your signature block look more professional:

1. In Microsoft Outlook, click on Tools, then Options. Click on the Mail Format tab.

2. Click on the Signatures... button.

3. Now in the top box you’ll see a list of all signatures that you’ve created in the past. (It may be an empty list.) What we’re going to do is create some new, different signature blocks to use either in different circumstances or just to rotate to keep things interesting. Click the New... button to create a new signature block.

4. Give your new signature a title (maybe something like “Professional” or “Informal” or “Purple” or “Tuesday” or “Ketchup” or “Big Papi” or “Menudo”, etc.). If you’ve already created a signature block, you can save yourself time re-typing your personal info by clicking on the radio button next to “Use this existing signature as a template:”. Otherwise, you’ll need to start from scratch. Click Next >.

5. Now you can type in your signature block just the way you want. After all the text is there, select all of it and click on the Font... button to get the font and color just the way you like. Click on the Paragraph... button to make your signature block right-justified, left-justified, or center-justified.

6. Click Finish when you’ve got it the way you like.

7. Now, you’ll see the signature block you just created in your list of stored signature blocks. Click OK.

8. Finally, you can choose which signature block you want to use. In the drop-down box next to “Signature for new messages:” pick the signature block that you just created.

9. There is also an option to put a signature on replies and forwards. The default is none. We strongly recommend leaving this at the default. It’s rather annoying emailing back and forth with someone with a long string of identical signature blocks in the string of previous emails.

10. Click OK to finish.

Now here are a few ways of punching-up your signature block:

• You can put a dividing line between your signature block and the text of the email by putting a long string of underscores (“_”) in the first line of your signature block, like this: _____________
• Pick a light text color that doesn’t draw the eye away from the text of your email messages. The text color “Silver” is the one I use; it’s subtle, almost like a watermark. Avoid bright colors.
• Only use one font throughout the whole signature block…
• …but vary the text size and the use of boldface. Give your name and title more prominence with a larger font and/or boldface text.
• For a different look, make your signature block right-justified or center-justified.

The appearance of this weekly e-publication with the views and opinions of authors, products or services contained therein does not constitute endorsement of Terence Trent d'Arby or Columbia Records.