How to enable e-mail auto-signatures
Question: I receive e-mail all the time with tag lines at the end of the e-mail, like famous quotes or company information or links to favorite websites. How do I do this in my e-mail program? —B.D.
Answer: Here’s how to create an e-mail signature in four popular e-mail programs: Outlook 2000, Outlook 98, Outlook Express 5.5, and Netscape Messenger which comes with Netscape Communicator.
In Outlook 2000, click the Tools menu and then Options. Then click the Mail Format tab and the Signature Picker button. Click New, enter a name for the signature (such as routine_signature) and click the Start with a blank signature option. Then click Next
.Now enter the text that you want to appear at the bottom of your outbound e-mail. Why not tell people about this How-To, for example? Type in:
Find out how I learned to create this auto-signature at http://www.cyberwalker.com/faq/how-to/e-mail-sigs.html
Or perhaps:
Get great computer help at http://www.cyberwalker.com
Make sure the message is short and concise. You can use periods or hyphens to create line separators in the text. Then click Finish.
In the pull-down box next to the words Use this signature by default, select the name of the signature you just created or choose “” to stop the signature from being inserted automatically. This will let you choose which signature to use manually, message by message.
If you want your signature to only be inserted in new e-mail messages, check the box that says, Don’t use when replying or forwarding. Then click OK.
Now, every time you create a new e-mail in Outlook, the signature will be appended to the bottom. You can use this method to create multiple signatures for different e-mails. To choose a signature from several you have created start by creating a new e-mail in Outlook.
Address the e-mail and type your message as normal. Then click the Insert menu and choose Signature. A list of signatures that have been created will appear in a box. Choose the signature you want and it will be inserted wherever the cursor in the e-mail is (hopefully at the bottom of the message).
Outlook 98
Here are the instructions for Outlook 98.
Outlook Express 5.5
In Outlook Express 5.5, the e-mail program that comes with Internet Explorer 5.5, the process is slightly different.
In the program, click the Tools menu, then click Options, then the Signatures tab. Then click the New button. Make sure the Text option is selected, and type in your signature.
If you want, check Add signatures to all outgoing messages. Click OK, and the signature will be added to all new e-mails. If you want to keep your signatures in a text file, create the signature in a text file on your hard drive and instead of selecting Text in signature creator box, choose File and use the Browse button to specify the location of the text file you created.
When creating a new e-mail, you can use the Insert menu’s signature option to specify which signature to use if you have more than one.
Netscape Messenger
Netscape Messenger also has this ability, although it is less flexible. First, create a text file on your hard drive that contains your signature and make a note to yourself the folder where you save it. Open the program and choose Preferences from the Edit menu.
Then click Identity in the left hand pane of the Preferences window. On the right side of the pane, click the Choose button next to the Signature field and find the signature field you just created. Select it and click OK.
