Creating signatures in Outlook 2007 has changed compared to Outlook 2003 and previous versions. It’s a bit harder to insert custom coded signatures like the one found at www.linkedin.com (You need an account first.)
The advanced editor is missing from the Outlook 2007 signature interface, unlike Outlook 2003, however, you can still create that fancy HTML based custom signatures. The first change that you’ll notice is the location in which your signatures are stored, which depends ultimately on which operating system you’re running. If you’re running Windows Vista, the Documents and Settings folder has been changed to the Users folder. However, both are accessible using a system folder name as explained below.
To access the location that contains all of your signatures for Outlook, simply click your start button in the bottom right hand corner (Windows Vista has a little window button) and click Run. If you don’t see Run in the menu (Most likely in Vista) you can activate the Run command by pressing the Windows Key on your keyboard and the “R” key simultaneously.
Once the Run dialog is up, enter %APPDATA% and press Enter or click OK. This will open an explorer window that points directly to your user application folder. Now you need to locate the Microsoft folder, and beneath this folder is the Signatures folder.
If you aren’t a guru with HTML and you don’t have the tools you need to create an HTML signature, that’s okay. LinkedIn.com provides you with a way to copy the required code that you need to generate a fancy signature. See LinkedIn.com to learn more about this.
Here are the steps involved in implementing your LinkedIn signature:
- Open a LinkedIn account.
- Create your profile and signature.
- Copy the code that LinkedIn.com provides you for your signature.
- Press the Windows Key and the “R” key simultaneously on your keyboard.
- In the Run dialog, type notepad.exe and press Enter.
- Notepad should open, if it doesn’t, throw your computer through the coffee shop window. Just kidding, we would never advocate outbursts of anger and/or property destruction. If you reacted impulsively and already vandalized your favorite coffee shop, we take no responsibility for your actions, and you’d better run.
- In notepad, which is the basic cheeseball text editor that comes with Windows, paste the code that you copied from LinkedIn.com.
- Press CTRL-S on your keyboard (also accessible by clicking File –> Save.)
- In the File name field, enter the following: %appdata%MicrosoftSignatures.
- Press Enter.
- Now you are addressing the proper location in which you’ll save your text file.
- Name your file with a “.htm” extension. In other words, if you want to call your signature Work Signature then enter “Work Signature.htm” including the quotes. If you don’t include the quotes, notepad will automatically append the name of the file with the standard “.txt” extension, causing you to have a file called “Work Signature.htm.txt.” This won’t work, so make sure you use quotes around your file name.
- Save the file.
- Open Outlook (we’re not talking about Outlook Express here, so if you’ve managed to cool off after being tempted to destroy your laptop, you may be very frustrated to hear that this process only applies to the complete version of Outlook (2000/2002/2003/2007) which is part of the Microsoft Office Suite.
- Click the Tools menu, then click Options.
- Click the Mail Format menu.
- Under Signatures click the Signatures button.
- If you’ve followed the above procedures, you’ll see your signature in the “select signatures to edit” box. Choose your signature, then select the options for your signature.
- Test your signature by starting a new message in Outlook.
- That’s it.
I hope you found this to be informative. Please leave a comment if you found this of value. Thanks!