Locked lesson.
About this lesson
Signatures are vital to signing off on an email, and here you’ll learn how to apply them, along with a time saving tip to quickly finalize redundant correspondence.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
2016, 2019/365.
Quick reference
Email Signatures
Using signatures will save time by avoiding redundant typing of your contact info.
When to use
Every email should be signed as a matter of good office protocol. Using a pre-formatted signature simply saves time while adding that touch of class to your correspondence.
Instructions
Open a new email message window
- Click the Signature button, then click the 2nd Signature button.
- Click New.
- Type a Name for your signature file.
- Begin to edit your signature making good use of the formatting tools available, and add your photo or company logo / web links.
- The last step is to make sure you designate which signature to use for New messages and Replies/forward messages.
Hints & tips
To quickly switch the signature, simply Right Click the automated signature and choose from the list that appears on the message screen. (Must have at least 2 signatures set up for this to work.)
Use the “Signatures” feature for repetitive reminders or informative (but redundant) reminders.
Examples:
- a “Timecards” signature: “Reminder that time cards are due Friday by 10:00 a.m.”
- a “Map” signature: “Below is a map to our location”
- a “New Employee” signature: “Welcome to the team! Here is info you’ll need to know…”
- 00:04 In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to set up a signature.
- 00:07 And in Outlook proper, you might run through all the ribbons and search and
- 00:11 search for the word Signature.
- 00:13 You won't find it because there's a little trick inside Outlook.
- 00:16 It's a little tricky to understand, but just because
- 00:18 all these ribbons are in Outlook doesn't mean that's all that are available.
- 00:22 You see, every new item like New Email or New Contact or
- 00:25 New Calendar Appointment has its own set of ribbons.
- 00:29 And that's where we're going to find the trick to the signature, okay?
- 00:32 So, over here I have the instructions.
- 00:35 To create a new signature we're going to open a new email screen,
- 00:37 we're going to click the Signature button on the message written, and
- 00:40 then we're going to click new, type your name and type in the info.
- 00:43 So let's do that.
- 00:44 First create a brand new email.
- 00:46 Click right here.
- 00:47 This gives me an entire set of new ribbons with just email topics,
- 00:53 not anything else, okay?
- 00:55 Now on the Message ribbon, over here on the right-hand side,
- 00:58 we have an action that says Signature.
- 01:00 When I click Signature, it lists my current signatures, and
- 01:03 allows me to create new ones right down here.
- 01:06 So when I click this signature,
- 01:08 now it opens up a brand new box of all my current signatures.
- 01:12 I have Delete, New, Save, Rename.
- 01:15 I can tell it which email account to be attached to.
- 01:18 Now you can have multiple email accounts in Outlook, it'll handle whatever you
- 01:21 give it, and then you can attach certain signatures to certain email accounts.
- 01:25 I love it.
- 01:27 I can also tell it which signature to use on a brand new email on that account and
- 01:32 which signature to use on a reply email.
- 01:35 A lot of times a reply signature will be less formal than the first signature.
- 01:40 All right, well, let's go ahead and click New.
- 01:42 I'm going to make a brand new email and
- 01:45 I'm going to throw a little twist into this.
- 01:47 Instead of just making my signature about contact information,
- 01:51 I have a certain script that I want sent out to all my new employees.
- 01:56 So I'm going to make this my new employee signature, click OK.
- 02:01 I have a blank screen and I already have text that I typed up so
- 02:04 I'll just drop it right in there.
- 02:05 And so this is a message that will go out to all my brand new employees.
- 02:09 And now it will not be on a brand new message, it will be on a reply.
- 02:14 I'll have to pick and choose when I want to use this, but
- 02:16 it's going to save me time, because I don't have to retype this every time.
- 02:19 So I'll go ahead and click OK at this point, and
- 02:23 I'm going to actually close this email entirely, just close it all.
- 02:27 Now, let's go back to a brand new email.
- 02:30 It comes with my default signature and I realized, wait,
- 02:33 I've got a brand new employee that needs this information.
- 02:35 So instead of me re typing it, I'm going to click my Signature button,
- 02:39 look at my list, one of them says new employee, click.
- 02:42 There you go.
- 02:44 Is that wonderful?
- 02:45 Look how much time I just saved typing.
- 02:47 I didn't even have to go find an old one and copy paste.
- 02:49 It's just right there.
- 02:51 Well, I changed my mind I want to go back just by regular signature.
- 02:54 Click, there we go.
- 02:55 But there's a super secret here, and it's a right mouse button on the Signature.
- 03:01 So when I float my mouse on the Signature, I'm just going to right-click,
- 03:04 read the list, New employee.
- 03:06 Oh, if I change my mind,
- 03:07 right click, read the list, go back to the other one.
- 03:11 So the right click is the super secret to your list of existing signatures.
- 03:15 If you change your mind right now, want to make another one?
- 03:17 We have the Signatures button right at the bottom, and
- 03:20 you can go in and just design a new one from there.
- 03:23 All right, go ahead and set up some signatures as a homework assignment.
- 03:27 It's actually kind of fun.
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