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Emailing has increased greatly with the digitalization of the world and it has become an integral part of businesses. But writing a simple email seems less attractive and professional, especially in the case when you have to convince somebody or when you are presentative your company. Email signature brings more power to an email and turns the whole email look more professional. But often users struggle with creating an effective email signature. In this blog, we will present a step-by-step guide on how to create from simple to complex signatures in Outlook.

Create Basic Text Signature

The basic signature is the one that presents your name, job title, website, and similar other basic details in a text format. It suits those who want to add a signature but want to keep things simple. To create a basic text signature in Outlook, follow the below steps:

1. Open Outlook, go to the mail window and click “New Email” from the “Home” tab.
2. Go to the “Message” tab and click on “Signature”. This is from where you can access all your created signatures. Since you don’t have any signature currently, so click “Signatures”.
3. Select the “Email account” for which you want to add the signature. Click “New” and then name that signature.
4. In the “Edit signature” section, type your signature here. You can add your name, job title, website, and other details you want to add. You can also change the font, text size, and other details you want. Once done, click “Save”.
5. Under the “Choose default signature”, you have two settings to set up and these are related to when you want this signature to appear in the email automatically. So, if you want the signature to automatically show up while writing a new email, then select the signature name from the drop-down menu of “New messages”. Similarly, if you want the signature to appear when you are replying or forwarding, then select the signature name from the drop-down menu of “Replies/forwards”. Once done, click “OK”. This way, when you will create a new email from the email address for whom you have created the signature, it will show the signature.

Manually Insert Signature

In case, you have created a signature but you haven’t set it to appear automatically while creating a new email or giving replies/forwards, then you can manually insert the signature. To do that, go to the “Message” tab and click on “Signature”. From there, select the signature you want to show and it will be added to the email.

Include Handwritten Signature

The above approach discusses how to add text signatures, but you might also want to add up a handwritten signature to make it look more professional. Well, you can do it very easily with Outlook by following the below simple steps:

1. To do that, go to the “Message” tab, click on “Signature”, and then click “Signatures”.
2. Select the text signature you recently created, and in the “Edit signature” section, go to the place where you want to add your handwritten part. Now click the “Insert picture” icon located below the “Rename” button and upload the handwritten signature image file that you want to add. Once you add it, it will show up in the signature section along with the text you already added.
3. Click “Save” and then click “OK”. This way, you have included the handwritten signature.

Include Logo, Photo, or Image

Other than just adding text or handwritten signature, adding a photo or logo is something that some users also prefer to add. In Outlook, you can also easily add a photo or logo alongside your signature by following the below steps:

1. Create a new email and add the signature in it that you created previously.
2. Now insert a table in the email. To do that, go to the “Insert” tab, click “Table”, and then make a table of 1 row 2 columns.
3. Select all your signature elements, press “Ctrl” + “x”, and paste them in the 2^nd column of the table.
4. Now you have to upload the photo or logo in the 1^st To do that, click on the 1^st column, then click “Pictures” from the “Insert” tab, and then click “This Device” if you want to upload the picture from your computer. Locate the picture and upload it to the table.
5. Once the picture is added, resize it by dragging the edges to make it look decent.
6. To remove table borders, click on the table, go to the “Table Design” tab, click “Borders”, and then click “No Border”. This way, the table borders are removed and it now looks a professional signature with the picture.
7. Select the whole signature along with the picture and press “Ctrl” + “x”. Go to the “Message” tab, click on “Signature”, and then click “Signatures”. There you can edit the existing signature or add a new one. Afterward, paste the signature content in the “Edit signature” section.
8. Lastly, click “Save” and then click “OK”. This way, you have created a proper signature with a picture.

Include Social Media Icons & Links

You can also add social media icons and then add a clickable hyperlink to it in your signature. Follow the below steps to do it:

1. Go to the “Message” tab, click on “Signature”, and then click “Signatures”. Select the signature in which you want to add the social media icon.
2. In the “Edit signature” section, go to the place where you want to add the icon and then click the “Insert picture” icon and upload the icon from your computer. You can easily download social media icons by searching them on Google, Bing, etc.
3. Once the icon is added, select the icon and then click the “Add hyperlink” icon. Now add the URL of your social media and click “OK”.
4. Once done, click “Save” and then click “OK”. This way, you have added social media icon and also made it clickable with the corresponding link.

Business Card

When you are editing a signature, you might notice an option written as “Business Card”. If you click on it, you will see that it presents different contacts associated with your email. It allows you to pick them and add them to your signature in the business card format. The business card will include all of their details and present it in a professional-looking format. The major drawback with a business card is that the other person cannot copy the content from it, so that person has to manually type the details if he/she wants to contact the business card person. On the other hand, when you create a text signature, all the content in it can be copied and pasted anywhere.

Templates for Signatures

You can design any type of signature in Outlook, but if you find it difficult to set up a signature design by yourself, there are many free signature templates that Microsoft provides. You can pick the one you like, change the details, and use it as your Outlook signature. Follow the below steps to access and use signature templates:

1. Go to the “Message” tab, click on “Signature”, and then click “Signatures”.
2. Click on “Get signature templates” and it will open the Microsoft support link. From there, click “Get template” and then click “Download”.
3. Open the Word file you just downloaded and pick any of the templates you like the most. Copy that template and paste it in the “Edit signature” section.
4. Change the details with yours and then click “Save”. Lastly, click “OK”. This way, you can use a pre-designed template to turn it into your signature.

Wrapping Up

Adding a signature in your email increases the impression of the email and presents you more professionally. Therefore, if you are a person frequently dealing with clients or other professionals via email, then it’s best to set up a signature.

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