Windows Live Mail email signature

I've spent two hours with Windows Live Mail trying to make it use an email signature with a business logo image. My efforts have yielded zilch results! I'm frustrated because the image doesn't appear at all. Would it be possible for you to provide step by step instructions?
Carolyn Turner

Unfortunately, it's not easy to make an email signature with images and fancy formatting in Windows Live Mail. Unlike the webmail interfaces of the popular email services like Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo, there is no toolbar in Windows Live Mail through which one can add 'style' to the email signature. The technologically challenged find themselves at a complete loss.
After reading tons of complaints like the one above, I decided to put together these instructions. Hopefully, you too would be able to make an email signature with your business logo. Though I've tried to make these instructions as simple as possible, the newly initiated might still find them difficult or lengthy. Alas, the absence of an HTML editor (which was available in Outlook Express), makes the process of creating a Windows Live Mail email signature pretty hard.

Insert your business logo and fancy text formatting in Windows Live Mail email signature

Though you can create a simple email signature in Windows Live Mail without problems, the program offers no tools to make one with fancy formatting and embedded images. This has to be done externally using HTML - HyperText Markup Language. Before you groan... hold on to your horses! Simply follow these step by step instructions carefully.
I'm going to share the email signature I've used on Windows Live Mail since I first installed this program on my Vista laptop. The email signature has an image (a business logo) and a few links. You can use this as a template and modify it as per requirements. I understand that you may not know an iota of HTML and so strongly recommend dollops of common sense.

Step 1: Setting aside the image for Windows Live Mail signature

Create a new folder in the C: drive on your computer and name it signature. Copy the image you want to embed in the email signature to this folder and make sure it's optimized for email use. By this I mean the image shouldn't be huge in dimensions and file size - refer how to reduce image for email or decrease picture size for email. Also, once the image has been copied to the folder rename it to logo-email-signature and find out its file extension - is it a GIF, JPG or PNG?

Step 2: Create the HTML file of the Windows Live mail email signature

Open Notepad text editor which comes on all flavours of Windows (Start button -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Notepad) and type in the HTML code you see below. You can also copy-paste the same to save time. This is almost the exact code of the Windows Live Mail email signature I use. You need to replace the things in red and we'll go over each one very soon.

<font face="Arial" size="3">NAME</font><br />

<font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="mailto:EMAIL-ADDRESS">
EMAIL-ADDRESS</a></font><br />

<font face="Arial" size="2"><a href="http://WEB-SITE-ADDRESS/">
WEB-SITE-ADDRESS</a></font><br /><br />

<hr>
<img src="IMAGE-PATH" border="0">
<hr>

• The Notepad screen on your computer will probably look like slide 1.
• Select NAME and replace it with yours [Slide 2]. Do the same for EMAIL-ADDRESS which occurs in two places.
• To include your web site address in the email signature replace WEB-SITE-ADDRESS with the actual address of your web site; example, www.webdevelopersnotes.com. DO NOT put the http:// because, as you can see, it's already there.
• Don't have a web site address, simply delete those two lines.
• Assuming you had created a folder named signature in the C:/ drive and had copied the logo image (renaming it to logo-email-signature), the IMAGE-PATH will be:
  
  C:\signature\logo-email-signature.gif
  
  IMPORTANT: Remember to change the file extension .gif (above) if the image you're using is a .jpg or a .png; else the image won't show up in the signature.
• Click "File" -> "Save As" [Slide 3].
• Move to the signature folder on C:/ drive [Slide 4].
• Type in a file name for the email signature: email-signature.html [Slide 5].
• Select All Files (*.*) as the "Save as type" option [Slide 6] and hit the "Save" button.

Phew! The signature file has been created. Now let's get it onto Windows Live Mail and see how it looks.

• Click "Tools" from the top menu. If the menu isn't visible, hit the Alt key on the keyboard.
• Select "Options" from the menu and go to the "Signatures" tab.
• Click "New" to set up a new email signature [Slide 7]. This creates a blank signature [Slide 8].
• Put a checkmark in front of "Add signatures to all outgoing messages" [Slide 9].
• Select the "File" option [Slide 10].
• Click "Browse" and move to the folder in which you had saved the HTML email signature file. This should be the signature folder in the C:/ drive if you've followed my instructions [Slide 11]. Select the HTML file and click "Open".
• You'll now find the file name displayed. Click "Apply" followed by "OK" [Slide 12].
• Start a new email message window and check out the email signature [Slide 13].

You've successfully created an email signature in Windows Live Mail... one that has a couple of links and an image.

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