Improve Your Email's Appearance and Professionalism

Have you ever responded to an ad for employment, focus group or mock jury only to discover that you sent a message that contained everything except your name or vital contact information? Are you a creative person who wants to add individual flair to communications? Or perhaps you want a simple way to let friends or colleagues know that a communications is truly from you and not from some imposter who stole your address book electronically.

Creating a unique signature for your emails provides improved appearance, professionalism and a simple way to authenticate who has written the message. Hotmail provides a function that allows you to create such a signature, but you may significantly improve the results by preparing your signature in a word processing program and copying it in.

This article will tell you how to create an appropriate Email signature in Word or OpenOffice.org and copy it in as your default signature.

Begin by asking yourself, what do you want to achieve? Would you like a script signature? Such fonts as: Typoupright, Allegro BT, Vivance BT, or Ribbonfont may work for you. If you like this look you will want to go big. They are very delicate and a font size of as much as 26 points will work well for these.

You may want an ethnic flair: Viner handfont or Exotic creates an Asian appearance while Charlesworth, Book Antiqua, or Bremen, creates the look of Merry Olde England or a Bavarian Castle. These fonts will need to go a little smaller than 26 point, and a little goes a long way so don't overdo them. By the same token, you cannot use these effectively at very small sizes because they lose distinctive details and legibility.

Perhaps you like a more art deco or modern flair or need to save space? In that case, explore these fonts: Avantgard, Futura, Benguiate, Cambria, Constantia, or Franklin. These are modern, clean fonts that can be set at point sizes as low as 12 and still retain their distinctively snappy appearance.

Open up a clean page in the word processing program of your choice and lay out your signature. Choose from one of the above suggestions or go mad. The sky's the limit. Just be aware that each font has a certain personality. What do you want yours to say?

Also, don't go crazy mixing and matching fonts. They may clash with each other. If you want a little variety, see if there are different weights (i.e. bold, black, light) or styles (italic, condensed) available. Type designers create fonts within families, and if you choose fonts from the same family they will look as though they belong together.

Would you like to add something to the signature such as a checkmark in front of a line that says:
√ Please sign here: or a square box at the end of a line█ These are selected from "Specials," "Webdings" or "Dingbats" fonts in your word processing program.

These "specials" or the extended character set is also where you will find letters not part of the standard Latin alphabet such as Arabic letters, or tildes.

You can also add "Rules" which are decorative lines above or below your signature. Most word processing programs provide a variety of such ornamentations in different colors, weights (i.e. darker, lighter) or shapes.

After you have decided on a look, as yourself what information you wish recipients to see every time.
Would you just like a signature? Do you have a title? Do you need to provide your telephone number or email? What about the name of your business? Can your sign-off communicate important information?

I add a link to my associatedcontent.com profile so that interested parties can see the complete list of my latest publications. Perhaps you might want to add a personal slogan or best wishes for your favorite sports team or alma mater. It's up to you.

Once you have laid out an appropriate signature, it's time to bring the signature into your hotmail account so that it will affixed to every email that you send in the future. Press down the Control key and select the letter "A" at the same time. This selection works in all word processing and spreadsheet programs and means "select all." Once you have done this, your page will be highlighted with a darker color.

Now press down the Control Key and the letter "C" at the same time. Nothing will seem to have happened, but you will have told the machine to copy the text. Don't worry, it's waiting for the final step.

I am now going to show you where the signature function on your email program is. Once you are in it you will finish by copying the signature into a blank location.

Sign into Hotmail. Look at the "Option" selection on the right-hand of the page between the key that says "messenger" and the one that has a question mark. Click on the "Option" key and scroll down to the bottom of the menu until you see "More Options." Click on that. The third major subheading on the menu that comes up next says "Customize Your Email." Scroll through the list in this section until you come to the sub-heading entitled: "Personal Email Signature." Go into the empty space provided and press the Control key" and the letter "V" at the same time. Control+V is the key command for "insert" in all word processing, database, presentation and spreadsheet programs.If you ever make a mistake while using these keys, just hold down Control and the letter "Z". This is the undo command and it will reverse your last change.

To repeat: Control +A, means "select everything", Control+C means "copy whatever text has been highlighted," and Control+V inserts your text at the selected location. Control + Z undoes your last command. These "quick key" commands work with every version of every word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation software ever made and are useful to know in and of themselves.

You may also choose to create your signature directly within Hotmail for ease of use, but you will not be able to obtain the rich array of fonts and decorative elements otherwise available. Have at it John Hancock.

If you like this article you will also enjoy these additional ways to improve your email experience, just click on the links provided:

www.associatedcontent.com/article/2022946/automate_and_organize_your_email.html

www.associatedcontent.com/article/2022820/hotmails_built_in_features_keep_you.html

I have also prepared a guide on how to avoid being snowed under by emails or having important communications fall through the cracks when you are on vacation. Just click on my contributor link for a complete list of all of my articles, you will see the vacation article as soon as it receives editorial approval:

www.associatedcontent.com/user/583548/mary_finn.html