How to Embed Your Logo into Your Gmail

Google's Gmail has come up with some great features over the years-and I love it. But the one thing that's been missing is how to put your logo on an email. Right now, the regular feature allows you to imbed your signature so that you don't have to type in your name each time at the end of an email. But you can't insert a photo in that feature.

You can, of course, put a logo on your email that comes out as a regular image attachment. While that may be sufficient, it certainly doesn't give your email a professional look.

I finally figured out how to do it. I wanted my Google emails to include a small snapshot of my blog-An-American-in Malta.com-imbedded as a logo. By imbedded, I mean that the logo looks like an integral part of the email and not as an attachment. Here are the steps to take:

1. Go to your website or blog and take a snapshot of the page. Google has an add-on feature called Screen Grab which does this. If you don't have this feature, you can download it for free from Google.

2. Download this photo into your photo editing program and either crop it or make it smaller so that it looks like a good size on your email. Save it on your desktop.

3. Here's the tricky part: Make a copy of the edited photo and publish it to a draft page of your blog or website. For some reason, you can't just copy the photo into your email; it doesn't work. When you send it (always check by sending the email to yourself or a friend first!), you get a box with that aggravating red X in it-instead of the photo.

4. Once your logo photo is on a draft of your website or blog (no one will see it as a draft except you), then make a copy of the photo. You can simply select and copy it.

5. Click Compose in Gmail and copy your logo onto the email page at the top or bottom, wherever it looks best. Then you can add your name, address, phone, etc.-anything you would put on a regular business letterhead.

6. Label the email as Logo Test in the subject line and send it to yourself.

7. Open it and it should be there-your logo in your email! Archive this email with a label, such as LOGO, using Gmail labels, so that you can easily retrieve this email.

8. Find your email from your archives and open it. Select and copy the whole email body (which should include your logo) and send it with whatever else you want to write in it.

9. Send it to and check with a friend to make sure it worked exactly right.

10. Repeat Step No. 8 every time you want to send an email with your logo on it.

11. If you want, you can make several copies of the logo email and keep them as drafts so that you will have them ready when you need them-instead of copying one each time.

It took me a good couple of hours to figure this out and a lot of swearing, but I'm glad I have this logo now. And I'm glad to share how to do it with you.

Ilene Springer is a writer and author of An-American-in-Malta.com.