Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
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Signatures are fairly powerful, and quite often a quick way to include a template in your email.
It does get a little confusing as soon as you have more than one account or more than one signature.
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In Outlook, in the Tools, Options, on the Mail Format tab, in the signatures area, it allows you to select which account you're selecting or creating signatures for.
Naturally, you can insert a signature manually, by virtue of the Insert menu's Signature item.
As for when they get inserted automatically, it depends on your editor.
If you use Outlook as you default editor, then when you create a new message, it will always start with the signature for the default account. Replies and Forwards will, however, automatically get the signature for the account the message was received on.
If you use Word as your mail editor (which I generally do not recommend, feeling it as being overkill), there is added functionality ... if you change the account that a message is sent on, the signature automatically changes.
I found out this, and more in this article: Outlook Tips & Techniques: Signature Doesn't Appear After Changing an Open Message's Sending Account out at Windows IT Pro.
Personally, I typically don't have a default signature inserted, but manually add one, depending on what I'm doing. Not unlike this one:
Thanks for asking! Leo ------------------------------------------------------------------ Tech Questions? Get Answers! http://ask-leo.com Answer Helpful? http://ask-leo.com/linktoleo.html Really Helpful? http://buyleoalatte.com
Article C2377 - June 25, 2005
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Dear Leo,
Glad to see your posts here. I just have a small but very annoying problem. There are 3 different e-mail accounts and only 1 signature (for 3 accounts) in my outlook. After I created a message, I changed another account to send this mail, suddenly all the mail contents disappered. I have this problem many times; such a simple thing makes it difficult for me to promote our business. Can you give me a hand? Mangy thanks.
Have a good day with my best regards
Vincent Xu
Posted by: Vincent at October 11, 2005 9:07 PMWhat version of Outlook? It certainly shouldn't make the contents disappear when you simply select an account.
Posted by: Leo at October 11, 2005 9:38 PMLeo,
I disagree with your response. I have several accounts all with signatures. Some were set up with Outlook as the editor and some with Word as the editor.
The default account in Outlook is my gmail account. If I go to send a New message and select another account to send from, it will NOT insert any signature even though in Options it shows that signature for outgoing messages.
I am using Microsoft Office 2003. I have tried this on several computers with the same result.
Posted by: Glenn Mantel at January 27, 2009 10:38 AMin outlook 2003 and above (maybe 2000 was not able to test) right click on your signature there is a pop down that allows you to select which signature to use.
Just setup you signatures and away you go. use you most common as the default and right click the signature to change it on the fly.
Cheers - Norm
Posted by: Norman Plumley at July 1, 2009 11:34 AM