Microsoft has several email products. One of the most popular ones is the free version called Outlook.com. However, the feature set is different than the paid counterpart in Microsoft 365 (Previously called Office 365). One difference deals with creating your email signature. Most of the functionality exists with a few exceptions.
For starters, Microsoft has multiple versions of email products. These include:
- Outlook.com – this is the free webmail version that is a worthy competitor to Google’s Gmail. It’s the successor to Windows Live Mail and Hotmail.
- Outlook Office 365 – This is part of the yearly Microsoft Office 365 paid subscription service. New features are rolled out on a monthly basis.
- Outlook 2019 – This is an example of the paid standalone version. Users pay once, but at some point the features stop getting updated.
If you have one of the paid versions, you should use this Outlook signature tutorial instead.
Creating the Email Signature
For the most part, you can create very similar signatures between the Outlook versions. A noticeable difference is that you can’t insert business cards. These have the advantage of adding a vCard attachment to your emails. Another difference is that you can only have 1 email signature.
- Log in to Outlook.com with your credentials.
- Click the Settings icon on the toolbar. It looks like a gear.
- The Quick settings panel opens on the right side.
- In the Search textbox, type “signature”. As you start to type, Outlook filter settings.
- Click Email signature. The Compose and reply panel opens.
- Add in your desired signature elements. You can use the styling toolbar at the top to apply any formatting.
- You may also add images using the Insert Pictures button.
- Check the boxes to tell Outlook when to show your signature. If you don’t select an option, you’ll need to manually add the signature to an email.
- Click the Save button toward the top-right.
- Click the Close box [X] in the upper-right corner to close the Settings panel.
Manually Adding a Signature
If you didn’t select an inclusion option for your signature, you can manually add it to an email.
- Open your Inbox.
- Click the + New message menu option from the left side.
- Click the … toolbar button. It’s to the right of Discard.
The email signature you created will be added to the bottom of your email and the cursor will be several lines above.
If your signature doesn’t show, either you didn’t save one or you’re not composing your emails in HTML. That’s the default setting in Compose and reply, but sometimes people change it to plain text.
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