Another thing I get asked about quite a lot is how I created the email signature that is at the bottom of all my outgoing mails. Of course, by email signature, I mean the formatted text giving all my own details, and company info (almost like a business card) that makes it easier for people to contact me if they need to.

Most email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird etc.) allow you to create what are known as HTML signatures for your emails, and today I wanted to point you in the direction of a service that helps you create your own.

I crafted my own signature myself, but the website htmlsig.com helps you create your own signature using a number of layouts, one of which I’m sure will be perfect for most of my readers. While they do offer a paid service, they also allow you to create a free signature and then copy it to your email client (they provide instructions). The only downside is that if you use a logo in your signature (and I recommend you do), they say that they delete your image from their server 30 days after creation (although I am not sure this is true) – so you may need to do a little bit of jiggery-pokery in the resulting HTML file to point it to your own version of the image that you host somewhere else (e.g. Your own Web site).

Ideally I’d give you instructions for that here, but every email client (and individual versions often) are slightly different! As an example, in Apple Mail 8.2 (current version at the time of writing), you need to find the file in your ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Signatures folder that contains the HTML code for your signature. Once you have opened it in Text Edit, you can go ahead and edit the code that points to your logo on HTML Sig’s server to one that you have somewhere else (see below for an example of what you are looking for, with identifying information blurred).

Now I know that sounds a little complicated, but it really isn’t! Worst case scenario is that you’ll make a mess of your signature, and you may have to delete it in your mail client and start again.

If you need help with creating your own signature, please do give me a call and I’ll try to help. All my details are on the contact page, or you can use the social media links at the top left of this page.