Howto enforce unified formatting of Outlook signatures?

H

hagman

I've distributed signature files for all users in my firm with the
following (shortened) looks:

a) sig.htm

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:blush: = "urn:schemas-microsoft-
com:blush:ffice:blush:ffice"><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso8859-1">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt;mso-no-proof: yes; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-
fareast-f
ont-family: Calibri; COLOR: black">
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0; mso-layout-grid-align:
none">_______________________________
______________<BR>
Hagen von Eitzen</P>
<P style="margin:0; mso-layout-grid-align: none">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt;mso-no-proof: yes; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-
fareast-fo
nt-family: Calibri; COLOR: black">
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
</DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>

b) sig.rtf
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1031{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss
\fcharset0 Arial;}}

{\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue255;}
{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.15.1507;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 (text)
\par
\par
(text)\par
\fs16 (text)\par
(text)\par
}

c) sig.txt
(text)


Thus you will note that I want the signature to consist of black arial
text, the first part in 10pt size and the second in 8pt size (except
of course in text-only format). We have various different versions of
Outlook on different versions of Windows on our site, but the files
above should look barebone enough to be understandable by all
versions. A first test seems to confirm this as preparing a new
message always displays a well-formatted signature.

But it has turned out that weird things happen:
I have before me a mail that was written by A to B, then B replies to
A, A forwards to C, C replies to A, A replies to C, C forwards to B
(all in-house).
This mail contains three signatures of A. The first two signatures
look ok, but the third differs: It is in Times instead of Arial and
all in one font size (10pt) only. Some other metrics (paragraph
lineheight and margin) seem to be corrupted as well. Interestingly,
the enforced black colour *is* applied (though it would look better if
were the same colour as the forwarding mail text, i.e. typically
blue), but that was my fault as I specifically wrote "COLOR: black" in
the signature file.
The whole thing is somewhat unpredictable but seems to be related only
to forwarding/replying and not to original mails.

The files given above were produced essentially by producing the
desired signature in Outlook and boiling the result down to its
essentials (decreasing file size by more than 70%). Actually, when we
initially distributed signatures edited from within outlook by copying
them from box to box (and just touching it to change the last name and
pbx), the inconsistency was even worse (i.e. already apparent with
original mails and not only with forward/reply); that's why we removed
all references to MsoNormal etc. - after all this seemde to be a big
improvement...

So the question is:
How can I produce uniform signature files that cause uniform Outlook
behaviour?

Thanks for any information,
hagman
 
F

frier

I've distributed signature files for all users in my firm with the
following (shortened) looks:

a) sig.htm

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:blush: = "urn:schemas-microsoft-
com:blush:ffice:blush:ffice"><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso8859-1">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt;mso-no-proof: yes; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-
fareast-f
ont-family: Calibri; COLOR: black">
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0; mso-layout-grid-align:
none">_______________________________
______________<BR>
Hagen von Eitzen</P>
<P style="margin:0; mso-layout-grid-align: none">(text)</P>
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt;mso-no-proof: yes; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-
fareast-fo
nt-family: Calibri; COLOR: black">
<P style="margin:0;">(text)</P>
</DIV>
</BODY>
</HTML>

b) sig.rtf
{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang1031{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss
\fcharset0 Arial;}}

{\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue255;}
{\*\generator Msftedit 5.41.15.1507;}\viewkind4\uc1\pard\f0\fs20 (text)
\par
\par
(text)\par
\fs16 (text)\par
(text)\par

}

c) sig.txt
(text)

Thus you will note that I want the signature to consist of black arial
text, the first part in 10pt size and the second in 8pt size (except
of course in text-only format). We have various different versions of
Outlook on different versions of Windows on our site, but the files
above should look barebone enough to be understandable by all
versions. A first test seems to confirm this as preparing a new
message always displays a well-formatted signature.

But it has turned out that weird things happen:
I have before me a mail that was written by A to B, then B replies to
A, A forwards to C, C replies to A, A replies to C, C forwards to B
(all in-house).
This mail contains three signatures of A. The first two signatures
look ok, but the third differs: It is in Times instead of Arial and
all in one font size (10pt) only. Some other metrics (paragraph
lineheight and margin) seem to be corrupted as well. Interestingly,
the enforced black colour *is* applied (though it would look better if
were the same colour as the forwarding mail text, i.e. typically
blue), but that was my fault as I specifically wrote "COLOR: black" in
the signature file.
The whole thing is somewhat unpredictable but seems to be related only
to forwarding/replying and not to original mails.

The files given above were produced essentially by producing the
desired signature in Outlook and boiling the result down to its
essentials (decreasing file size by more than 70%). Actually, when we
initially distributed signatures edited from within outlook by copying
them from box to box (and just touching it to change the last name and
pbx), the inconsistency was even worse (i.e. already apparent with
original mails and not only with forward/reply); that's why we removed
all references to MsoNormal etc. - after all this seemde to be a big
improvement...

So the question is:
How can I produce uniform signature files that cause uniform Outlook
behaviour?

Thanks for any information,
hagman
Click to expand...

Use HTML coding that renders correct on all major email clients - and
using deployment software will save you much time ... ;-)

Use this online email signature designer:
http://www.brandedmails.com/editor.shtml

Learn from these templates and test their appearance on your clients:
http://www.emailsignature.eu/phpBB2/email-signature-templates-f14.html

Enjoy!
</Jesper>
 
H

hagman

Use HTML coding that renders correct on all major email clients - and
using deployment software will save you much time ... ;-)
Click to expand...

Hm, I don't think I used awfully weird things that should prevent any
major GUI-based email client from displaying correctly. Is there any
repositiry of things to avoid (e.g. never use multiple <p> tags, work
with <br/> instead)?.
It looks like the problem is rather that some clients (sometimes!)
decide to change what I wrote instead of copying it verbatim - imagine
this would happen to content instead of "only" style!
Use this online email signature designer:http://www.brandedmails.com/editor.shtml
Click to expand...

I'll try it though t does not seem to be much more restrictive than my
handmade solution, but maybe it's just one tiny feature that does the
trick...
Learn from these templates and test their appearance on your clients:http://www.emailsignature.eu/phpBB2/email-signature-templates-f14.html

Enjoy!
</Jesper>
Click to expand...


I would have to implement these templates and test by multiple forward/
reply scenarioes as the problems never occur with freshly written
mails. Thereffore it may take some time until I can reprot success or
failure.

hagman
 

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