Using Email Stationery

If you use HTML as your message format or if you use Word as your message editor, you can use stationery to enhance your message. Stationery is a preformatted theme, much like a theme in FrontPage. Selecting a stationery affects how fonts, bullets, and horizontal lines are displayed within your email message. Stationery can be helpful when sending newsletters or invitations for a personal activity such as a retirement party or birthday celebration. An invitation to a 50th birthday party using stationery is displayed in Figure 18.26.

Figure 18.26. Using stationery provides a background and formatting information.

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TIP

I never use stationery. It can look very nice, but it creates larger messages that are often unreadable by the recipient. Be sure that your recipient accepts and welcomes HTML messages and stationery before sending a message using stationery.


Using Microsoft Outlook Stationery

To create a message using one of Outlook's built-in stationeries, choose Actions, New Mail Using, More Stationery to display Figure 18.27.

Figure 18.27. Select the stationery you want to use for your mail message.

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NOTE

If you've previously used any of Outlook's built-in stationery, those stationery choices appear in the Actions, New Mail Using pop-out menu. Click a stationery name to quickly select that stationery.


Select the stationery you want to use. Selecting the name of the stationery previews the stationery in the bottom half of the window. Outlook offers 23 default stationery choices, although not all are installed with the default installation. Some stationery choices might require your Office or Outlook CD.

If you aren't satisfied with any of the installed stationery choices, you can get more stationery from the Internet. Click the Get More Stationery button to connect to the Office Update site to download additional stationery.

When you select your desired stationery, click OK to open a new mail message using your chosen stationery.

Creating Your Own Stationery

You can also create your own stationery to use with Outlook. One of the most common types of stationery is a company letterhead that can contain such items as the corporate logo, company name, address, telephone numbers, and Web address. You can use the Outlook editor to create your own stationery or use Notepad to write your stationery in HTML code.

To create your own stationery, select Options from the Tools menu and select the Mail Format tab. Click the Stationery Picker button to display Figure 18.28.

Figure 18.28. The Stationery Picker dialog box enables you to edit existing stationery and create new stationery.

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To create your own stationery, click the New button to display Figure 18.29.

Figure 18.29. Create your own stationery from scratch or use a template.

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Enter a name for your new stationery and choose whether to start from a blank stationery, use an existing stationery as a template, or use a file as a template. If you design your stationery in FrontPage or Word and save that stationery in an HTML file, you can use that HTML file as the basis for your stationery.

Click Next to edit your custom stationery. You can change fonts, background pictures, and colors. When you're done editing your custom stationery, click OK twice to return to the Mail Format Options dialog box. Choose your new stationery from the Stationery drop-down list or click OK and select your stationery manually when you want to create a new mail message.

Using Microsoft Word Styles to Create Stationery

If you're using Microsoft Word as your message editor, you can use built-in themes for stationery. To use the built-in themes, open a new message window and position your cursor in the message body. Choose Format, Theme to display the Theme dialog box (see Figure 18.30).

Figure 18.30. Use this dialog box to create your own theme.

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You can select one of Word's existing themes by clicking the theme name and then clicking OK. Your email will automatically change to the theme selected. The three check boxes at the bottom of the Themes window enable you to turn on or off the following items:

  • Vivid Colors Selecting this option increases the range of colors used to display your theme.

  • Active Graphics Changing this option affects how your graphics are displayed in your theme.

  • Background Image Clearing this option removes the background image from your theme. It does not remove the background color.

The Style Gallery button enables you to change your email into a preformatted document such as a business fax or contemporary letter. Your email takes on the properties of any template selected. You'll be able to utilize any of the styles associated with that particular template. For example, selecting Elegant Fax enables you to format text in the email with the Company Name style.

For more information about using the Style Gallery with Microsoft Word, see Special Edition Using Word 2003.




Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
ISBN: 0789729563
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 426

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