Good Practices for designing an email signature

A signature is the perfect opportunity to brand every message you send. It can establish and reinforce who you and the company you represent are. Email signatures can help to boost your brand, increase engagement and generate leads. In other words, your email signature serves as your digital business card. Follow this guide to create and design professional signature templates effortlessly.

Tips to create and manage templates Tables for consistent signature design

Guidelines to design professional email signature

  • Use Table (Rows and Columns) format for a consistent signature design
  • Dynamic fields to directly pull Active Directory details
  • Display / Hide fields property to remove empty AD fields
  • Use high resolution images
  • Set Alt text for the images
  • Use images with PNG or JPG formats
  • Allow signatures to be compatible with dark modes
  • Sync AD changes for new updates in Active Directory
  • Disable default signatures from Outlook
  •  

Use Table (Rows and Columns) format for a consistent signature design

Tables for consistent signature designTables for consistent signature design

It is recommended to use tables to keep the signature layout consistent and to avoid signature elements fields shifting around in different mail clients and screen resolutions. Sigsync provides different table components as per the design requirement. To insert a table, just drag and drop a required shape of the table component into the design area from the left side of the editor.

Always use tables

You can set the 'Table' properties on the right side of the editor

Set the Table properties

Insert a custom table

To insert a table with multiple rows and columns, simply drag and drop the 'Custom table' component.

Drag and drop custom table

Enter the number of columns and rows as per the design requirement and click 'Apply' button

Enter the number of columns and rows

Insert a row

To insert a row, select the 'Table Cell' and choose the 'Table Rows' option under the 'Row & Column - split, Merge, Insert, Delete' tab on the right side 'Properties' Panel. Now, select 'Insert Above' or 'Insert Below' from the dropdown

Insert row below

Click the 'Apply' button

Click apply button

Delete a row

To insert a row, select the 'Table Cell' and choose the Table Rows' option under the 'Row & Column - split, Merge, Insert, Delete' tab on the right side 'Properties' Panel . Now, select 'Delete Row' from the dropdown

Delete selected row

Click the 'Apply' button

Merge Rows

To merge rows, select the 'Table Cell' and choose the 'Table Rows' option under the 'Row & Column - split, Merge, Insert, Delete' tab on the right side ‘Properties’ Panel . Now, select 'Merge Row' from the dropdown and enter the number of cells to be merged.

Merge Rows

Click the 'Apply' button

Merge Rows

Merge columns

To merge columns, select the 'Table Cell' and choose the 'Table Columns' option under the 'Row & Column - split, Merge, Insert, Delete' tab on the right side 'Properties' Panel . Now, select 'Merge Column' from the dropdown and enter the number of cells to be merged.

Merge Columns

Click the 'Apply' button

Merge Columns

Dynamic fields to directly pull Active Directory details

Dynamic fields Dynamic fields to directly pull Active Directory details

Sigsync supports Azure Active Directory fields (Example: ${displayName}, ${jobTitle}, ${companyName} ) to include in Signature. These fields automatically pull details from your active directory. With this, you can manage all the users signatures in a single template.

You can use individual as well as group of Active Directory Fields (Personal, Address, Contacts)in your signature.

To insert a single Active Directory field, drag and drop the 'AD Fields' component from the left side panel.

Select the required Active Directory fields

Select the required Active Directory fields from the list and click the 'Apply' button

Use Active directory fields

To insert a group of Active Directory fields, simply drag and drop the required component in the template design area.

For instance: Let’s drag and drop 'Personal' fields component

Drag and drop Personal fields

You can keep the default fields or add new fields. Click the 'Apply' button

Add new fields

Display / Hide fields property to remove empty AD fields

Display / Hide Signature fields Display / Hide fields property to remove empty AD fields

To prevent empty fields in your signature when the corresponding Active Directory value is not available, Sigsync provides 'Display / Hide Signature fields' property in the signature editor.

For an instance:

Suppose if 'Fax Number' is not filled in your active directory, an empty field will appear in the email signature. To remove the empty space, just set the 'Hide' property for the label/icon around the 'Fax Number' field.

In the below screenshot, after the label 'F:' there is an empty space in the preview pane

Empty space in the preview pane

To remove the empty space, select the label and under the 'Display / Hide signature fields' tab on the right side 'Properties' panel, choose the 'fax number' field and click the 'Apply' button.

The empty field with the label gets removed on the preview pane.

empty field with the label gets removed

Use high resolution images

Use high resolution images Use high resolution images

If your email signature looks blurry when viewed on a mobile phone, tablet, PC ,the simplest option is to use a high resolution image in your email signature and scale it down to the desired size using the height and width attributes.

Important Note: When using large-scale images in your email signature, there is a possibility that your email client, such as Outlook, Outlook Web Access (OWA), or Gmail may display them as attachments. This occurs because email clients handle images in signatures differently. When the actual image used in the signature is large, the email client may be unable to display it directly within the email body. Consequently, the image is treated as an attachment rather than being shown as part of the email content. This issue is particularly noticeable in replies and forwarded emails. The recommended solution is to resize the original images according to the specified height and width in your signature templates for each image.

To insert Profile Photo from Active directory, drag and drop 'Profile Photo' component into the template design area.

Removed empty fields

Click the 'Apply' button

Click apply

You can set the image width to the required size

Set the image width

To insert a banner image or static profile photo in the signature template, drag and drop the 'Banner' image component into the design area.

Drag and drop banner

Upload the image either from the local computer or use an online picture and click the 'Apply' button

Click apply

Set the image width to the required size

Set the image width

Set Alt text for the images

Alt text describes what the image is supposed to be if the images are not appearing for the recipients. It will make your signature more accessible to the visually impaired and will serve as a backup if your image cannot be shown for some reason.

For instance: Add Alt Tag and Image Title for the Banner Image

Drag and drop 'Banner' image component to the design area

Include Alt text for the images

Drag and drop 'Banner' image component to the design area

Upload the image

Enter the appropriate Alt Tag and Image Titles and click the 'Apply' button

Enter the appropriate Alt Tag

Use images with PNG or JPG formats

Use images with PNG or JPG formatsUse images with PNG or JPG formats

It's recommended to utilize standard image formats like PNG or JPG (JPEG), which are supported by the vast majority of email clients. Before including images in your signature, ensure that they are scaled down.

For instance: Insert a banner image

Drag and drop 'Banner' image component to the design area

Drag and drop banner

Choose either 'Local picture' from the computer or 'Online Picture'. In the below screenshot 'Browse From Local' is selected

Upload the image

Select the banner image

Select the image

Enter the appropriate Alt Tag and Image Titles and click the 'Apply' button

Set alt tag

Set the image width to the required size

Set the image width

Allow signatures to be compatible with dark modes

Consider how your signature will seem against a dark background when selecting font colors, icons, images etc. Use images or icons with translucent backgrounds if feasible.

Sigsync provides pre-designed dark mode signature templates from its 'Signature Gallery'.

Select 'Manage Signature' > 'Signature Gallery' tab from the Sigsync dashboard

Dark mode signature templates

Choose the 'Dark Mode Signatures' from the category panel and pick any template suitable for you.

Dark mode signature

You can keep or modify the template as per the requirement

Dark mode signature

After the modification, 'Save' the template.

Sync AD changes for new updates in Active Directory

If you've added new users or changed any details in your Office 365 Active Directory, sync the changes with Sigsync. This ensures that the new updates for your email signatures are available. This syncing process ensures secure login by redirecting you to the 'Microsoft Sign in page'.

To sync the Active Directory changes select the 'Manage Signatures' and 'Settings' tabs from the Sigsync dashboard.

Navigate to settings

Click the ‘Sync AD Changes Now’ button and proceed with the authentication in Microsoft sign in page.

Sync AD changes

Disable default signatures from Outlook

If you have set a default signature in Outlook, just disable the default signature to avoid your recipients getting both default signature and Sigsync signature.

Follow the below steps to disable Outlook default signatures for individual users in OWA ( Outlook Web Application)

  1. Login to Exchange Admin center.
  2. Choose 'permissions' from the left panel and click the 'Outlook Web App policies' tab

    Outlook Web app policies

  3. Double-click the policy that is assigned to the user to stop adding the OWA signature.

    Outlook Web app policies

  4. Navigate to features and click on the More options link to get more features.

    Navigate to features

  5. Uncheck the Email signature feature as shown below.

    Uncheck the Email signature

Click here to disable outlook default signatures for all the users at once

 

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