Outlook 2007 Email Stationery

Yesterday, one of our clients asked us for help installing their custom HTML email stationery, which we had designed for them.

"No problem" we thought, until we realised that Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 works in a very different way to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (the previous version). It didn't take us long to sort it out, but we thought we should post this short tutorial to help others wanting to add custom email stationery to Outlook 2007.

Design your email stationery

The first thing you need to do is design your email stationery.

It's best practice to test your email stationery in a range of email clients and browsers. Also make sure that the design is accessible.

Saving your HTML file

Now that you have your design, you need to save it in the correct place so that Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 can use it as a 'theme'.

We need to make sure that you have hidden files & folders shown on your computer. To do this, follow these simple steps:

1. Open up 'My Computer'
2. Click 'Tools' from the top toolbar and select 'Folder Options'
3. Click the 'View' tab and scroll to 'Hidden files and folders' within the 'Advanced settings' section
4. Ensure the radio button is selected for 'Show hidden files and folders'
5. Click Apply and then OK

We can now save the HTML file created earlier by doing the following:

1. Open up 'My Computer'
2. Double click on your main hard-drive (e.g. C:) where your programs and operating system are installed
3. Double click on 'Documents and Settings'
4. Double click on the folder of the user that you use to log in with (eg. User, Joe Bloggs, Administrator, etc)
5. Double click on 'Application Data'
6. Double click on 'Microsoft'
7. Double click on 'Stationery' and save your HTML email stationery into this folder using a suitable file name that you can understand later on (eg. ABC Company Email Stationery)

NB. For those of you fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be using Vista, the path above would be: [drive] > Program Files > Common Files > Microsoft Shared > Stationery

Configuring Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Email Stationery

Now that we've created the HTML file and saved it in the correct location, we can configure Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to use it as stationery on all new emails.

1. Open up Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
2. Click on 'Tools' from the top toolbar and click 'Options' (see image below):
   
   
   
   
    
3. Click on the 'Mail Format' tab (see below):
   
   
   
   
    
4. Under the 'Stationery and Fonts' section select 'Stationery and Fonts' (see below):
   
   
   
   
    
5. Select the 'Personal Stationery' tab and then click on 'Theme' (see below):
   
   
   
   
    
6. Locate your stationery in the theme list (using the name you saved the HTML file as) and then click OK (see below):
   
   
   
   
    
7. Click OK, then OK again.
8. Your email stationery is ready to go!

Has this helped you?