How to Create and Add Signatures in Outlook 2019

Adding a professional email signature to Outlook 2019 business profiles is simple to do and can have a significant positive impact on your external communications.

Using a professional email signature in Outlook proactively promotes your brand in a positive manner while also providing recipients with a digital business card containing your contact information.

This article showcases how to setup and create client-side email signatures in Outlook 2019. The native functionality of Outlook 2019 (as well as Outlook 2016) allows for the creation of a signature design to personalize your email messages, including all your important contact details and eye-catching images.

Create a new email signature in Outlook 2019

Creating email signatures in Outlook 2019 is simple and allows for all the important aspects of a professional signature to be included.

However, the signature editor in Outlook 2019 is fairly basic – only offering simple formatting options, limiting how elaborate you can make your email signature design.

Follow our guide below to learn how to automatically add an Outlook email signature.

1. Open Outlook 2019 from Windows using either the Start menu or the taskbar.

2. In Outlook 2019, do one of the following:

a. Click File > Options > Mail > Signatures…

b. Open a new email and click Signature > Signatures…

3. This will take you to the Signatures and Stationery window. Before you start to create your Outlook email signature, ensure your email address is correct under Choose default signature (hidden in the below screenshot):

4. Under Select signature to edit, click New, and enter a name for your Outlook signature template.

5. Under Edit signature, create and edit your signature. You have the option to change the font type, font colors, size, and text alignment.

6. To add other formatting, you will need to use Microsoft Word, e.g. bullets, tables, borders, etc. You will then need to copy and paste the signature into the Edit signature box. To add an image like a company logo, select the Image icon, find your image file, and click Insert.

7. Assign your signature in Outlook 2019 to new messages and/or replies/forwards.

8. Click OK to save your email signature. Your new signature will now be automatically included in all outgoing messages.

Adding images to your email signature

Imagery is a powerful tool in professional email signatures. It immediately draws the recipient’s eye to your signature, where they will find all the important information they need to interact with the sender and business.

This may be a company logo or a relevant marketing banner advertising a new offer, service, or promotion.

Adding imagery to email signatures in Outlook 2019 is simple. Open the Signatures tool from the File > Options > Mail menu (or Signature menu in a new email window) and select the chosen email signature that you want to customize.

Select the images icon from the ‘Edit Signature’ panel. This opens the Image Finder window, which allows you to search your device for the image you want to include in the email signature. Select your image and click Insert.

Once your image has been added to your Outlook signature, you can resize it to fit your design. Simply right-click the inserted image and select Picture. Select Size and edit the image dimensions to change the scale of the picture.

Keep the Lock aspect ratio option selected to avoid changing the shape or proportions of the image. This is especially important when adding a company logo.

How to get your email signature to auto-populate

In Outlook 2019, senders can decide whether they want email signatures in Outlook to be automatically added to every email, or to add a unique signature manually with each email.

To auto-populate emails with your default professional email signature, follow these steps:

1. Open the Signatures tool.

2. Under ‘Choose default signature’, assign an email address for the chosen signature.

3. Next, select a signature to be applied to ‘New messages’ from the drop-down menu.

This automatically applies the chosen signature to all new emails as the default.

However, to manually apply a chosen signature to an email, choose the Signatures tool in a new email window. The drop-down menu will show all saved signature templates. Simply select your chosen signature and it will appear in the email box.

Outlook for iOS & Android

It is also possible to create and apply professional email signatures in the Outlook app for Android and iOS devices.

Open the app and select Settings via the gear icon in either iOS or Android. Select Signature from the menu. On the following screen, simply enter a new email signature.

The iOS and Android app versions of Outlook are more limited than the desktop version, with only text options available.

Examples of professional email signatures in Outlook 2019 for Android may include:

“Sent from my phone. I will be back in the office on 9/5”

This lets the recipient know the email has been sent from a mobile device and may be used as an explanation as to why the email is written in short form. This also suggests to the recipient that the sender is currently out of the office or on the move.

“First name Surname
Job title
Company Building
Street address, ZIP code
Business phone number”

This provides all the important contact information the recipient needs to contact the sender or the business. While it doesn’t include the full range of images and links, it is an effective placeholder until the sender has access to the desktop app.

Finally, select the Checkmark icon in the top right-hand corner to save and apply your new email signature.

Outlook 2019 email signature management with Exclaimer

Learning how to change an email signature in Outlook is simple and does not usually pose an issue for employees. However, signature templates are difficult to manage when they need to be consistent across all users.

Without central control, businesses allow end users to update their signatures in Outlook as and when they want. This can hurt your brand reputation.

The best way to control email signatures in Outlook 2019 is to use third-party email signature software. This will deploy Outlook signatures either at the client-side or server-side level.

Outlook add-ins or on-premises email signature software

Using a client-side email signature solution lets users see their signature template as they compose an email in Outlook.

This provides them with more flexibility and control over which template they use. Older client-side offerings install an agent on each user’s workstation to deploy signature templates. More modern offerings provide a dedicated Outlook add-in that pushes signature templates automatically via an IT admin center.

Exclaimer’s cloud-based email signature software

On the other hand, a server-side solution adds signatures after an email is sent. This is perfect for companies that want to ensure signatures are added to all emails sent from any device. However, users are unable to see their signature templates when composing an email. This can be quite a jarring experience.

By using email signature software from Exclaimer, you get the best of both client-side and server-side deployment methods. You can easily design and control professional Outlook signatures for all users. Even better, these signatures will be automatically applied to all users. This means you get professional email signatures in Outlook when sending from any web-enabled device.

All signature templates are distributed directly to users’ Outlook clients and can include all manner of branding/marketing elements. This administrative task then becomes incredibly simple, allowing you to change email signatures in Outlook in minutes.

All you need to use Exclaimer’s email signature solution is for your local Active Directory to be synchronized and configured with Azure AD. The product can also be seamlessly migrated to Microsoft 365 (Office 365) later.

See how you can add signatures in Outlook easily with email signature management solutions

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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