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Knowledge base » Best practices for creating an Office 365 email signature

Best practices for creating an email signature

While creating the signature in Sigsync editor, you need to follow a few best practices to avoid issues.

Resolution:

Follow these points before designing the signature template in the Sigsync.

Signature layout

  • Use different cells within tables to place images or AD placeholders: Place the components in different cells within the table layout. Side by side positioning of the components prevents signature distortion in different resolution.
  • Avoid unwanted spacing between cells: Do not add unwanted padding between the cells. Use the padding if only required, or else set it to zero.
  • Avoid using new paragraphs as a line breaker: Paragraph spacing is different in different email clients which affect the signature structure. For example, there is no vertical spacing in web Outlook whereas default vertical spacing is added in Outlook for desktop. As a result, make use of the New Line option in the Sigsync editor to insert a new line in your email signature.
  • Avoid elements that end up in the recipient's spam folder: Don’t use shortened links in your signature since they are usually considered as spam. You can try other services that directly include your domain name. Also avoid using hosted or linked images as it may be blocked by some email clients.

HTML coding

  • Do not add CSS in the body or head tag: It's impossible to add CSS style to the email body or the head tag as email clients tend to skip such attributes. Use the CSS style inside the body tag to include the p (Paragraph) tag and the h (heading) tag.

    Example:

    <body>

    <h1 style="font-size:20px">Heading 1</h1>

    <p style="font-family:Arial">Pragraph</p>

    </body>

  • Use px (pixels) for defining font size or other properties in CSS: Avoid using pt (points) for defining the font size, line-height or spacing which may affect the text on the email template depending on the recipients space resizing and screen resolution settings.
  • Avoid using empty line (<p> &nbsp; </p>) as a vertical space in the signature template: The vertical spacing for paragraphs may vary with different email clients which may affect the signature structure. So avoid adding an empty line as vertical space in the HTML code.
  • Avoid using third party editors: Use of other third party editors to design a signature template may add extra tags that may not be supported in W3C standards. Make use of Sigsync Signature Generator to design the signatures which has a built-in editor to create or edit email signatures.

Signature components

  • Use Active directory placeholders: When text components are used instead of AD placeholders, it takes time to update the changes. AD placeholders, on the other hand, sync changes in real-time and keep you up to date by retrieving the most recent values. They can also be reused for a variety of purposes.
  • Some signature components cannot be added manually: Signature components like QR code, Analytics link, images etc cannot be added manually to the signature template. They need to be inserted from the Sigsync Generator components section. You can find more details about Signature components in the link.

Text, Fonts, Images

  • Use only web safe fonts in the Signature: Most devices include web safe fonts such as Arial, Comic Sans MS, Tahoma, Times New Roman, and others. If unsupported fonts are used, email clients will replace them with the default fonts.
  • Insert an image of a text font that is not available: If a specific font family is not available, create an image with the required font styled text to use in the email signature, but avoid using the entire signature template as the image.
  • Don't keep the text too long: Avoid lengthy descriptions in the email signature. Keep the disclaimer text simple, clear and understandable.
  • Make use of high resolution images: Using high-quality images in email signature is the best option as it is supported by modern devices and many email clients. Use CSS or HTML attributes to scale the image size as required.
  • Use of embedded images: Embedded images are sent as hidden email attachments and are always visible to the recipients, whereas hosted images are referenced as direct Web URLs and the recipients must download the image each time they view the message.
  • Insert PNG or JPG images: Most popular image formats are PNG or JPG. PNG is used if the image file is large and JPG is a compressed file with the same image quality.

Server-side signature

Disable the signature inserted by email clients, or your emails will have multiple signatures, especially if you use mobile signatures. The HTML code of the signature attached by the email client may have an effect on the Sigsync signature structure.

Client-side signature

  • Use Active Directory (AD) placeholders instead of text, to prevent users from making manual changes to the signature while composing the email.
  • When changing from server to client side signatures, ensure that all of the components used in the server side signature are supported in the client side.
  • Use distinct naming conventions for different signatures based on users, groups, or marketing campaigns.

 



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