Many email packages let you create a standard “signature” file to attach to the end of your outgoing messages. Signatures often contain your name and email address so they’re distributed with your email even if the headers get removed. People sometimes also include their work phone number, and sometimes a favorite saying or quotation. It is considered good netiquette to keep your signatures short, usually under 6 lines, so that they don’t take up excessive space in recipient’s mailboxes.
You can check exactly what your email looks like with a signature by sending an email to yourself. Some email packages allow you to attach signatures to some email and not to others, or to select from a set of different signatures that you’ve prepared for different audiences.
If your email package doesn’t automatically support signatures, then you can put a signature in an easily accessible text file, or in an email that you send to yourself, and then copy and paste that text into each email to manually add a signature.
Signature art. Some people include inventive graphics in their signatures made from ASCII characters. Signature art usually only looks good in a proportional font where each character takes up the same amount of space. This is why people often set a proportional font as the default for their incoming email, such as “courier” or “courier new”. Some particularly good signatures collected over the years from across the Internet are shown below.
|%|// | ~ ~ | ^( @ @ )^ -----o000o-_/-o000o---------- unknown |
o o/ _ o _| / |_ o_ o/ o /| | / _o o | o/ o/_ / | /| / / | /) | ( /o / ) | ( / | / / --------------------------------------------------------------- balrog@bnr.ca - Opinions are mine or stolen but maybe not BNR's |
/ Dale Murphy / / ' , / // 1047 Lee //, _/ //, Rockledge, FL 32955 _-//' / // `__/_ /,)-~>> _` (/ // // // (( (( |
Tuyen(twin) Vu ("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ st93werk@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu `@_ @ ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' Lockheed Marietta EPI Center _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,' 1 Federal St., ((().-'' ((().' (((.-' Camden, NJ 08102 tuyenvd@esc.camden.mmc.com 1-609-338-4866
|
.-~~-.--. : ) .~ ~ -. /.- ~~ . Best Wishes..... > `. .' |
''~`` ( o o ) +------------------.oooO--(_)--Oooo.---------------------+ | Andrej Gombar | | E-mail: drej@engsoc.carleton.ca | | Carleton University http://chat.carleton.ca/~agombar | | Ottawa, Canada ( ) | +--------------------- (----( )-----------------------+ _) ) / (_/ |
_ david levine, president coming soon to the _ __ |
______________________________ | | / )| Jason Hassay |( / / |University of Texas at Austin | _( (_ | Masters Information Sciences | _) )_ ((( >|_/->______________________ |
@ @@*@@ @@@@@@@ 00 ############_____ 0 || |
* o! / o / o o M E R R Y / o o _ / o o C H R I S T M A S / o o o /o o o and a /_ o o o / o o o o_ H A P P Y /o o o o /_ o o o o o o N E W Y E A R / o o o o o / o o o o o o --/ --/ -!=!- -- -- ___) (___ --------- |
Randy Schaub randy@meitx.com / / / _/ ____ _ _/ / / El / * * /^^^] _O/_/ [ ] ZORRO / [ / _ / / BLANCO [ [ / / _/ _[ [ /_/ [[[ [[[ [[[ |
_______________________________________ ___ | Tel: +30 1 8253634 Fax: +30 1 8835645 | _______/~~~___ | | evercom@damon.gr |_______________________===== //}+ | http://www.damon.gr/evercom | @' ~~~| /~~~ | | Internet Communications Consultants | (+) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
Resources. The following newsgroup and web sites provide more information on signatures:
- alt.fan.warlord — Signature newsgroup with archived discussions.
- Coolsig.com — Collects cool signatures.