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Nov 16

Gmail HTML Signature Bookmarklet

Posted in: Gmail, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on June 10, 2008 by CyberNet.

html gmail signature bookmarklet.png

One of the things that still surprises me is that Google has not released any way to create HTML signatures for emails in Gmail. As a result there have been a descent number of Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox that give users the chance to automatically insert HTML signatures into an email, but for some of you a simple bookmarklet might be all you need.

To create a bookmarklet that will insert one of your HTML signatures all you have to do is head on over to this site. Once there you should see a rich-text box similar to the one in the screenshot above. You can customize the signature that will appear in the email by inserting online graphics, creating tables, and much more. If you would rather work with the raw HTML code to develop your signature just click the “HTML” button located at the far end of the second toolbar.

After you’re done just move on to the next step to receive your bookmarklet. You can repeat the process as many times as you want in case you find yourself needing more than one signature, and all you have to do is store each one in your bookmarks. Then when you’re composing an email go ahead and select the appropriate signature to have it automatically added to the content area. This works with both new emails and replies/forwards.

There’s only one bad thing that I’ve discovered with this so far, and it’s that the signature is automatically appended onto the end of the email. If you’re composing a new message that shouldn’t matter too much, but if you’re writing a reply it will appear after the quoted portion. I think a better solution for this bookmarklet would be to insert the signature at the current location of the cursor, which essentially lets the user choose the position on-the-fly.

What I’m really holding out for is an HTML signature solution to pass through Gmail Labs.