HTML signatures are debated on their worth. Some people think that it is visual chaos detracting from the important information. Others, think that it is visual bliss allowing them to highlight important bits and create a more aesthetically pleasing email.
I think that it is great. I don’t have a problem with it, but I have an email client (Mail.app) that reads HTML email quite well. I suppose if I had a text only client or a client that did not interpret HTML email as well, I would not like it as much. I do think that a majority of the current user market has decent support for HTML email.
On to the tutorial. I am writing this because Mail.app does not provide an easy way to do this. Until you know the process it can be quite a pain.
Create Your Signature
Your signature should use basic css (should be inline) and basic html. You will not want to add any imbedded videos or flash. My html signature is very simple consisting of one image with my name and blog url.
I simply placed this into an html file and viewed it into a browser. I will not be going on about how to do this. You either know how to create an html document or can use an online resource to figure it out.
Please be aware that it is best if any images are online from your domain or flickr or something. Do not reference images locally.
Preparing Mail.app
We will want to first add a signature to Mail.app to start so that we can replace it.
Open up Mail.app and click on the “Mail” menu item then select “Preferences”.
Next we will want to find the “Signatures” tab and add a new signature. Remember to give it a good name so that we can find how to replace it later. I named mine “HTML Signature”.
At this point it is not important what is in the body of the signature. For my case I have just added the text version of what my HTML signature will look like.
Now that the signature is added you will want to add it to the appropriate account by dragging it to the an account listed below “All Signatures”. To do this simply click on your new signature name (“HTML Signature” in my case) and drag it to the correct account and drop it.
Now let’s “Quit” Mail.app by going to the “Mail” menu item and selecting “Quit” (Command-Q).
Getting to know your .plist File
This where it gets all a bit tricky and quite ridiculous that Apple could not come up with a better way to do this.
Now you will need to open Finder and navigate to
1. Home
2. Library
3. Mail
4. Signatures
In this folder you may see several files, but we are only interested in one of them at this time. Open the “SignaturesByAccount.plist” in your favorite text editor. This file holds all the information about your accounts and what signatures are attached where.
It could be quite a large file depending on the number of accounts/signatures you have.
In my example I have a signature named “HTML Signature”, this is the key words that I will be looking for inside of the file.
I have found that string in my .plist file and now we need to remember at least the first few characters of the signature unique id. In my example my file id is “51929A36-4736-4BFE-8F6B-A82378EE35F7″, but remembering “5192″ will be good enough.
Now that you have that whole string memorized, or at least the first 4 we should be ready to close the file and Finder.
Out with the Text in with the HTML
Finally we are at the point to replace the text signature with our fancy new HTML signature. The process is pretty painless from here on out.
Open up “Safari”, go to the “File” menu item and click on “Open File…” (Command-O). You will want to open the HTML file that you created with your signature in it.
Now that you see your HTML signature in “Safari” go to the “File” menu item and click on “Save As…” (Command-S). Now we need to save this as “51929A36-4736-4BFE-8F6B-A82378EE35F7.webarchive” in:
1. Home
2. Library
3. Mail
4. Signatures
Select the correct file that matches our signature unique id and click “Save”, and then click “Replace”.
Finished
Open up Mail.app and start a new email. Select the “HTML Signature” and there it is.
Now if you did not upload the images to the web, then it probably will not work out right.
I hope this helped.
Design