5 Tip Friday 153 — Mail
Thursday, 28 February 2013
1/ Adding links to Mail signatures — You can add a URL to a Mail signature easily – Mail>Preferences and click the Signatures tab, click the Plus button to create a new signature, name it, then type in or copy a URL into the left field. Anything that starts with http:// is usually enough for recipients to be able to follow the link.Drag the named signature in the middle column onto the Mail account (if you have more than one) in the right column to assign it to that.
But what if you want a graphic or logo with a URL linked to it?
Make a new Email message and drag the logo into the message field. Select the logo, choose Edit from Mails menus, and select Add Link. Type or paste the link into the window and OK it.
Now cut the logo (or copy it) and paste it into the Preferences Signatures' field.
2/ Make Mail more instructive — This one's easy. Mail these days ships with the labels on the toolbar icons turned off. Turn them back on: hold down the Control key on your keyboard and click the grey area in the title bar – choose Icon & Text from the pop-out. This also works in new email windows – press Command N for new message, and Control Click on its grey toolbar, too. 3/ Now that you've done that, notice Photo Browser and Show Stationary — These options only appear in New Message windows and they're worth noticing. Photo Browser access your iPhoto and Photo Booth photos without iPhoto even being open (also Aperture, if you have that). Drag them in from here, easy! Also notice you can resize them to suit – on the right, you have Actual Size, Large, Medium and Small options while over on the left, you see the resulting file size for your choice. Remembering most ISPs don't let anything bigger than 6MB through is good to remember.
4/ Stationary — Apple has included some templates. Choose one after clicking Show Stationary,click on the text to replace it, and drag a picture from the Photo Browser over the default placeholder to replace that, and people with Macs and PCs receive these lovely coloured emails.
Extra Tip: The Birthday template with daisies changes background colours when you click it, cycling through four choices (main pic).
5/ Personalise your correspondents — To add a picture to a sender in Mac OS X Mail, make sure the sender is in your Mac OS X Address Book (hover your mouse over the sender, click on the little down-pointing triangle to the right of the name and choose Add To Address Book/Add to Contacts from the pop-out. Quit Mail.
Now open the Mac OS X Address Book (called Contacts in Mountain Lion onwards).
Highlight the address book card you want to assign the picture.
Drag an image to the picture square on the card and drop it (if you click the square, you will see little preset pictures you can use).
If the image is too big, resize or crop it using the tool that comes up and click Set.
Restart Mac OS X Mail.
