Using your signatures on your desktop or notebook


Exporting signatures from Email Signature Pro and using them on your desktop email clients

We have received numerous queries from our users when we would provide a similar product for desktop / laptop email clients. As an intermediate solution, we have added a feature to export your signatures created on your iPhone using Email Signature Pro.

The export function allows you to send yourself an email with a separate HTML file attachment containing each signature. You can then copy the signatures of your choice to your email clients.

Note that not all brower/desktop email clients are able to import an HTML signature. On this page you will find some of the email clients that we have tested. We do not guarantee that this will work with your email client. However, we do believe that providing the signatures in HTML format will at least some of users to have consistent email signatures across all the email communication channels regardless of platform.

DISCLAIMER: Email Signature Pro is designed for the iPhone only. We added the export feature so you can use the HTML signatures outside of the iPhone. Any inability to integrate the HTML signatures with your particular desktop email client is not a bug or a flaw in our software. We make no guarantee that it will work with your particular email client.


Export the signatures from your iPhone
  1. Launch your Email Signature Pro
  2. Tap the Info button at the top right hand corner of the home page. (on the black bar next to the Signature title)
  3. Tap the Export option
  4. An email compose screen will appear with all signatures attached as HTML file attachments.
  5. Select an email account that you own and send the email to yourself.
  6. Go to your email client on your desktop (standalone client or browser) to get the email with the attachments.

Importing the signatures to your brower or standalone email client

Here's where the fun starts. Not all email clients are equal and some support HTML better than others. General Technotes:

  • If you need to copy the raw HTML, make sure you have a text editor that won't interpret HTML (TextEdit that ships with the Mac won't work). TextWrangler is powerful free editor that will do the job.
  • When pasting into a text edit box in the browser, the text edit boxes usually have two modes (the raw HTML mode where you can type or copy in the html code, and the view mode (WYSIWYG - what you see is what you get) which shows the final result). You will need to switch to raw mode to paste in the html and switch back to view or WYSIWYG mode to see the result.
The following is list of email clients that we have tested.
  1. Mail App on Snow Leopard supported - we have only managed to get the signature to work by doing the following:
    1. Drag the HTML signature attachment to your Firefox browser
    2. Right click in the browser and Select All and Copy
    3. Go to your Mail App, Mail->Preferences->Signatures to create a new signature for the email account
    4. Command-V to paste the signature into the signature window
    5. Note the images may display as question marks (which is not a problem)
    6. Create a new mail message and select the signature from the signature drop-down menu if it is set to be the default. Your signature should be inserted into the email.
    7. Note: do not use Safari because it pastes the signature differently into the Mail app.
    8. Note2: our tests show that the Mail App will not save the signature if the pasted signature does not contain any text. Either add some text to the signature or after you have pasted into the Mail App, add some text either before or after the pasted signature.
  2. Mail App on Leopard not completely supported. It does not import the HTML from the Mac clipboard properly.
    However, one of our users (Thanks Robert) pointed out it can be done partially. To add the linked images to your signature in the Mail App in Leopard:
    1. From your iPhone, send yourself a message using Email Signature
    2. Open the message in your Mail App on your Mac (Leopard)
    3. Highlight one linked button at a time. Copy it.
    4. Go to Preferences->Signatures and paste linked button image to your signature
    5. Repeat for each button
    6. Add any other text info etc
    7. Assign the new signature to your account(s)
  3. Thunderbird - supports one signature per account and the images are embedded in the outgoing email as opposed to urls.
    1. Save the HTML signature attachment to your Desktop or a folder of your choice.
    2. Go to Thunderbird->Tools->Account Settings, there should be an option to attach a signature. Choose the file that you saved to your Desktop.
    3. Limitations - the image is sometimes stretched in some email clients like Apple Mail. We haven't figured out why.
    4. Note: Thunderbird will embedded all the images in the outgoing email as opposed to urls, which will make the emails larger.
  4. Hotmail supported.
    1. Make sure you have a text editor that won't interpret HTML (TextEdit that ships with the Mac won't work). TextWrangler is powerful free editor that will do the job.
    2. Save the HTML signature attachement to your desktop, and open using TextWrangler or any text editor (Not TextEdit) and copy the raw html.
    3. Go to Hotmail (under Options->More options-> Customize your mail->Personal e-mail signature)
    4. Make sure the drop down says "Edit in HTML" (it will default to Rich Text so you probably need to switch it).
    5. Paste the signature and switch back to Rich Text to see it display properly.
  5. Gmail not supported natively It will not let you add a large body of text however there are Firefox plugins that workaround this.
    1. Choose a plugin such as WiseStamp or Blank Canvas Gmail Firefox plugin.
    2. Make sure you have a text editor that won't interpret HTML (TextEdit that ships with the Mac won't work). TextWrangler is powerful free editor that will do the job.
    3. Save the HTML signature attachment to your desktop, and open using TextWrangler or any text editor (Not TextEdit) and copy the raw html.
    4. Make sure you are in Html mode and paste the raw html into the text box.
  6. Outlook Express supported.
    1. Save the HTML signature attachement to your Desktop or a folder of your choice.
    2. Tools->Options->Signatures
    3. Create a new signature
    4. Edit the signature and choose the File option and load the file you saved
  7. Windows Mail (Vista) supported.
    1. Save the HTML signature attachement to your Desktop or a folder of your choice.
    2. Tools->Options->Signatures
    3. Create a new signature
    4. Edit the signature and choose the File option and load the file you saved
  8. Outlook 2007 not supported