How many lines can a Gmail signature be?

You probably know how to customize your email signatures and set them up as default messages when composing emails from Microsoft Word or Apple Mail. But if you're using Google's popular web-based mail client—Gmail—you might not realize that there are some limitations on what kind of formatting options you have available with respect to adding signature text.  The good news is that it isn't difficult to adjust the length of your signature so that any recipient who receives your email will see something legible. Here's how to control the number of characters allowed in your Gmail Signature Line.

How do I put a line in my email signature?

To create a new signature line in Gmail, just click on the arrow next to the Save draft button at the top right corner of your screen. A dropdown menu appears where you can select Edit Email Settings & Signatures.

Then enter the name of the person whose signature you want to use and then type out your desired signature. You'll notice that after you finish typing, the total character count for your signature decreases automatically by one space every time you hit Enter. This is because Gmail strips all extraneous punctuation marks (including periods) and replaces them with spaces. When the final word is reached, another period gets inserted before showing the next signature line. The result is that each signature line only has 140 characters instead of 150 characters like most other online web services allow. If you need even fewer characters than this limit allows, don't fret! There are easy ways to reduce the size of your signature without losing its essential information. We've covered these methods below.

If you prefer, however, you could always copy and paste your entire signature directly into the box provided in the editor window. However, doing this means that anyone receiving an email with your signature won't be able to edit their own signature to make changes to the way it looks.

How do you add a signature line in Outlook?

Outlook 2007 users will find that they also cannot adjust the maximum number of characters per signature line. Instead, they must manually cut down their signatures whenever possible. To do this, simply highlight the portion of your existing signature that you'd like to remove. Then go to Format" Font" Character Spacing. Change the value under Minimum Characters Between Paragraphs to whatever amount feels comfortable for you. Click OK and restart your browser. Your signature should now contain less words but still look readable.

Microsoft Office 2010 users can actually increase the number of characters allowed within a single signature line. In MS Word 2010, open File - Options - Advanced - AutoCorrect Options. Under the Text Replacement tab, choose Replace special characters... and replace all instances of {COMP} with 120%. For example, replacing {COMP} with 120% would convert COMPANYNAME
to Company Name. Now when you compose a new document containing your signature, the replacement feature will prevent Word from stripping away unnecessary portions of your lengthy signature. Unfortunately though, unlike in Gmail, the resulting size reduction won't affect more than one space between sentences.

How do you insert a black line in an email?

It turns out that inserting a simple horizontal rule anywhere inside a normal body of an HTML email works fine in Gmail. Just enclose your important content inside two tags like this:

<hr /&

And everything above the hr tag will show up normally while anything enclosed inside the hr tag will appear on a separate page break. Of course, if you really wanted to keep things clean, you could always apply CSS styling to achieve similar effects.

How do I change my email signature line?

Now that we've discussed why people often run into problems trying to include longer signatures in Gmail, let me share a few tips on changing yours. First off, remember that you can easily delete unwanted parts of your signature. Simply highlight the section that you want to eliminate and press Delete key. Next, scroll back up to the beginning part of your signature and highlight it again. Then press Cmd+C (or Ctrl+C) to save the selection. Finally, press Cmd+V (Ctrl+V) to paste the selected text elsewhere. Repeat the same procedure until the last bit of your signature is deleted. It takes about 10 minutes to complete, but once done, you'll never have to worry about accidentally hitting the wrong keys to shorten your signature ever again.

Another method you can employ to shrink the size of your signature involves splitting it up across multiple lines using the HTML code here:

[br]line1 [br][substeps]line2[/substeps]line3[/substeps][/line]

However, since this technique requires proper knowledge of HTML codes, it's best used by those familiar enough with computer languages to understand the concept behind it. On the bright side, it doesn't require any additional software installation. Also note that the previous paragraph contains three paragraphs including an H4 heading. Since Gmail displays headings differently than regular letters, you can avoid getting confused by applying styles to specific sections.

For instance, let's say you want to format the first subheading to boldface. All you need to do is wrap the H4 heading around a span element like this:

span class="boldtext">H4 Header

Here's the kicker: Gmail will treat bolded texts exactly the same way it does regular ones. So if you want to emphasize certain points in your signature, such as the phone numbers in your contact list, this trick makes sure that readers won't lose track of where they left off reading your signature.

Are you already tired of editing your signature over and over again? Why not automate the process and add a personalized signature to your outgoing mails with SendSigMail? With this free service for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android devices, iPhones, iPads, and BlackBerry phones, you can generate signatures that automatically adapt to whichever device you send emails from. No need to waste time tweaking your signature anymore. Plus, with automatic backups & restore capabilities, you can rest assured that no matter which device you decide to switch to next, your customized signatures will still remain intact. Check out our review of SendSigMail to learn more about this useful tool.

Do you think there's a better solution to this problem? Or maybe you found some hidden gems among the various tricks mentioned above that you didn't know were available? Share your insight in the comments section below.

You've written yourself a killer email and are ready to send it off when something hits you like a bolt of lightning: You realize there's one small but crucial piece missing from your signature! What could this possibly be?  Your name, perhaps? Your phone number? No -- it's actually much more complicated than that. A signature line is not just three or four words. It must include all parts of your contact information as well as anything else you want people to know about you.

If you're using Microsoft Office (Outlook 2007 or newer), then adding a signature line is easy enough -- right click on any empty space within the body of the email, select Insert - Text Box - Signature Line. However, if you use Google Mail/Gmail, things become slightly trickier because you have so many options available to choose from. Here we will discuss how to create a standard Gmail signature line with different fields included that works across multiple clients. The process should also work with most other web-based mail programs such as Yahoo!, AOL, etc., although they might vary slightly depending upon their own formatting requirements.

First, let's take a look at what exactly goes into creating a good signature line:

What is a signature line in an email?

A signature line has several components including first and last names, street address, city, state postal code, country, home telephone numbers, mobile telephone numbers, fax addresses, and e-mail addresses. Some signatures even include URLs! With all these pieces of data, it becomes very important to keep everything consistent between all your various accounts. For example, don't put two different cities under each section (e.g., Chicago & Atlanta) -- stick with only one location per field. Also make sure that you always type out your full legal name instead of just initials. In some countries, doing so shows respect toward others who share the same surname. Finally, remember to separate sections by commas rather than spaces. This makes it easier for computers to parse through the text later.

How do I fix my signature line in Outlook?

The easiest way to enter your details into Word would be to copy them directly from another document or spreadsheet where they already appear formatted correctly. If you need help figuring out which ones go where, check our guide here. Once you've got all the necessary info copied over, save your file as.docx format. Then open up Excel and paste it into the appropriate column(s). Save again as a.xlsx extension. Now head back to Word and open your new document. Make sure to set Word to Print Layout View before continuing. Enter your desired title above the page header and set font size accordingly. Click OK to print your document.

Now you'll have to find somewhere to store your printed documents. Don't throw away those old faxes! Instead, simply scan copies of them, convert to PDF, and upload them to a cloud storage service like Dropbox. That way you won't lose access to them forever. Or better yet, buy yourself a nice scanner / copier combination device. We love ScanSnap S1500M ($179) from Fujitsu ScanSnap Technologies Inc.

We covered exporting your contacts lists to CSV files earlier, but in case you missed it, you can download both Windows 7 and Mac OS X versions here. As far as fixing your signature line goes, you can easily edit them in Excel after importing. Just highlight the entire thing, hit F2 key, change whatever you'd like, and export it back into Excel. Do note that changing certain characters' codes (such as converting ";" into "%3B") could cause problems with older browsers, especially Internet Explorer 6. So pay extra attention while editing!

For best results, import all your contacts' data into a single master list so that you don't accidentally delete someone's personal info. Afterward, pick a random person and manually doublecheck every entry to ensure consistency throughout. If you still come across errors, try contacting customer support for free assistance. But please understand that sometimes changes made to individual entries require manual intervention. It happens.

How do you add a signature line to your email?

Let's say you haven't been keeping track of everything properly and now you want to add a signature line to your emails. How can you do it without getting lost in the sea of endless possible combinations? Easy peasy! All you have to do is follow these simple steps:

Create a brand new Email Signature template. Go ahead and give your signature its own folder. Name it something sensible ("Company_Name").

Select the newly created template. Hit the New button next to My Templates. Choose Blank Document.

Enter the basic details like Firstname Lastname, Address 1, City, State Zip Code, Phone Numbers, E-Mail Addresses. Notice how we used underscores "_" rather than hyphens "-". Hypens are reserved for separating segments of a word whereas underscore doesn't carry any special meaning. Use whichever method feels more comfortable for you.

Copy and paste your existing contacts' details into the respective fields. Be careful not to remove any underscores or hyphens. Check your spelling and grammar once completed.

Click File - Save Current Page As... and save it with the ".htm" extension. Now rename it to "[YOUR NAME]@[SITENAME].com" (or whatever domain you plan to use).

Head over to your favorite browser and sign in to your account. Open up [your username]\Desktop\Signatures\[yourname]-signature.htm. This is where your signature will be displayed whenever you write a reply to a particular email client (we recommend Chrome since it supports extensions). Scroll down until you see the Signature box. Delete the default contents, replace it with yours, and voilà!

What is a signature line in Outlook?

Adding a signature line to Outlook requires a bit more effort thanks to its proprietary nature. Fortunately, Microsoft provides templates specifically designed for this purpose. To begin, press Alt + V keys together and launch WordPad. From the menu bar, navigate to Tools - Options - Customize Ribbon.... Select Main Tabs. Under Quick Access Toolbar Items, scroll down to More Commands and drag the Signature item onto your ribbon tabs. Press Apply followed by OK to finalize the process.

Next, open the Insert tab, locate the References group and select Tab Dividers. Drag a divider to mark the beginning of your signature area. Right below it, place your cursor inside the brackets and insert your preferred company logo image. Repeat this step for additional dividers to demarcate additional areas. When finished, close your Wordpad window. Head over to your Outlook inbox and open the relevant email thread. At the bottom left corner, you should see a link labeled Edit Signature. Hover over it and select Change Signature. Choose your custom design from the dropdown menu.

That wraps up our little tutorial on making Gmail signatures more manageable. Hope you found it helpful. Let us know of any questions you may have in the comments below. And feel free to spread the word among friends and colleagues interested in learning more about this topic. Cheers!

If you use Gmail and are tired of getting this annoying error when trying to paste your email signature at the end of each email, there's good news! You actually have options if you want to put up longer signatures on Gmail or Microsoft Outlook. Here's how.

First things first — let's talk about what exactly an email signature is and why it exists. An email signature (also sometimes called a professional signature) is usually just some text that appears below someone's name in their emails. It often includes contact information like phone number, address, website, etc., as well as references to other social media accounts. If you're sending out mass emails with hundreds of people using Gmail, this all gets pretty unwieldy after awhile. The idea was instead of having one person write down every bit of info they wanted to share, everyone could simply copy-and-paste the same signature. This saves time while also making sure everything stays consistent across different clients.

However, there were still problems. Someone might accidentally cut off part of their signature because of an oddly formatted font size, so it became necessary to allow more than one line. Also, since most users don't read beyond the first couple sentences anyway, people started cutting them short to make room for additional details such as location maps for events or links to articles. And even though Google has made efforts to simplify these signatures by adding icons indicating whether something should go above the fold, not everyone knows which icon means what. So now we come back full circle around to where we began, but with much better tools available.

So how do you keep those overly lengthy signatures from cluttering up your inbox? Well, here are three ways to create and use longer signatures without running into any issues.

How do I insert a horizontal line in an email?

Before we get going, there's another small issue surrounding vertical lines in general. When creating a new document in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc., there's a handy button right next to the field labeled Line & Paragraph Formatting. Clicking it will bring up a menu containing several options including Horizontal Lines, Vertical Lines, and both together. As far as I'm aware, no similar feature exists within InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, or Photoshop. However, inserting vertical lines into documents can easily be done via the Shape tool. All you need to do is draw a shape vertically and then select Object > Path > Split Into Grid. A grid pattern will appear over your object, allowing you to place points anywhere along its length. Then you'll be able to adjust individual point sizes to control thickness. For example, if you only want two equally spaced vertical lines, you would click the first point and drag it until the second point pops up automatically. To finish things off, choose Object > Text Box > Enter Position. Your vertical line will become selected and ready to accept whatever formatting you'd like to apply.

Now, moving onto our topic at hand. There isn't really anything special required to create a horizontal line within Gmail or Outlook. Once again, all you need to do is draw a straight line horizontally and follow the steps listed previously under How Do I Type the Horizontal Line? section. We've already talked about how easy it can be to lose track of screen real estate during normal web browsing, and keeping your vertical lines neatly aligned makes scrolling through endless paragraphs significantly easier. Another benefit is that it looks nice and doesn't take away space from important elements like images.

How do I insert a horizontal line in my email signature?

For anyone who uses Gmail, there's probably been a moment when you received an email that had way too much writing crammed into a tiny little box. While it's true that the majority of people won't bother reading beyond the first few sentences, this shouldn't completely eliminate the possibility of providing extra detail. Luckily, there's an option to include multiple lines in your default signature. Just head to Settings & General Controls and scroll down until you see Signature Options. Select More Signatures and hit Add New Signature. Now, whenever you send an email, a dropdown menu will pop up asking you which signature you'd prefer to use. Choose whichever one you wish to stick with. After signing in, you can edit your signature further by clicking Edit Signature.

Outlook users aren't left out either. With Office 365 subscribers, there's a setting located deep inside Mail Preferences titled Show Multiple Signatures. Underneath it, there's a list of preselected signatures that you can pick between Plain Text Only, One Horizontal Line, Two Horizontal Lines, Three Horizontal Lines, and Four Horizontal Lines. Of course, if you're interested in putting up a bunch of signatures that aren't necessarily related to work, you're free to download and install third party solutions like BetterSignature [No Longer Available] or MySignature Pro [Broken URL Removed]. Both apps offer extensive customization features, plus they support integration with Slack, Salesforce, Zendesk, GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Evernote, Trello, Zapier, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, eBay, Etsy, and others.

How do I add lines to Outlook email?

You may notice that none of the methods mentioned earlier mention anything about adding lines to Outlook. That's because unlike Gmail, where there's one generic signature template set upon initial signup, Windows 10 users can customize their outlook.com email addresses and change the look and feel however they please. By default, outlook.com allows three custom signatures per account. Head to Settings & Account Information, scroll down until you find Personalization & Customizations, and underneath Default Signature settings, you'll see three tabs labeled Home Page, Work Page, and Other Pages. Each tab contains four slots specifically designed for personalizing your profile photo, cover photo, header image, and signature. What separates outlook.com from other email providers is that it offers unlimited customizable signatures. Simply go to Settings & Accounts & Email Profiles and double check whether you currently have access to multi-line signatures. If you do, you can switch the corresponding toggle to Off and save yourself a lot of headaches in the future.

How do you type the horizontal line?

The easiest method to type is to press Shift + Tab simultaneously. This combination forces the cursor to jump forward and backward respectively, meaning you can quickly align the beginning of your sentence with the top border of your window. Additionally, you can always go ahead and test out various keyboard shortcuts to see which works best for you. Some suggestions include Ctrl+Enter to enter block mode, Ctrl+Shift+Tab to cycle backwards through open windows, Ctrl+F4 to close current tab, and Ctrl++/Ctrl-- to increase or decrease indentation levels.