create an email signature image with hyperlinks

[adunate]

I want to create a png or jpg image that can be used as an email signature. This will include a photo, company logo and contact text. I need to link to her email text and also her URL text. Is Illustrator the best program to do this? If so, how?

I've tried creating slices and linking them, but it saved into multiple slice images. How do I save it as one png?

[Monika Gause]

You risk that people won't be able to read this because they've disabled images altogether in their mail software.

But even if they haven't, you don't want to compose HTML email with editors like Illustrator. Mail software is not particularly good at interpreting HTML.

You need to know a lot about the details in order to get it to work. And you need to have a fallback (plain text).

You might be better of if you get a decent, carefully composed HTML e-mail template and adapt it to your needs.

[Silkrooster]

A plain text editor would be better if you don't have access to dream weaver. Html is nothing more than a text file that has tags to point to the location on your server where the images are stored. It is also how you create a link, it is a tag that points to a website, email addresses, etc.

[adunate]

Thanks Silkrooster and Monica Gause. I do have Dreamweaver. So I should create this as an html and the client would just copy and paste this text into her signature? Am I correct that this would be a 1-shot copy/paste thing, since she is not overly tech savvy?

[adunate]

Another question for this. This content is to have the client's photo and company logo in it. How can I embed this into the html file it doesn't have to pull from an online source?

[Silkrooster]

You can not. All image must be stored somewhere on the net. The exception would be if the images were on a disk or email attachment and are copied to the computer. Then the html can point to images on computer if it knows where they are stored.

Since you can not copy files to a computer without authorization, there would be no to know where the images are stored. Therefore the html would fail to find the images.

[John Mensinger]

Your original inclination to make it all one image won't work. The email client's signature utility is all you really need for this. You can enter/format the text there and hyperlink it, then paste the photo and logo images separately.

EDITORIAL: It's up to you and your client, but seeing as you're working for a client, you're in a position of consultancy, and I'm compelled to suggest that you advise your client that adding images to an email signature is a terrible idea, especially if the email client is set to automatically include the signature on every message.

[stevep34633534]

Hmm, Mac's Mail program allows photos in signatures, just drag and drop while you're composing. Boom.

[John Mensinger]

stevep34633534  wrote

Boom.

Indeed.

[scottb53390030]

Agreed - although, in some corporate environments (inc some schools etc), embeded images are stripped out of email sigs which is a pain. We have therefore ended up having to opt for HTML email sigs to ensure that they arrive intact (shame really, as it greatly increases the workload!)

[Monika Gause]

"(shame really, as it greatly increases the workload!)"

Why? you only need to do that once.