Question

Prevent Outlook 2003 from checking spelling in email signature

Asked by: mayday175

Basic issue: I'm designing a new corporate email signature and Outlook 2003's spell checker keeps wanting to correct the spelling of our website address. The current corporate email signature does not have this problem.

More information: We are running Office 2003 and have a tool (Symprex Mail Signature Manager) to create a custom email signature for every user, every time they login, based on a single HTML template. This works great, no problems with the current setup nor the HTML code generated for the email signatures.

Using this same tool, I am testing a new email signature design with the same key text (ie. name, title, contact numbers, postal address and web address). The tool's generated HTML code creates the new signature exactly as required, no problems with its appearance & layout... but Outlook doesn't like the spelling of our website address in this new signature, yet this same address is fine in the current signature.

We do not use Word as Outlook's HTML editor (this is nailed down for all users via group policy).

Included here is the HTML code for the 2 signatures, copied from my profile\Application Data\Microsoft\Signatures folder, with some minor modifications to remove identifiable details.

You'll notice the table & image of the new signature is arranged a little differently. This is because the background image is designed to go behind the table & all the signature text, while the current signature only has an icon sized image located in the first cell of the table. Also, the website's hyper link has additional 'style' to make it look like normal text instead of being blue & underlined.

In the new signature, I have tried moving & removing the <div>, have tried different & default formatting for the hyper link, and have tried removing & adding the <head> field. I am not a HTML coder... the current signature is not my design while the new one is based on my own research, to find the few HTML commands I need to create the layout I'm looking for.

Requires solution: I know I can add the words to the spell checker. I have seen this solution posted everywhere, so you don't need to mention it again. This email signature will be rolled out to the entire corporation and we do not want every user calling us (IT Help Desk) complaining about their email spell checker. Your suggested solution should resolve this issue by fixing the HTML code (if it is broken) or by applying an Outlook setting to all users (eg. group policy). Remember, the current signature works fine... so why doesn't the new one?

********** Current email signature **********
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html><head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode">
<meta content="MSHTML 6.00.5730.11" name="GENERATOR"></head>
<body>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<img src="http://www.our.web.site/images/XXXX_email_logo.gif" align="left" border="0" hspace="0" nosend="1">
</td>
<td>
<p style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">
<b>My Name</b><font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;Technology Systems Engineer<font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;P:&nbsp;03 1234 5678<font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;F:&nbsp;1234 5678<font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;M:&nbsp;0123 456 789
<br>
Our Company Name<font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;PO Box 123 City State 9999<font color="#afa80a"> &#9608;</font>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.our.web.site">www.our.web.site</a>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
</td>
<td>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; COLOR: #008200; WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Webdings">P</SPAN> 
<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial"><STRONG>&nbsp;Please&nbsp;consider&nbsp;the&nbsp;environment&nbsp;before&nbsp;printing&nbsp;this&nbsp;email</STRONG></SPAN>
</P>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>
 
********** New email signature **********
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<body>
<div style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(http://www.our.web.site/images/XXXX Email Footer4.png); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: no-repeat">
<table style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr HEIGHT="90" valign="top">
    <td NOWRAP WIDTH="75"></td>
    <td style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">
      <b>My Name</b> - Technology Systems Engineer <b>P:</b> 03 1234 5678 <b>F:</b> 1234 5678 <b>M:</b> 0123 456 789<br>
      <b>Our Company Name</b> - PO Box 123 City State 9999<br>
      <a href="http://www.our.web.site" style="COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none"><b>www.our.web.site</b></a>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr style="COLOR: rgb(0,130,0)" valign="top">
    <td></td>
    <td style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap"> 
      <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Webdings">P</span> Please consider the environment before printing this email
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

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Asked On: 2008-12-22 at 16:35:39ID24004653
Tags: Microsoft Office 2003
,; Outlook
,; signature
,; spell check
Topics: Outlook Groupware Software
,; Microsoft Office Suite
Participating Experts: 1
Points: 0
Comments: 7

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Answers

by: mayday175Posted on 2008-12-22 at 16:57:05ID: 23230821

I've attached some sample images of what the two signatures actually look like...

New-Email-Signature.png
- 48 KB
New Email Signature
Current-Email-Signature.PNG
- 42 KB
Current Email Signature

by: mayday175Posted on 2008-12-22 at 20:34:50ID: 23231393

Hmm... responses to this question seem a bit slow. Maybe its because of the upcoming Christmas break... anyway, I've upped the points hoping to attract some more interest.

by: davidpmPosted on 2008-12-22 at 21:08:51ID: 23231475

I logged into my work computer and created a signature using your posted code in the second example. I turned on spell check before sending and then sent an email to myself using your signature and it went without a hitch?????

by: davidpmPosted on 2008-12-22 at 21:10:02ID: 23231480

Using Outlook 2003 sorry i forgot to mention that in the first post. Can't do it in Outlook 2007 easily as they removed HTML code injection for signatures in the new version.

by: davidpmPosted on 2008-12-22 at 21:13:27ID: 23231486

I just received the test with your signature and maybe found your problem. There was a >P< at the end where you have the Please consider portion. I removed it and have posted the fixed code you may want to give this a try.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<body>
<div style="BACKGROUND-IMAGE: url(http://www.our.web.site/images/XXXX Email Footer4.png); BACKGROUND-REPEAT: no-repeat">
<table style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr HEIGHT="90" valign="top">
    <td NOWRAP WIDTH="75"></td>
    <td style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">
      <b>My Name</b> - Technology Systems Engineer <b>P:</b> 03 1234 5678 <b>F:</b> 1234 5678 <b>M:</b> 0123 456 789<br>
      <b>Our Company Name</b> - PO Box 123 City State 9999<br>
      <a href="http://www.our.web.site" style="COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none"><b>www.our.web.site</b></a>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr style="COLOR: rgb(0,130,0)" valign="top">
    <td></td>
    <td style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap"> 
      <span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Webdings"></span>Please consider the environment before printing this email
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>
</body>
</html>

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by: mayday175Posted on 2008-12-22 at 21:19:49ID: 23231501

davidpm

Thanks for the feedback...

Re your first comment: perhaps my modified code sample wasn't the best, since the "www.our.web.site" does not contain incorrectly spelled words. I repeated your test in a new signature file and got the same result as you. So then made deliberate spelling mistakes in the web address and then found the spell checker has picked them up , instead of skipping the signature all together.

Re your second comment: I don't understand it... and I have no concern for Outlook 2007.

Re your third comment: the "P" character is the Webdings font that gives the tree & river icon in the bottom line. And that's after the spelling errors...

by: mayday175Posted on 2008-12-23 at 16:19:57ID: 23237863

After more trial and error testing, I have finally resolved this issue. The problem was the bold inside the <a>hyper link</a> to our website. After changing this:
<a href="http://www.our.web.site" style="COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none">www.our.web.site</a>

to this:
<a href="http://www.our.web.site" style="COLOR: black; TEXT-DECORATION: none">www.our.web.site</a>

it all works as intended. It appears as though though the bold formatting inside the hyper link stops the spell checker from recognising & skipping the hyper link. I knew it had to be something simple!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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Question

Prevent Outlook 2003 from checking spelling in email signature

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Microsoft Office 2003

Outlook

signature

spell check

Outlook Groupware Software

Microsoft Office Suite

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