TL;DR - Email Signatures

Submitted by Leslie Marinelli

Next up in the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn't Read) series where I attempt to teach or recap something in as few words as possible: our new email signature guidelines! 

Last week Nicholas shared an update on the staff blog about the migration from Outlook to Gmail. It was jam-packed with important information including the migration timeline and what you can and cannot do between now and December 5. If you missed it, please check it out.  

Nicholas's blog post references our new Email Signature Formatting Guide. Keep reading for a TL;DR version of that guide for your convenience. 

TL;DR Version of the Email Signature Formatting Guide

• An email signature serves as your digital business card, providing all the information necessary for someone to contact you at work. 

• For branding purposes, we are asking that all FCPL employees update their email signatures to our new, unified email signature format. 

• You can do this now in Outlook to begin using it right away if you'd like. (Within the Outlook desktop client, go to File > Options > Mail > Signatures.) Or, just set it up in Gmail so it's ready when we switch over. 

• Your Outlook signature(s) will not migrate over to Gmail automatically. You will need to set up your signature(s) in Gmail yourself. This can be done now, but please do not send emails yet from Gmail.  

• The official switch to Gmail is scheduled for Monday, December 5. 

• There is an email signature template at the very end of the guide you can copy/paste into a Google doc and personalize. It looks like this: 

• Here's a breakdown of the new format: 
• Font: "Sans Serif" (this is the Gmail default font; compatible with most email clients)  
• Font size: "normal" (~11) for the main part of the signature and "small" (~8) for the Open Records Act disclosure. 
• Special formatting: your name in bold. 
• Forsyth County Public Library is hyperlinked to our homepage: https://www.forsythpl.org  (Caution: there was a typo in the original guide, so if you were an early adopter, you might have gotten the bad link. Test it to be sure it goes to our homepage and has the www.)  
• There are two spaces between GA and the zip code.
• Use hyphens to separate the sections of your phone number. If you need to include a phone number extension, place a comma after the main phone number and use "ext. xxxx" as the extension format. For example: 770-781-9840, ext. 9361
• Include your email address after the phone number. IMPORTANT: in addition to changing the email address text to your email address, you will also need to update the "mailto" link in the template to link to your own email address.   
• We are no longer using a tagline. Instead, we are including an Open Records Act disclosure in our standard email signature. 
• Save time and space by setting up a different signature for replies. More details in the guide.     

We have done a lot of research to determine the best practices for a new standardized email signature that is on-brand for FCPL, particularly with regard to our new Gmail client. We intentionally chose not to include any graphics such as our logo or social media icons in our signature to maximize deliverability and readability. 

If you have any questions about our new standard email signature, let me know in the comments below or through the You Ask, We Answer button on the sidebar of this blog. 

If you need technical assistance editing or setting up your new signature in Outlook or Gmail, please submit a help desk ticket.