Signature files

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi all,

I'm not familiar with Mac nor entourage, so here's a my problem.

I have to add signatures for about 1000 employees.
For the PC users I collect information from ADS and build a small
HTML-file for eauch user in his userhome, so he can pick this in Outlook
as a CI signature.

For Mac Users I could do as well, but as I learned by reading older
posting here it seems that
1.) there's not the complete palette of HTML that Entourage supports
(which seems to me only important if I want to use the built-in Editor)
2.) it is possible to set up different signatures and choose one when
sending
3.) there are templates in www to be "importet" and can then manually be
changed (but only by built-in Editor) to fit personal requirements.

What I want to know:
Where are signatures stored?
(Directory? File-extension, if there is on Mac? File-names?)
And, most important, file format?
Are all signatures of a user stored in one file?
Or can I just add a new file somewhere?

If I look at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/produc.../how_to_articles/office2004/en_signatures.xml
it seems that new templates can only be added via the built-in Editor.
But I won't do that for hundreds of users and actualize everyone twice a
month :-((

Might anybody give me an idea or even have a sample file with
a description of the inner format?

Every help is welcome.

Grüße
Werner

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Werner,

the good news is that Entourage stores a user's signatures in a single file
called Signatures, which can be found in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of the identity]. The bad news is that it
seems to be a proprietary format which cannot be edited that easily.
However, I assume it is possible to create signatures in one copy of
Entourage (use a fresh identity for that) and then copy the resulting
Signatures file from that computer to other users' machines. A big downside
of this method is of course that you cannot create individualised signatures
for your colleagues; instead, they will all have access to the same set of
signatures.

Hi all,

I'm not familiar with Mac nor entourage, so here's a my problem.

I have to add signatures for about 1000 employees.
For the PC users I collect information from ADS and build a small
HTML-file for eauch user in his userhome, so he can pick this in Outlook
as a CI signature.

For Mac Users I could do as well, but as I learned by reading older
posting here it seems that
1.) there's not the complete palette of HTML that Entourage supports
(which seems to me only important if I want to use the built-in Editor)
2.) it is possible to set up different signatures and choose one when
sending
3.) there are templates in www to be "importet" and can then manually be
changed (but only by built-in Editor) to fit personal requirements.

What I want to know:
Where are signatures stored?
(Directory? File-extension, if there is on Mac? File-names?)
And, most important, file format?
Are all signatures of a user stored in one file?
Or can I just add a new file somewhere?

If I look at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2004/using.aspx?pid=usingentour
age2004&type=tips&article=/mac/LIBRARY/how_to_articles/office2004/en_signature
s.xml
it seems that new templates can only be added via the built-in Editor.
But I won't do that for hundreds of users and actualize everyone twice a
month :-((

Might anybody give me an idea or even have a sample file with
a description of the inner format?

Every help is welcome.

Grüße
Werner

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi Michel,

Thanks, I see a little bit clearer now.....

the good news is that Entourage stores a user's signatures in a single file
called Signatures, which can be found in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of the identity].

That means that all signatures of a one user are stored locally in one
file? (I can check easily tomorrow , but not here, having no Mac at home)

The bad news is that it seems to be a proprietary format which cannot be edited that easily.

"Easily" wasn't my request
I'm looking for a challage ;-)))
www gave some hints: Word-format? Safari Web-Archive?
Might this be documented?

However, I assume it is possible to create signatures in one copy of
Entourage (use a fresh identity for that) and then copy the resulting
Signatures file from that computer to other users' machines.

Yes, thats some kind of approach that I had in mind.
could you provide me wwith such an "empty" file?

A big downsideof this method is of course that you cannot create individualised signatures
for your colleagues; instead, they will all have access to the same set of
signatures.

Yes. Of course the "real" people all have different email-addresses,
phone extensions, and, as being spread over dozens of locations,
different addressess and, most important, dozens of company names and
CEO and so on.

Question: if I enter "abcdefghijklmn..." and so on with a legth of ,
lets say, fixed(!) 300Byte *once* as the "text-string" in a template,
like you proposed, might I then be able to identify position in the
file and, reading it byte by byte replace with "<b>Werner</b>" + 287x" "
as the rest of 300-byte-string? You see, I won't change structure
of file in no way, just replace some characters.
And I could do this individually for each user.


Grüße
Werner

 

[William Smith]

Hi all,

I'm not familiar with Mac nor entourage, so here's a my problem.

I have to add signatures for about 1000 employees.
For the PC users I collect information from ADS and build a small
HTML-file for eauch user in his userhome, so he can pick this in Outlook
as a CI signature.

For Mac Users I could do as well, but as I learned by reading older
posting here it seems that
1.) there's not the complete palette of HTML that Entourage supports
(which seems to me only important if I want to use the built-in Editor)
2.) it is possible to set up different signatures and choose one when
sending
3.) there are templates in www to be "importet" and can then manually be
changed (but only by built-in Editor) to fit personal requirements.

What I want to know:
Where are signatures stored?
(Directory? File-extension, if there is on Mac? File-names?)
And, most important, file format?
Are all signatures of a user stored in one file?
Or can I just add a new file somewhere?

If I look at
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2004/using.aspx?pid=usingentour
age2004&type=tips&article=/mac/LIBRARY/how_to_articles/office2004/en_signature
s.xml
it seems that new templates can only be added via the built-in Editor.
But I won't do that for hundreds of users and actualize everyone twice a
month :-((

Might anybody give me an idea or even have a sample file with
a description of the inner format?

Hello Werner!

As Michel has pointed out already, the Signatures file is per person and
in a format that is not directly modifiable. However, Entourage is
scriptable and signatures can be set via AppleScript. (I'm not sure
about the HTML properties.)

What specifically needs to be set and how many Macs? Do you have any
centralized Mac workstation management software such as Apple Remote
Desktop?

bill

 

[Michel Bintener]

the good news is that Entourage stores a user's signatures in a single file

called Signatures, which can be found in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of the identity].

That means that all signatures of a one user are stored locally in one
file? (I can check easily tomorrow , but not here, having no Mac at home)
Yes.

The bad news is that it seems to be a proprietary format which cannot be
edited that easily.

"Easily" wasn't my request
I'm looking for a challage ;-)))
www gave some hints: Word-format? Safari Web-Archive?
Might this be documented?

I haven't found any documentation on this.

Yes, thats some kind of approach that I had in mind.
could you provide me wwith such an "empty" file?

It should be easy enough for you to create one; click on Entourage>Switch
Identity, then create a new identity. You can then find the Signatures file
in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of your new
identity].

Yes. Of course the "real" people all have different email-addresses,
phone extensions, and, as being spread over dozens of locations,
different addressess and, most important, dozens of company names and
CEO and so on.

Question: if I enter "abcdefghijklmn..." and so on with a legth of ,
lets say, fixed(!) 300Byte *once* as the "text-string" in a template,
like you proposed, might I then be able to identify position in the
file and, reading it byte by byte replace with "<b>Werner</b>" + 287x" "
as the rest of 300-byte-string? You see, I won't change structure
of file in no way, just replace some characters.
And I could do this individually for each user.

As I've already said, this file is in some proprietary format, with many
strange characters floating around when viewed in a regular text editor, so
I doubt this method would work. You can always give it a try, I suppose, but
the easiest method would indeed be the use of AppleScript, as Bill has
suggested.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

***Always reply to the newsgroup.***

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi Bill,

As Michel has pointed out already, the Signatures file is per person and
in a format that is not directly modifiable. However, Entourage is
scriptable and signatures can be set via AppleScript. (I'm not sure
about the HTML properties.)

I could give this a try, installing a Mac only for that purpose,
creating the files and place it centralized on a server.
Having the script running on each machine could be difficult because of
access (and permissions) to ADS.

What specifically needs to be set and how many Macs?

?!
Signature which includes name, phone, fax, URL, mail, just the complete
information that EU law demands, that is, complete address, name of
chairman, tax information and so on.
For about 300 Users in Germany only in germany, not counting rest of
Europe or Worldwide.
And keep that all up to date.....

Do you have any centralized Mac workstation management software such as Apple Remote
Desktop?

Sure, once created, files could be spread out via FileWave or ARD.
I'll learn more about that today when discussing with the MacAdminStuff

Thanks for giving some ideas,
stay tuned

Grüße
Werner

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi All,


So today I had a glance at the problem today.

As I've already said, this file is in some proprietary format, with many
strange characters floating around when viewed in a regular text editor, so
I doubt this method would work.

see below....

You can always give it a try, I suppose, but the easiest method would indeed be the use of AppleScript, as Bill has
suggested.

What I found out:

Applecsript does work but is not useful.
The reason is that there are four properties: content, name, ID and
include in random. There is no property for "HTML:YES", like the little
ab/BA Button in the editor. That means: yes, it is simple to replace the
content of a signatur (within the file "Signatures"), but it will always
be treated as plain text.
So this wasn't really what I was looking for, but only three line of
program, I would have been fond of that.

tell application "Microsoft Entourage"
make new signature with properties {name:"MySig",
content:"abcdefg.......", include in random:false}
end tell

So, next approach:
as you suggested I deleted "Signatures".
Starting Outlook, file was rebuild, almost empty, with an empty sig
called "Standard". Editing and clicking on "HTML" and inserting "test"
gives a file looking like that in an editor:
{lot of binary stuff}<HTML><HEAD>...<BODY>test</BODY></HTML>{even more
binary stuff}.

What we would not have expected: replacing "test" with something like
<H1>It's me</H1> works fine! Obviously text might be as long as you
like! Brilliant!

Next thing I did was to write a programm:
Opening "Signature" as binary(!, it contains about 12k with x'00'),
reading it byte for byte, when BODY arrives: read my desired infos and
insert, read rest of original file and write all of that to an output-file.
Surprise: it works!
But not all HTML-Code works, I'll have to do some examination, for a
first day I'm lucky with that.

Biggest problem seems to be to
a.) insert a picture
b.) rename the Sig, that often leads to entourage not to start, obvously
there are pointers that get damaged.

Is there any hint about images?

Grüße
Werner

 

[Ivar Klaas]

the good news is that Entourage stores a user's signatures in a single file
called Signatures, which can be found in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of the identity].

That means that all signatures of a one user are stored locally in one
file? (I can check easily tomorrow , but not here, having no Mac at home)
Yes.

The bad news is that it seems to be a proprietary format which cannot be
edited that easily.

"Easily" wasn't my request
I'm looking for a challage ;-)))
www gave some hints: Word-format? Safari Web-Archive?
Might this be documented?

I haven't found any documentation on this.

Yes, thats some kind of approach that I had in mind.
could you provide me wwith such an "empty" file?

It should be easy enough for you to create one; click on Entourage>Switch
Identity, then create a new identity. You can then find the Signatures file
in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2004 Identities/[name of your new
identity].

Yes. Of course the "real" people all have different email-addresses,
phone extensions, and, as being spread over dozens of locations,
different addressess and, most important, dozens of company names and
CEO and so on.

Question: if I enter "abcdefghijklmn..." and so on with a legth of ,
lets say, fixed(!) 300Byte *once* as the "text-string" in a template,
like you proposed, might I then be able to identify position in the
file and, reading it byte by byte replace with "<b>Werner</b>" + 287x" "
as the rest of 300-byte-string? You see, I won't change structure
of file in no way, just replace some characters.
And I could do this individually for each user.

As I've already said, this file is in some proprietary format, with many
strange characters floating around when viewed in a regular text editor, so
I doubt this method would work. You can always give it a try, I suppose, but
the easiest method would indeed be the use of AppleScript, as Bill has
suggested.

Try editing the info in the Signatures file with Bbedit. It seems you are
experienced enough to dare try.............

Gruss,

Ivar

 

[Diane Ross]

Is there any hint about images?

Microsoft has provided templates for signatures. They use images in their
examples so you should be able to figure out how to customize from these.
Once you get your basic template set, each user could then insert their own
data.

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/entourage2004/using.aspx?pid=usingent
ourage2004&type=tips&article=/mac/LIBRARY/how_to_articles/office2004/en_sign
atures.xml>


--
Diane Ross | Microsoft Mac MVP
____________________________
Entourage Help Page
One of the top five Entourage resources
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.entourage.mvps.org

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hallo Ivar,

Try editing the info in the Signatures file with Bbedit. It seems you are
experienced enough to dare try.............

Thanks, looks interesting to examine.
Thank could help me to investigate how it works,
but for daily work I need something that does automatically.

Grüße
Werner

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi Diane,

Microsoft has provided templates for signatures. They use images in
their examples so you should be able to figure out how to customize from
these. Once you get your basic template set, each user could then insert
their own data.

Thats absolutely not what is desired.
No user should be allowed to change signature, as I figured out already,
signature has to satisfy CI and EU law, thats the reason why we load
correct Signature files whenever logging on to domain; this is done via
applescript/pearl ADS connection.
There's no problem with that, but setting up all these files once with
copy and paste, as described in your article below, is too much work for
hundreds of users.

<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/produc.../how_to_articles/office2004/en_signatures.xml>

Yes I saw this, but in a first test the image wasn't in the
signature-file, but a pointer to the gif file.
If you look at your posting here with your signature (which looks
brilliant!) you'll find something like:

<IMG src=3D"cid:3261998933_1472535" >

with some "label" underneath:

--B_3261998934_1491573
Content-Type: image/gif; name="image.gif"
Content-ID: <3261998933_1472535>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

R0lGODlhygAmAPcAABoYGO/t84tds2E9i
.......
.......

Which seems to be the whole picture.
In a signature-file this looks similar, but is difficult to investigate.
I have about twenty different pictures, according to different companies
people belong to, and some of them have up to three different(!)
signatures *sigh*

But, nevertheless, very interesting.

Grüße
Werner

 

[Diane Ross]

Which seems to be the whole picture.
In a signature-file this looks similar, but is difficult to investigate.
I have about twenty different pictures, according to different companies
people belong to, and some of them have up to three different(!)
signatures *sigh*

Sorry, the examples weren¹t helpful. This sounds like a market for an
application that helps you set up signatures.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
One of the top five MS Entourage resources listed on the Entourage Blog.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Diane,

Sorry, the examples weren¹t helpful. This sounds like a market for an
application that helps you set up signatures.

They were helpful cause they show that it works and hhow itr hsa to look
like.

Surely I need an application, I'm just writing it.
But from the Windows-World I'm accustomed to have full access to all
methods and properties of all objects, and this is extremly important
for centralized mangement of thousands of machines.

That entourage doesn't offer the required properties to app. programmers
is pretty poor.
And there's no documentation af the file format is even worse.
But first sigs look fine, I'm just struggling with different pictures.

The way they are build is:
User is added to domain via special application
(Threfore you have to enter his company)
From a Excel worksheet all relavant fields are filled
or constructed according to policies for that company,
like email, address, phone, sig-format, picture, CI and so on.
userhomedir is built on Server, access is granted only to user,
sig is built and stored in userhome
When user is logging on sig is copied/renamed to local machine
finished ;-)


Grüße
Werner

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

I understand you r requirements. If you are using an Exchange server, you
can try the same (best) solution that we came up with here.

We use a product called "Exclaimer"
<http://www.exclaimer.com/mailutilities.aspx> on the exchange server to add
signature to outgoing emails. This can add custom signatures, picking up the
information required from the GAL lists set up in Exchange. In addition, you
can use a much simpler signature (e.g., just name & internal extension
number) for mail within your own domain, and the full 9 yards for mail bound
outside your domain.

It does much, much more than this (the rules & actions are very powerful),
and is worth checking out.

The good thing is that the signatures are set up at the server, by the
sysad, and can't be modified by the user as they are added after they send
the message. Only one set of rules needs to be defined for a personalised
signature to be added to any number of senders.

I have no connection with Exclaimer, other than being a very satisfied user.

--
Barry Wainwright
Microsoft MVP (see http://mvp.support.microsoft.com for details)
For hints, tips and troubleshooting go to the Entourage User's WebLog
<http://www.barryw.net/weblog/>

 

[Werner Falkenbach]

Hi Barry,

I understand you r requirements. If you are using an Exchange server, you
can try the same (best) solution that we came up with here.

Exchange Servers are maintained by european central service in London
and will now move to worldwide service in Chicago (for the complete
worldwide group), so I myself have no chance to add some software.

We use a product called "Exclaimer"
<http://www.exclaimer.com/mailutilities.aspx> on the exchange server to add
signature to outgoing emails.

WebSite doesn't work under Mozilla :-((

But had a look with IE, yes I see what you mean, I'll send a mail to
the guys who maintain servers. In the moment they add only the disclaimer.
I'm not sure if we can add all needed INFO from ADS to GAL.
But you're right: this is the most recommended way to solve these kind
of requirements in a huge installtion.

It does much, much more than this (the rules & actions are very powerful),
and is worth checking out.

Yep, I see.

I have no connection with Exclaimer, other than being a very satisfied user.

;-))
Thanks for you hint.


Grüße
Werner