Word as "Advanced Editor" for Outlook Signature

[Deb]

I have done a search in the Outlook forum for my particular issue but did not
find an answer. I am hoping someone here can help.

I am pretty familiar with creating and using Outlook signatures but I have a
weird issue that has just come up.

I recently got a new computer running Windows XP Pro and Office 2003 (which
I've used since this version of Outlook came out.)

In setting up Outlook, one of the first things I do normally, after setting
up and testing my e-mail accounts and tweaking user preferences, is to create
my signature.

So, I happily go off to Tools|Options|Mail Format|Signatures and create a
new signature.

Now.. I want to make it look snazzy so I click on Advanced Edit, get a
message that it will launch a program that is not part of Outlook. I click
OK and up comes.... NOTEPAD! Surprise to me. Normally, on my old setup,
Word would open and I could tweak my signature, save it (saved as an HTM
file) and I was a happy camper. My signature looked just the way I wanted it
to.

I know I can use Notepad to write the HTML but I don't want to. I want Word
to launch as the "Advanced Editor" as it did before.

I do have "use Microsoft Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages" checked as well
as to use Word for RT messages, if that matters.

Setting a file type option to have Word open HTML files will not work, of
course, because I don't want Word associated with all HTML files.

Any suggestions on how to get Word to be my "advanced editor" for creating
my Outlook signature?

Thank you for any assistance.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

You'd need to set Word as the editor for HTML files.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Deb]

Thank you for your reply.

Are you saying that Word would then become the default editor for ALL HTML
file types? I don't really want to do that as I use Dreamweaver for web
development and prefer that when I click on an HTML file that it either open
in Dreamweaver or Internet Explorer.

I may be misunderstanding what you are saying and I do know how to set file
types if that is what you are suggesting I do, but I just don't want Word to
become the default editor for HTML files.

I guess I'm curious about all of this because I've never had this problem
with Office before at all - over at least my last three systems. Word was
always the "advanced editor", at the very least, for simply creating an
Outlook signature.

As I said, I may not get what you're saying... that's always possible!

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

That's what I'm saying. If there's a way to make Word the "advanced editor" only for HTML signature files, I don't know what it is.

You can always go to the Signatures folder and edit any file there in whatever program you like.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Deb]

So, in other words, the fact that, right now on my own system, Internet
Explorer is set for the default file type for HTM and HTML files, you're
saying that I should make it Word instead? I'm sorry.. that doesn't make any
sense to me. Word would hardly be my personal choice for editing HTML or
developing a web site with.

I do understand that thinking that Word could only be the editor for an
Outlook signature (versus everything else Outlook related such as composing
e-mail in HTML) does seem kinda crazy to me too but, like I said, I've never
had this problem before. I don't understand why Notepad opens as an
"advanced editor" from Outlook; Notepad is hardly an "advanced editor" in my
humble opinion and Word has always opened as the advanced editor until I got
this new system just the other day.

Thank you again for your responses. I do understand what you've said, I
guess it's something I'm not willing to do. I appreciate your help.

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

For every type of file, there are multiple "verbs" that determine the default program used for that action. You can see this in Windows Explorer's Tools | Folder Options | FIle Types dialog. The most common are open, edit, and print. For HTML files, for example, different applications are set for open (i.e. read) and edit. Maybe if you look at the file types set up on your system for HTML files, you'll find a clue as to why the signature feature is acting the way it is.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Vanguard]

... I want to make it look snazzy so I click on Advanced Edit, get a
message that it will launch a program that is not part of Outlook. I
click
OK and up comes.... NOTEPAD! Surprise to me. Thank you for any
assistance.

"Advanced" doesn't mean the editor is some advanced HTML editor. It
means YOU are the advanced user that knows how to code in HTML to create
your "special" signature. Using Word for HTML coding is silly
considering the bloat of HTML code that it inserts into the document.
Just use Word as the e-mail editor for Outlook, send the mail to
yourself, and then look at the source of the HTML-formatted e-mail to
see how ridiculous is all the HTML coding within the Word-generated
HTML-formatted e-mail. "Advanced" means YOU know how to code in HTML.
That is why Notepad is brought up by default because HTML is all written
in text so a text editor is presented to you. Relying on a WYSIWYG HTML
editor often results in bloated HTML code, and Word is an example of
such.