Year: 2020

Love LibreOffice? Want to let more people know about it? An effective (and easy) way is to add a mention of the software to your email signature. This is the piece of text that’s automatically added to emails that you send, and typically includes some information about your job, or other contact details.

Many people also use their email signatures (aka “sigs”) to spread the word about causes they support – such as free and open source software projects. So, you could use your signature to raise awareness about LibreOffice, for instance! When people read your emails, if they also check out the signature, they’ll learn something. For instance, you could add:

LibreOffice – free and open source office suite: https://www.libreoffice.org
Respects your privacy, and gives you back control over your data

What exactly you add is up to you, and depends on what you want to focus on. For instance, if you exchange emails with a lot of Microsoft Office users, you may want to mention that LibreOffice can work with .doc(x), .xls(x) files etc. Or perhaps you’re more focused on the ethics of free (as in freedom) software – and want to talk about the benefits to society it brings.

In any case, it’s best to keep it short (a couple of lines), and include a link so that readers can get more information. If the main LibreOffice website is too long for your sig, you can use https://tdf.io/lo as an alternative.

So, good luck, and if you have suggestions/ideas for signatures, post them in the comments below! Here are also some quick instructions for changing signatures in a few email clients and services…

Mozilla Thunderbird

Go to Tools > Account Settings in the menu, then choose your account, and scroll down to the “Signature text” box.

Google Mail (web view)

Click the Settings cog in the top-right, then “See all settings”. Under the General tab, scroll down to Signature, then click “Create new”. Give it a name and text, and underneath assign it to new emails in the “Signature defaults” option. Finally, scroll down and click “Save Changes” at the bottom of the page.

Google Mail (mobile app)

Tap the three-line “hamburger” menu in the top-left and go to Settings. Tap your account, then scroll down to “Mobile signature”.

ProtonMail

Click Settings at the top, and go to Account in the left-hand menu. Under Identity, you’ll see a box to enter signature text.

Outlook (web view)

At the top of the browser window there is a “gear wheel” icon to access the settings. Click on this and a panel opens on the right-hand side. At the bottom of this panel is a link labelled “View All Outlook settings” – click on this. A new panel consisting of three columns appears. Click on the second item in the second column, labelled “Compose and reply”. This opens one further panel including the option to set the signature text, the font attributes and to insert a graphic if required.

Apple Mail

Go to Mail > Settings, then click the “Signatures” tab. In the middle row, choose the signature text to edit, and edit the text shown in the right row. You may also add a new signature text using the “+” button at the bottom of the middle row. If you did so then choose the mail account at the left row and select the new signature texts name at the bottom of the window. So you may toggle easily between different signatures.

Got instructions for other email clients/services? Let us know in the comments – thanks!