Open Outlook Express in Windows XP or earlier, Windows Mail in Windows Vista or Windows Live Mail (Windows XP, Vista or 7). To send one message using stationery, click the small dropdown arrow next to Create Mail and choose from the list of available stationery, or select Select Stationery to open the Select Stationery dialog box - in Windows Live Mail, click New followed by the Stationery button, then select More Stationery. Click once on a piece of stationery to view a preview in the right-hand pane – if you like what you see, click OK to select it, or preview another. When the new message appears, choose a strong font (try emboldening it if necessary) so it’s readable over the stationery.

It’s possible to make one type of stationery the default for all new messages. Open the Tools menu and select Options. Switch to the Compose tab. Ignore the Font Settings section; stationery includes its own fonts which override these settings. Instead, tick the Mail box under Stationery and click the Select button. The Select Stationery dialog box will open as before – pick the stationery you wish to set as your default for all new messages and click OK twice.

If none of the available stationery appeals, you can create your own or download more online. Windows Mail users should click the Download More button; Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail users should click here to open a web page telling you more about stationery. Click Download more stationery here. The dropdown menu contains a large number of stationery themes packaged into collections like birthdays or blue-themed stationery. Select your chosen collection from the drop-down menu and click Go to start downloading it to your PC.

If you’re using Internet Explorer, select Run when the File Download box appears to download and open the stationery installer file automatically. Opera users should select Open instead, while Mozilla Firefox and Chrome users must choose Save File, then double-click the downloaded .exe file once it’s downloaded. When prompted, click Continue or Run followed by Yes. Click Yes to accept the licence agreement once you’ve read it. Click OK when the installation finishes – XP users can access the stationery from the same folder as Outlook Express’s own stationery; Vista and Windows 7 users need to browse to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Templates.

You’ll find more stationery online at other web sites too – one site worth checking out is Thundercloud.net (click here), which has over 2,000 stationery items that work with all three email programs.

 

   If you receive a message from someone that contains stationery you’d like to use in your own email messages, check with them that it’s okay for you to use their stationery and – if they say yes - open that message and choose File > Save as Stationery. Give your new stationery a name and click Save, and it’ll be accessible from the Compose tab of the Options dialog (see step two).

If you can’t find any stationery to your liking, you can design your own. You’ll need a background image – you can adapt one of those used in another piece of stationery, or source your own. If you supply your own image, make sure it’s GIF, JPEG or BMP. If you want to use Microsoft Office clipart, launch Word, open the Insert menu and select Picture followed by Clip Art. Search the collections for a suitable piece of clip art, then click it and choose Copy from the dropdown menu.

Switch to your image editor or download the free Paint.NET tool from here (which we’re using here). Open the Edit menu and choose Paint in to New Image. If you plan to write your message over the background image, select Layers > Layer Properties and use the Opacity slider to make it semi-translucent so your email remains legible. If you want to use it as decoration at the top or left of your message, resize it to around 100 pixels in width. Once done, make sure you save the image in a compatible format – GIF or JPEG is the best.

Open your mail program and once again select Options from the Tools menu, returning to the Compose tab. This time, click Create New under Stationery to launch the Stationery Setup Wizard. Click Next followed by Browse to select your background image. Use the Position dropdown menus to place it on the page and the Tile dropdown menu if you want to repeat it vertically or horizontally across the page. You can also change the background colour by ticking the appropriate box and picking your chosen hue. Click Next when you’re done.

The next screen lets you pick a default font, along with its colour, size and style (bold and/or italic). Choose a font that will stand out against your stationery, particularly if you’ve picked a strong background colour. Click Next to set the margins for your stationery – use the preview screen to make sure your text doesn’t overlap any images that run vertically down the left-hand side or horizontally across the top of the page. Click Next again, give your stationery a suitable title and click Finish to save it.

Once created, select your stationery by ticking the Mail box and clicking Select, choosing your stationery and clicking OK twice. Test your stationery by creating a new mail message – the key is to keep things simple and readable, so make sure the text doesn’t overlap any images, or is clearly visible through the background. If it’s not, run the Stationery Setup Wizard again or click Edit at the Stationery Select screen to edit the stationery directly in your default web-editing program. We don’t recommend this unless you have experience with HTML code and want to add music or other elements to your stationery.