The editor described in this manual is featured in the following CodeTwo products:
CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro (product page | user's manual)
CodeTwo Exchange Rules (product page | user's manual)
Insert pictures, social links and other content into your template
You can add various types of content into your template: pictures, social links, placeholders that are replaced with AD attributes, and more (Fig. 1.). Read on for details.
Fig. 1. The Insert group on the ribbon allows you to add content to your template.
Picture
To add an image to your template, click the Picture button on the ribbon (see Fig. 1.). Choose a picture either from a local library or from an online resource, and define its size in pixels (Fig. 2.). You can resize the picture any time later by dragging it with a mouse or by clicking it and using the options on the Picture tab.
Fig. 2. The Insert picture configuration window.
To learn about the differences between online (linked) and embedded (local) images, see our Knowledge Base article.
Tip
Check out our free application, CodeTwo Active Directory Photos, if you want to quickly upload user photos to on-premises Active Directory.
Social link
The Social link option on the ribbon allows you to create a special kind of hyperlink that includes a label as well as a related image, and leads to one of the social media networks (Fig. 3.). The target URL is fully configurable - you can also include placeholders (replaced with user's AD attributes) so that the final link refers to the email sender's social profile page. If you want to add a link to a social network like Facebook or LinkedIn, you need to enter a username in the URL (it must not be the person's email address). Usually, the URL identifier can be obtained by opening the main profile page of a user.
Fig. 3. The social link configuration options.
Placeholder
The template editor allows you to add dynamic content such as Active Directory attributes, counters, etc. directly into a template. Such dynamic content is added in the form of placeholders. Select a place inside your template and click the Placeholder button on the ribbon to add a placeholder (Fig. 4.). When an email message is sent, your placeholder is replaced with a corresponding information, for example an AD attribute of the email sender. Placeholders can contain user and message related attributes, date/time information, message properties, and more. The available placeholders depend on your environment and CodeTwo software. For details, see our dedicated article about placeholders.
Fig. 4. Placeholders.
Link
Use the Link button on the ribbon to add hyperlinks (URLs) to your template. You can add links to text and other elements (such as images) inside your signature. Links may refer to web pages (http/https), emails (mailto) and other resources (e.g. ftp). To add a hyperlink to an email element, select this element with a mouse and click the Link button on the ribbon. The Insert link window opens (Fig. 5.). Here, you can define your URL and personalize its appearance in your signature. Click the Show email tracking parameters link to expand additional settings and add campaign tracking parameters to your link. The most popular web analytics tools are supported: you can add UTM tags (Google Analytics), Woopra tags and Matomo (Piwik) tags.
Fig. 5. Configuration of a link.
Learn how to integrate CodeTwo Exchange Rules with web analytics tools
Learn how to integrate CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro with web analytics tools
Tip: How to add a mailto link to an image?
To add a mailto link to an image, select (click on) an image inside your template and click the Link button on the ribbon. Define the URL address in the following way: mailto:[your-email-address] (Fig. 6.) and click OK. Save and apply the changes in your CodeTwo signature software. Now, whenever you send an email and the recipient clicks the linked image in your signature, their default email client opens and they are able to quickly send you a message.
Fig. 6. How to add a mailto hyperlink to an image.
Remove Text tag
Remove Text tags (RT tags) automatically remove placeholders that cannot be replaced with corresponding information. For example, a signature may contain placeholders that refer to Active Directory attributes. If an email sender does not have these attributes filled in Active Directory, empty fields will appear in their email signature. RT tags help you avoid these empty spaces so that your signature layout is not disrupted.
Info
Alternatively, instead of removing empty placeholders, you can use conditional placeholders to insert custom information (a generic phone number, an avatar instead of a user photo, etc.). That way, your email signature will always contain all the necessary information, even if some attributes are missing from sender’s AD. Learn more about conditional placeholders
To automatically remove an empty placeholder from your signature, you need to surround this placeholder with RT tags. To do so, select the whole placeholder (including the curly braces around it) with your mouse and click the Remove Text tag button (Fig. 7.). The placeholder now begins with {RT} and ends with {/RT}. When CodeTwo software processes an email of a user who does not have the AD attribute related to this placeholder, the empty placeholder field is removed (along with the empty space it occupies) from the signature. This helps you keep a professional appearance of your signatures.
Fig. 7. How to add the Remove Text tags to a placeholder.
By placing RT tags correctly in your template, you can remove not only placeholders, but also the neighboring text or other elements. For example, you can surround a whole line of text that includes both a placeholder and a related text description (see the example below). Note that if you insert the RT tags at the beginning and at the end of the same line/row, the empty placeholder will be removed but an empty line will remain (see the example on the left side). To avoid this, move the closing {/RT} tag to the beginning of the next line/row (see the example on the right).
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Learn more about the Remove Text tags and see usage examples
Table
The Table button allows you to insert a table and define its size (Fig. 8.).
Fig. 8. How to insert a table into an email signature.
More options are available after a table is added - you can find them on the Table tab that appears when you select (click inside) your table (Fig. 9.).
Fig. 9. Advanced table options are available on the ribbon.
HTML snippet
Select any place in your signature/disclaimer and click the HTML snippet button (Fig. 10.) if you want to add snippet codes copied from a different source or application. This feature allows you to easily integrate third-party solutions (such as one-click surveys) with your email signatures, for example to boost your email marketing campaigns.
Learn about third-party integrations in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro
Learn about third-party integrations in CodeTwo Exchange Rules
Fig. 10. The configuration of an HTML snippet code.
Special character
The last button in the Insert group (Fig. 11.) allows you to add special characters to your template.
Fig. 11. How to insert a special character into a template.
See also
Our Knowledge Base article on good and bad practices when using the template editor