How to create a bilingual signature

Find out how to create an email signature in CodeTwo Email Signatures 365 with senders’ details presented in two different languages, for example English and Arabic.

To facilitate communication, companies that originate from countries where non-Latin alphabets are used often use documents, forms, etc. prepared in two languages: native and English. In certain Arabic countries, governmental organizations are sometimes even legally required to use bilingual documents, including email signatures. Read on to learn how to prepare the signature that will fit those specific requirements.

How to configure the program for this scenario

In this example, we will create an email signature that will include senders' information and contact details in two languages: English and Arabic.

Provide user details in the second language

For the sake of this article, let’s assume that your users’ details in English are configured in your organization’s Entra ID (Azure AD). Before you start designing your bilingual signature, you now need to provide the same details in the second language. You can do it in two ways, either by:

• Creating custom attributes in CodeTwo’s Attributes manager
• Setting up custom attributes in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Creating custom attributes in CodeTwo’s Attributes manager

With the Attributes manager, you can easily create custom attributes, name them whatever you want, and bulk-propagate them with desired values by importing a CSV file via a simple UI. You will later be able to add these attributes to your signature template (as placeholders).

Here’s how the process goes:

1. Sign in at attributes.codetwo.com (Attributes manager) with global admin credentials of your Microsoft 365 tenant.
2. Create as many custom attributes as you need by following these simple instructions. You will populate them with users’ details in the second language later on, so give them meaningful names like First name in Arabic, Last name in Arabic, and so on. A sample set of newly-created CodeTwo custom attributes is shown in Fig. 1.

   Important

   Do not use any special characters (such as brackets, quotation marks, colons, etc.) in your custom attributes’ names.

Fig. 1. A set of CodeTwo custom attributes that will store users’ details in the Arabic language.

3. Click Save to make these attributes (placeholders) available in the signature management app.
4. Now, let’s bulk-populate the newly-created attributes with the actual values for all your users. To do it, prepare your data in Arabic and complete these instructions, taking the following into account:
   • Remember to include UPNs (email addresses) of your users in the UPN column of the CSV file.
   • The columns with your custom attributes are displayed after the columns with all the standard Entra ID (Azure AD) attributes, so it might be a good idea to hide the columns with the standard attributes for easier editing experience, as shown in Fig. 2.

     Tip

     To hide columns with the standard Entra ID attributes, select them, right-click anywhere inside the selection, and choose Hide.

   
   Fig. 2. By hiding the columns with the standard Entra ID attributes, the columns with custom attributes are shown next to the UPN column (for easier editing).

   • If you edit your CSV file in Excel, remember to globally clear all the formatting after you’ve pasted attributes’ values for all your users. This will help you avoid any potential problems with the import. To do it, select all cells and use the Clear > Clear Formats option on the Home tab, as shown in Fig. 3.

   
   Fig. 3. The Excel option that allows you to clear all the unnecessary formatting.

   • For this scenario, use the Selective import option when importing the CSV file into the Attributes manager.
   • It usually takes several minutes to correctly propagate all data.

Once you’ve bulk-imported the values for all your users, move on to designing your bilingual signature.

Setting up custom attributes in the Microsoft 365 admin center

To learn how to use the native Exchange Online custom attributes to store your users’ details in the second language (e.g. Arabic), follow the instructions from this article.

If you look for a more automated way to populate Exchange Online custom attributes with values, you need to prepare a properly-formatted CSV file and use a PowerShell script to bulk-import the values from the file to your Microsoft 365 tenant. For instructions how to do it, refer to this section of the above mentioned blog article.

Once you’ve completed the procedure described in the blog, wait some time for the changes to propagate and proceed to designing the signature.

Design a bilingual signature template

When all your user data is prepared, it’s time to design an email signature that will show senders’ details in two languages (English and Arabic).

1. Sign in at app.codetwo.com (the signature management app).
2. Depending on the signature mode you’re using, create a new cloud (server-side) or Outlook (client-side) signature rule, defining all the conditions and exceptions according to your liking.
3. In the Design step of the rule creation wizard, click Edit signature to launch the signature template editor.
4. The editor launches with the Template library. Select a template layout that is best suited for your bilingual signature or close the library and start creating your signature template from scratch, as described in this article.
5. Once you’ve adapted (or created) the template according to your needs, you can start working on the section which is going to contain user details in English:
   1. First, insert the Entra ID (Azure AD) attributes (placeholders). Put the cursor in the place where a given attribute should be displayed, click Placeholder > Message Sender, and select the desired Entra ID attribute (e.g. First name), as shown in Fig. 4.

      
      Fig. 4. Inserting an Entra ID attribute into the specific place of the signature.

   2. Repeat the procedure for the other attributes you want to use in your signature. Your initial design of the section might look similar to the one shown in Fig. 5.

      
      Fig. 5. The initial design consisting of Entra ID attributes only.

   3. Supplement this section with the fixed/static text (that will be common for all users), like the Phone: or Email: phrases, your company name, etc., as shown in Fig. 6.

      
      Fig. 6. Attributes/placeholders (in curly brackets) accompanied by fixed text.

   4. Finally, add some formatting to make the section more visually appealing (Fig. 7.) by using the features available on the editor’s ribbon. Learn more

      
      Fig. 7. The final design of the section with the user data in English.

6. Now, it’s time to create the second section (on the right) that will list the same user details but in the other language (Arabic, in our example):
   1. Start by adding the correct attributes/placeholders. To do it, put the cursor inside the second section, go to Placeholder > Message Sender > Additional attributes and select either:
      • CodeTwo custom attributes, which have the same names as you defined in the CodeTwo’s Attributes manager (Fig. 8., 5A), or
      • Exchange Online custom attributes, which are always named CustomAttribute1-15 (Fig. 8., 5B),

      depending on what type of custom attributes you chose to store your users’ details in the second language.

      
      Fig. 8. Inserting custom attributes (5A – CodeTwo, 5B – Exchange Online) that store user details in the second language.

   2. The resulting initial design of the second section will look similar either to Fig. 9., A (if you use CodeTwo custom attributes) or Fig. 9., B (if you use Exchange Online custom attributes).

      
      Fig. 9. The two versions of the initial design of the Arabic language section, depending on the used type of custom attributes (A – CodeTwo, B – Exchange Online).

   3. Now, proceed similar to the first (English) section: add the static text in the second language, format your signature similar to the first section, etc.
   4. Important: If you use Arabic as the second language, remember to add the dir="rtl" attribute to the HTML code, so that the text is displayed properly from right to left. You need to add the attribute to the <td> tag that begins the second section of the signature. At the same time, remember to add the dir="ltr" attribute to these elements of the section that should still be displayed in the left-to-right direction, e.g. phone numbers – usually the opening <span> tag is the right place to do it. For a sample code, see Fig. 10.

      
      Fig. 10. The attributes that control the direction of the text added to the HTML code of a signature template.

      For more detailed instructions, refer to this section of our Knowledge Base article on using right-to-left languages in email signatures.

   5. An example showing the final design of both sections (English and Arabic) is shown in Fig. 11.

      
      Fig. 11. The final design of the two sections with user’s details – one in English and one in Arabic.

7. Finally, edit the bottom section (or all other sections) of your signature template according to your liking – you might add a company logo, marketing banner, social media links, a disclaimer or something else. If you need to add more sections (table cells) to your signature, use the guidelines from this section of the article about designing a signature template from scratch.
8. Once everything’s ready, you can use the Signature preview feature available on the editor’s ribbon to check what the signature looks like for a specific user from you organization. Learn more
9. At the end, remember to save your template by clicking Apply & Close in the editor, and then click Save & Publish in the rule creation wizard.

Result

Now, when your users send emails, their recipients will see the signature with sender’s details displayed in two languages, as shown in Fig. 12.

Fig. 12. The signature with user’s details both in English and Arabic as seen by a recipient.

See also

How to add extra information to your signature with custom attributes – learn how to use custom attributes to add information that doesn’t match any standard Entra ID (Azure AD) attribute.

How to let your users choose the default signature on their own – see how you can let users in your organization choose their default signature (e.g. depending on the language they communicate with).