Why is it recommended to leave the signature at the bottom of the message?
Hi,
I wanted to know what is the reason for this, since Thunderbird doesn't give a clue, nor the signatures support page.
Thanks.
Chosen solution
Assuming that you are talking about the position of the signature and not the meaning of the signature itself, leaving it at the bottom has the advantage that the signature delimiter (two dashes and a space, indicating that "here" is where the signature begins) remains intact and thus allows the signature to split of properly on replies or when the identity is changed.
If you select the "below my reply (above my quote)" positioning, the signature will not have the "-- " delimiter above the signature. If it would, the entire rest of the message (including the quote) would be considered signature. However, leaving the signature without its delimiter prevents Thunderbird from recognizing it as such, thus it's not removed in the cases where it should be given that it's considered part of the message text itself.
I hope this answers your question, otherwise please be more specific what you are referring to.
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Chosen Solution
Assuming that you are talking about the position of the signature and not the meaning of the signature itself, leaving it at the bottom has the advantage that the signature delimiter (two dashes and a space, indicating that "here" is where the signature begins) remains intact and thus allows the signature to split of properly on replies or when the identity is changed.
If you select the "below my reply (above my quote)" positioning, the signature will not have the "-- " delimiter above the signature. If it would, the entire rest of the message (including the quote) would be considered signature. However, leaving the signature without its delimiter prevents Thunderbird from recognizing it as such, thus it's not removed in the cases where it should be given that it's considered part of the message text itself.
I hope this answers your question, otherwise please be more specific what you are referring to.
That sounds reasonable to me. Many thanks.
You are welcome.
A signature is usually visually separated from the message by a delimiter; a dash dash. It's an Internet standard designed to enable email programs to recognise signatures and deal with them appropriately. Quotes following a delimiter and signature become part of your signature and are removed when you reply to them. Some mail clients can strip off everything below it upon replying.
Many corporations have internal policies or some countries insist that businesses disclose full information; requiring outgoing e-mails to have lengthy "signatures" appended to them, listing multiple contact methods, disclaiming legal liabilities, notifying of virus scanning methods, etc. The delimiter can be used to eg: print an email excuding everything after the delimiter or if Replying to the email, to remove the lengthy signature block of information.
In Thunderbird, if you have these settings:
- 'Tools' > 'Account Settings' > 'Composition & Addressing' for the mail account
- select : 'Compose mesages in HTML format'
- select: Automatically quote the original message when replying'
- then 'Start my reply above the quote'
- select: and plce my signature 'below my reply(above the quote)
- select: Include signature for replies'
- select: Include signature for forwards'
For Replies and forwarding, the signature will have the delimiter removed, so that the following quoted text is not read as part of the signature and so is not removed.
If you Write a new message the delimiter is included by default.
more info:
Good to know Toad-Hall, thank you for the info :)