You mean this used to work and now does not?

What were you using? Templates? The Stationery addon?

Thanks for responding so quickly. I am using the stationery add-on, which worked perfectly under the previous version of TB but now does not work under the newer version (52?) which "upgraded" itself to my computer. TB now blocks the file that contained the letter-heading (stationery) and I then need to click twice in order to get the letter-heading to appear at the top of my outgoing emails.

Does your signature link to external files? That is where Thunderbird has recently changed.

I don't know why, but signatures with links to external resources often seem to fail. I construct mine by embedding the image into the signature file. I use Thunderbird itself to compose the signature, and tick the "attach this image to the message" option, which causes the image data to be made part of the signature text. In the current implementation, it is stored immediately as a "data URL", looking like this:

<img src="data:image/png;filename=image.png;base64,<image data here>">

In previous versions of Thunderbird it would be stored as a separate MIME part elsewhere in the message text.

First of all, thank you again for your time.

Mine is not a signature - it is a heading (like on paper it would be a letter-head, but it may, of course, work the same way).

Yes, previously the link was to an external file.

I'm afraid that, although you sent me details of how you handled the situation, I regret that I need FULL DETAILS , on a step by step basis - showing EXACTLY what I need to do, as I do not entirely follow your descriptions.

Many thanks

<grumble>Email is not paper. It is also not wysiwyg, and it has its own customs and conventions. Letterheads run against all this. </grumble>

So, how did you construct your letterhead in the first place? I think you'll need to go back there and make some small changes.

No-one can give you "FULL DETAILS" without knowing what you have already, and how you got there.

Hi again, What I did was I took an image file (jpg) and inserted it into a Word document, which I then saved as an HTML file into a local directory.

This was then read by the stationery add-on and automatically inserted into the top of my replies or my new emails.

I use two different headings from time to time and I need to be able to switch between them - but I want both of them to be available on one outgoing email address.

The old system worked perfectly as it used the last used letterhead but I could change that whenever I wanted.

Many thanks for your patience.

<more grumbling>

Argh!

When you start a document in Word, or any word processor, you start off, possibly unconsciously, by choosing a document paper size (A4, US letter), a font face and size, margins, justification, line spacing etc. Most of this, in Word, is wrapped up into a .dot document template.

None of this is appropriate in email. Nowhere in composing an email message are you invited to specify paper size or margins. You might choose a font, and a size, but you need to understand these are optional, mere hints to whatever program that displays them how you'd like the document to appear. But you cannot coerce or mandate that.

Have you looked at your letterheaded messages on a phone? Did it work out as you expected?

</more grumbling>

Thunderbird is an email client. It is designed to relay your message to its readers via network connections, using well-defined protocols. It knows that if you want to include a picture, or an attached file, they must be encoded in such a way that email servers will process the data. That data must be presented along with the email message, since the system used in web documents, where a subfolder is used to package up all the ancillary stuff, cannot be supported in email.

Word is principally aimed at creating paper documents. It doesn't know that your document is intended to be emailed, and so even if you ask it to save the document as an html file, it will create a what is effectively a web page, with links to external components, such as images.

If you take care to place those images where others can access them, i.e. on a web server, then it might work as an email message. Or you authorise them, one at a time, each time you use the template.

I'd start a new message, incorporating the letterhead. I'd visit each of the linked graphical elements, double-click it to open its properties editor, and click the option to "attach this image to the message". This will prompt Thunderbird to encode the image into the email message. Then I'd save the message as an html file, add that file to the collection of files that Stationery uses and use it in future in place of the original Word-generated template.

I'd still be irritated at all the ugly under-the-bonnet code left there by Word, but I think this procedure would overcome the nag you are currently getting.

Hi, and again, thanks for being so patient. I tried to carry out your suggestion as best as I could. I opened a new, blank, email and then cut and pasted an image in from my image making program (paint.net). Having done so, I opened the image properties within the email and attached he image to the message. I then saved the email as an html file and added it to the files that Stationery uses. When I subsequently opened that email I saw the letter-heading correctly but when it was sent to another email address of mine I did not receive it but instead a message appeared - "cid:part1.B3D4BBCB.3368328B@hotmail.com" but this message changed each time the email was sent (I tried sending it several times).

I looked at a copy of the received email on my phone (which repeats my incoming emails) and found that it displayed correctly.

Clearly I am doing something wrong - but I don't know what.