Quote: “There are two oddball files among the Stationary, another TableofContents.plist and an English.lproj Folder (I imagine for others running Leopard in other languages this folder may change, can someone confirm?).”

I am running Leopard with danish as language, and I have a additional da.Iproj folder a long side an English.Iproj.

Kind regards
Klaus

I just accidently realized that if you click on the background of the “Bamboo” or “Daisies” templates, it cycles through colors. Thought that might be of interest.

just a pointer on the spelling of stationery . . . with an ‘e’

……. hope you don’t take offense, dude!

cheers, Chris

Wow, fixed the post. Missed the spelling error in the rush to get Leopard posts out… Sorry everyone.

This would make a great video tutorial for those of us who don’t quite as much knowledge of XTM and HTML. I worked it on some, but could quite finish it. But thanks for posting it.

Try…

designing your html stationary in, say Dreamweaver
open it up in Safari
comedown to File / Mail contents of this page (command i)
which then opens your html page in mail
save as stationary

bingo !!

weta,

I tried what you said with Google’s home page.

Went to create a new message, clicked “Show Stationery” selected the custom one… the mail message “hung” (nothing clickable) for over a minute.

great tip but unfortunate bug.

Something could be missing in your TableofContents.plist arguments.

The Stationary ID string is used to place a UUID which allows the system to tell the difference between stationary files. The UUID must be formated properly and not being used elsewhere in the system, a good way to create one properly is with and application like UUID Generator. Which can be downloaded at http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Developer-Tools/UUID-Generator.shtml

Although a UUID is not required at this time it is good programming practice to include one.

The English.Iproj folder and any other folder ending in .lproj is a folder that contains resources valid only for a specific language setting. Everyone on this board is seeing English.lproj because we all selected English as our default language during install. If you want your stationery to support multiple languages you will need to include these. I also noticed you left out how to have the stationery auto set the greeting name, your name, and your personal email address based on your address book. Drop me a line if you want those details added, or I can provide them and you can add them in.

I have managed to create new stationary templates. However i am still trying to figure out how to change the stationary ID tags if anyone wants a sample of my email send me your email address.

Hugh

The Stationary ID tells Mail.app if it has already got this template in its “Personal” library (don’t really know where this is really stored in the file system). If the ID is already present, it won’t load the new stationary but rather use the first one that was preloaded on it (when you just double click on an .mailstationery file.)

The best way to create an Stationery ID is to use the Terminal. Just open a window and type the command:
> uuidgen

Copy and past its output.

Cheers!

Try…
designing your html stationary in, say Dreamweaver
open it up in Safari
comedown to File / Mail contents of this page (command i)
which then opens your html page in mail
save as stationary
bingo !!

Weta,

I like your solution, it’ s simple & fast. But in Mail, the pictures will not show. How come?

Ron

Did you save the images as .jpg or .png?

Steve

Hello Steve,

I’ve tried both. When I first publish the page and than do the same, It works properly. I think Safari cannot find the right resources?

Ron

Hi Steve Bleu (in french)

well by where to start !!

First I am begginer in many things…

I bought yesterday latest imac 24″ with leopard 10.5 already updated this night to 10.5.1 and would like do my own email stationeries and customize it …

I already Have Flash 7 dreamweaver 7 photoshop but no Xcode as well as Package Maker … so is possible to do the job without it ??

then if I do copy one existing my.mailstationery and work with it that is possible ???
or necessary to have Xcode ??? and if necessary where to found it ?? is it a freeware ? and where to download ???

If papy is not silly guess if something like an html page ??
so is it possible to do it without top,bottom,letter and bg-background !!

you open dreamweaver do your design having already is own headleter or logo(top)
as well as the design (background) and background letter and at least on footer (bottom) what you want as address,phone,email,website link and so on….

is ti mad or is it possible to do such ????? and why not adding flash animation :-))))

cause if yes would use my design of my website (animated logo) some backgrounds and background musics to do my owm emails stationeries in accordance my website… have a look to http://crisware.free.fr/site.html to see what I am looking for…

Thanks alot Steveblue and compliments your job

With Friendly

Chris

crisware@free.fr

Oops … papy is pertubated :-))

I forgot to notice you that I am french mac user
and I have a lot of languages.Iproj not only French.Iproj or English.Iproj
but a lot !!

If you are interesting I can send you a screenshots … let me know

Bye

Chris

Crisware,

You can copy the Mail Stationary files and edit them, just be sure to back up the originals.

Only certain Stationaries use headers and footers. It is possible to do without, but stick to the nomenclature that is already established i.e. bg_pattern.jpg : The Background Image.

XCode is on the Leopard Install DVD in the Additional Installs folder or can be downloaded from Apple for free. You need Package Maker for the final steps.

As far as flash animations, not so sure if they will work but try it out and get back to me. If flash animations do not work, try animated .gif (not sure of either).

Dreamweaver will be a fine html editor for adjusting or creatign templates. I would suggest updating to CS3 though, as soon as Adobe issues the promised “fixes” for Leopard.

You will see as many language folders as you have languages installed. The reason I didn’t see any except English is because I used Monolingual to delete extra languages I don’t use to save disk space on my MacBook Pro.

I like your website. Are you an Artist living in France? I am an Electronic Artist in Syracuse, NY USA. I am interested in conversing with other Artists across the World. If you would like to start corresponding about Art, please email me at steveblue@iuseapple.com.

Kind regards,
Steve

Good Evening Steve ,

Woah !! you answered me…. thanks a lot !!
there is so many sites you would like ask and reply
that many times you have any reply :-((((

Well by now will follows your advice and will download
Xcode form apple site….

then will do by now my first trial for an custom email template
using traditional way with html codes and gif or jpg pics
and if you permit will send it to you to check is working well or not

secondly will do an elaborate email template with background design
elaborated

and finallly will do an flash eamil template with my animated logo
some my backgrounds and sounds… what that will do ????

Have a good night and once more thanking you your answer… merci Steve

Chris
crisware@free.fr
http://crisware.free.fr

Hi, I’ve created a corporate stationary for my company, and would like to set it as a default stationary for all new emails (and not having to manually apply it every time).

Do you know if this is possible?

TIA, S.

Hay Soraya,
I would love to see your corporate stationary example.
I am wanting to do the same thing.
Joe

Stationeries are available through Limewire it seems. I edit to make more…

How do you change the bg_pattern.jpg for stationary so it stays a one image and not a repeated small section of the image used?

I have created a html file that i can use as a template. comes up perfect. i cant type anything in the mail. wont let me. Is this something i can fix.

Great article, but I am missing the steps dealing with PackageMaker. Could you please detail these steps?

As stated on another other thread (http://www.technosanity.com/2007/10/27/editing-mac-mail-stationery):

Note that users may not wish to modify the:
/Library/Application\ Support/Apple/Mail/Stationery/Apple/Contents/Resources/

…location (starting from the root of the hard drive) with their own creations, but instead should place custom entries within their own home folder, at the following path:

~/Library/Application\ Support/Mail/Stationery/Apple/Contents/Resources/

(where “~” represents your home folder).

This way, they will be more-easily portable via Migration Assistant, are directly a part of this single user’s environment (so a problem won’t modify behavior for any other users on the system), etc. NO modification of the TableOfContents.plist is needed (or should be pursued) - and note that this user-specific path is created for you (including a “Custom” sub-folder for grouping) if you use Mail’s “File -> Save as Stationery…” command.

Hi!
I feel totaly . I try to make stationery for three days and nothing. I made it in website format but I don’t know how to convert html code to stationery format. Can anybody help me with it. All images and all “site” for preview is available here:
public.me.com/adammilwiw as a self extracting file “stationery”
It is very easy stationery with one image, one text field and background image.
Thank You for every help.
Respect.
Adam Milwiw-Baron

Hi,
Can anyone tell me how to edit all of the drop areas, etc. I’ve successfully created my own stationary and edited the content.html file to have everything I want but when I drop my picture in it gets resized and placed in the wrong spot, even though I’ve edited the drop zone size to match the size of the picture.
Thanks,
Scott Cagle

Very nice blog post. I am trying to make stationery that I can make on the fly from Filemaker and send to customers, with each mail set up for that customer (to show what they just ordered). It’s been difficult going since there’s no support for this, but I have an interesting way of doing, which I’d be glad to post on. I’d like to know if a) anyone knows how to say, apply stationery X in the current mail, or b) how to say, make the “to” and “subject” of the currently selected mail to be [whatever]? I need one or the other to use this system…

I have read through this blog and am still curious, has anyone actually been successful at creating their template? One that works properly? If so, please advise. None of this has worked properly for me.
Thanks

Hi nice post, i read your blog from time to time but i was wondering something. I also run a blog on a similar topic, but i get 1,000’s of spam comments and emails every day does that happen to you.. Any ideas to stop it? I currently have commenting disabled but i want to turn it back on.. Thanks!

does this strategy work?

I really liked the way they came off

While appreciate all the work you went to…my thoughts are this….I bought a Mac so I would not be typing Dir:/ to open a document….and I won’t be doing a PHD in stationery….Come on APPLE….make it work if you are going to toute it as feature!

I usually do not comment on blog posts but I found this quite interesting, so here goes. Thanks! Regards, P.

It doesn’t work.
I did all the steps, (it does show the thumbnail in Mail) but when I click on it, Mail stops functioning. I know there might be something wrong. I changed the Stationary ID, added the right name where needed, and still nothing. Help please

[...] [Learn How] [...]

Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink - bookmark this site? Regards, Reader.

Yikes! What a bunch of lousy spellers! It drove me crazy to see it spelled sixteen different ways in the same article. Do some clean-up! To gain some mastery of these two words, here’s a tip: When you are referring to letterhead stuff, like you are now, the correct word is STATIONERY, with an E. An easy way to remember this is to note that the letter “E” is used in both letters and in stationery.

In contrast, the word STATIONARY refers to things that are fixed, immobile, like a very heavy train station. They ain’t going Anywhere.

P.S. You also need to learn the difference between it’s and its. You’ve got those wrong, too. Great article, by the way. Just lousy grammar.