Tip #3568 - E-mail Background Colors
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Q:
One of my friends who sends me e-mails all the time always has a pretty
light blue color as her e-mail background. It looks so nice and I was
wondering if you could tell me how I could do that for mine as well. Any
help would be greatly appreciated!
A:
That's an excellent question! I mean, who wouldn't want to spruce up their
e-mails every once in awhile? Whether you're just sending a fun e-mail
off to one of your friends or if you're sending out an e-mail invitation,
it's nice to know you have some different options when it comes to how
those e-mails will look before you send them off. And the best way to
dress up your e-mails is to simply add a little color!
A colored background
is a little less extravagant than a personal wallpaper design or even
a stationery piece, but it still gives off a nice new feel to the e-mail
message. I personally love changing up my e-mail background colors, depending
on who I'm sending the e-mail to. My friends and family always compliment
me on my choices as well. While some recipients don't like to receive
e-mails that are too "busy," others do. And as long as you still
make it easy to read, it's just something fun to play around with.
So, by now, I bet
you're anxious to know how you can make this happen for your own e-mails.
Am I right? Well, that is what this tip is all about, so we might as well
get started. I'm going to show you how you can change your e-mail backgrounds
for these different e-mail programs: Outlook Express, Yahoo!, Hotmail,
Gmail, AOL and Thunderbird. Hopefully, the client you use is in there
somewhere and you can start to do this as soon as possible!
Outlook Express
First up is OE. Go
ahead and click on the Create Mail button, just like
you would to compose a brand new e-mail message. From there, go to the
Format menu and then click on Background.
Next, choose Color and leave your mouse on it for a little
bit. A new drop down menu will appear where you can choose which color
you'd like to use for your background. There aren't a whole lot of choices
in OE, but there are some pretty ones and I'm sure you can find something
that will do. Just click on the color you want and the background in your
new e-mail message will automatically fill with the new color.
You can then go up
to the "A" letter and choose a color for your
text. Make sure you choose something that will jive well with your background
color. Otherwise, your recipient won't be able to read what you write.
Once you've chosen your colors, you can type out your e-mail message,
add your recipient's e-mail address and then send it off. Yes!
Yahoo!
Now, Yahoo! does this
whole background color thing a little differently, but it will still give
off the same effect. Click on the Compose button to start
a new message. From there, go down to your toolbar. You'll see all kinds
of different things there like the bold, italics and underline buttons,
for example. You'll also see one that looks like a highlighter and it
has a yellow line underneath it. Click on that to choose your background
color, but keep in mind that it will work more like a highlighter, instead
of filling your complete background. Next, click on the "T"
button and choose your text color. Again, make sure your two colors will
look okay together. Then, just start typing your e-mail message. Your
background color will highlight your text color to make your background
look uniform. Once you're done typing, insert your recipient's e-mail
address and then send it away!
Hotmail
For Hotmail, click
on New Message and wait for the new window to come up.
Once there, go down to your toolbar and look for the little icon of a
paint bucket with paint spilling out of it. It will have a yellow line
underneath it as well. Click on that and choose your background color.
There's tons of colors to choose from in this one! When you're done with
that, go over one icon and click on the "A"
letter and choose your text color. You can then type your message and
send the e-mail off.
Gmail
Once you log in to
your Gmail account, click on the Compose Mail link. Find
the toolbar and look for the two "T" letters.
The first one is for your text color and the second is for the background
color. Gmail works a lot like Yahoo! though, because it also does the
whole highlighting thing. Choose both of your colors and then just start
typing. Again, the color you chose for your background will just highlight
the color you chose for your text and it will look like a complete background
color when you're finished. Yes, there will be some white area in the
e-mail where you don't type, but the rest of the e-mail will look super
cool. When you're done, push the Send button and off
it will go!
AOL
Go ahead and get into
your AOL e-mail area. Click on Mail Options and choose
Write, in order to compose a new message. You should
then see two "A" buttons in the toolbar. One
is for the text and the other is for the background. Click on the first
one for your text color and then the second one to choose your background
color. AOL also works as a highlighter, so nothing will come up until
you start typing. Again, make sure you choose two colors that will accent
each other so your recipient will be able to read it. Type your e-mail
message and then send it off. That's all it takes!
Thunderbird
And last, but not
least, there's Mozilla Thunderbird. Once you open Thunderbird, click on
Write to start a new message. In the toolbar, you will
see two squares overlapping each other. One will probably be black and
one will be white. The bottom one is your background color. Click on it
to choose the color you'd like to use. The top one is for the text color.
Click on it and choose an appropriate color. Once you've made your selections,
type your message and send it away.
So, as you can see,
changing your e-mail background color is a very simple process, no matter
which e-mail program you use. If you take the time to do this, your recipients
will have something new to look at besides all the same old boring black
and white colors that most e-mails have. Again, it's not as far out as
a wallpaper or stationery piece, but it does a good job of giving your
e-mails a more upbeat feel. You gotta love that!
~ Erin
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