USING AND SAVING STATIONERY IN EMAIL FORM

A current trend in the world of email stationery is offering the stationery in the form of an email. There are several advantages to using .eml files.

* First, it reduces the number of files in your default stationery folder. A serious collector's computer can become overwhelmed by the size of that folder.

* Next, it allows you to organize the stationery any way you wish--animals, children, holidays, etc.

* As long as you keep the .eml extension you can rename these files any way you wish. You cannot do this with regular stationery files.

* You can put all of your holiday stationery in one folder and save it to storage media, only moving it to your hard drive for the short period of time of the holiday. Of course, you can also do this with any of the stationery.

* You can open the stationery directly from a CD or DVD without moving it to your hard drive.


There is another advantage, but this is for the stationery creator, such as myself. Rather than charge for the stationery in order to be able to pay for space or use a site with those hateful popup ads, I am offering my stationery in eml format. The reason? Because the files are smaller and I can squeeze more stationery onto the same amount of web space.

PREPARING TO USE .EML STATIONERY FILES

These files are so easy to use if you make them easy to reach. All you do is double click on the file and the stationery opens in Outlook Express. So, we want to make these files easy to find. What better way than having a shortcut on the desktop. So, let's get started....

* Decide which drive (if you have more than one) has plenty of room for storing your stationery. Create a new folder on that drive and name it what you wish. I might just call mine Stationery or maybe BettyMay's Stationery.

* Think how you would like to have your stationery organized. There are a million ways of doing this and we each have our preference. Whatever you like, start making subfolders for your Stationery folder you just created. Perhaps you will call them Floral, Children, Fantasy, etc. Now, as you download .eml files you can just move them to whichever folder you like.And you can always reorganize!

* But wait, we need a shortcut to make this easy, right. Just right click on the Stationery folder you created in the beginning. You should see a choice to Create Shortcut near the bottom. Select it. The shortcut will go in the same folder as your new Stationery folder.If you put that folder on the D drive, you will have to scroll to the bottom of files on the D drive to find it. Now either copy and paste or drag and drop that shortcut to your desktop. I'm going to assume you know how to do that. If not, just yell.

* Another note about how easy this is....If you want to send a different stationery while Outlook Express is open, just minimize it so you can see the shortcut on your desktop.

* Just another little tip here...I have a folder on my D drive called Downloads with a shortcut to my desktop. When I download anything I put it in that folder where I know I can find it. I can click on the shortcut to open the folder, then do whatever I need to with the file.

* I think some sites let the .eml file itself download. I have chosen to zip mine. This makes the file even smaller. You will need WinZip or a compatible program to unzip the files. Just unzip them to the folders you have created.

Now that you have this plan in motion, how would you like to turn all your stationery into .eml files so they'd all be in the same place? Read on and I'll tell you how easy it is.

CONVERTING ANY STATIONERY TO .EML FILES

Start by opening Outlook Express.

1. Open the stationery you want to convert as though you were going to use it.

2. Make sure there is at least one word typed on it. That will cause the file to remember which font to use.

3. Choose File/Save As and browse to the folder in which you wish to save the stationery. At the bottom of that window you'll see a blank for the name and another line saying Save as Type Mail (*.eml). All you have to do is type a name on the blank line. You can use the name the designer of the stationery used or one of your own that will help you remember which one it is.

4. Make sure you have highlighted the folder you want to save it in and have entered the name you wish and click on Save.