Signature size limit in OWA
I'm working with both Outlook and Outlook Web App (OWA) and therefor want to configure the same default signature in both clients.
To do this, I opened the Signature Editor in Outlook and copied my signature text. Then I logged on to OWA and pasted the signature in the Signature Editor there. However, when pressing "Save Settings", I get the error:
The text you typed is too long. Please shorten it and try to save it again.
This made me wonder; Up to how many characters are allowed for the Signature in OWA?
Yikes! Please don't include such a signature when mailing to me! ;-)
Most likely, something is wrong with the source where you are copying the signature from and excessive formatting is included.
No real character limit
Up to 8096 (8kb of) characters are supported for your signature in OWA but that includes both the HTML and the Plain Text version of the signature. The HTML version is made up out of (invisible) HTML tags which also account towards this character limit. Additionally, there are line breaks in both the HTML structuring and the Plain Text versions which account for 2 characters each.
Either way, this would still leave you with a good 2000 "typable" character limit for your signature in OWA.
So, assuming that you really did not create such a loooong signature, it is safe to say that a lot of excessive HTML formatting came along with the signature when copying it.
Not only try to keep your signature short in the amount of characters used, but also in length. An example of a compact signature with still plenty of info can be found in the guide Add Instant Messaging links to your Signature.
Cleaning up the Signature
If your signature mainly consists out of (lines of) text, then copying and pasting it to Notepad first and then copying and pasting it to OWA should do the trick already.
Otherwise, copying and pasting the signature out of an already sent message rather than from the Signature editor in Outlook will work in most other cases.
If it still doesn't work then, the following method hasn't failed me yet and wouldn't require you to mess around with HTML tags if you don't know how or result in the loss of formatting of your signature;
- Paste the text in a new Word document.
- Save the Word Document as "Web Page, Filtered".
- Close Word and reopen the document you just saved. It should now open in your default browser.
- Select and copy the text.
- Paste it into the Signature area in OWA.
- Save your settings.
Signature with Corporate Disclaimer
If your signature is mainly this long because of a corporate disclaimer that you need to add, your Exchange administrator could consider to add this via a Transport Rule on the Exchange server instead.
Another way to go would be to ask your legal department if the full disclaimer can be replaced by a smaller one. This could contain a link to a page on your corporate website where the disclaimer can be read in full. Your contacts would probably love that change as well!
