As of July 8, 2010 Gmail has finally answered our calls! We have rich text signatures! What does that mean?

In the days of yonder, we had to hack around (using things like Greasemonkey scripts and other browser plugins) to get things like images or html elements into our Gmail signatures.  Not anymore.

Many professionals use Gmail as an accessible web interface for all their email accounts.   With the convenience of being able to check your email from anywhere, and all the Google docs and calender and.. well, many other features that Gmail has- it’s kind of a no-brainer.  But most pro’s want to embed a logo or use colored/styled fonts in their signatures too.

To get to these settings just check the top right corner of your Gmail page and click the ‘Settings’ link.  On the first tab (called General) there is now a handy little WYSIWYG editing box with a drop-down list for you to select your custom ‘From’ address so that you can have a different signature for each address.  (This way you don’t have to send your official business signature to Mom or Uncle Rob every time you respond to their questions about seeing the family this weekend… transversely you also don’t want to send your personal “cause I’m awesome” type signature to your co-workers.)

Don’t forget.. there are some limitations.  From the official blog post: “The older version and HTML version of Gmail, along with the mobile versions, use a plain text version of your primary account’s signature. ”

Thanks Gmail!