Adolsign Manual page

NAME

Adolsign - Create Active Directory aware Outlook Signatures

SYNOPSIS

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DESCRIPTION

Adolsign is a tool to create AD-aware Outlook signature files.

- Do you use Outlook ?
- Is your environment Active Directory enabled ?
- Do you want to offer your users mail signature templates according to your corporate design guidelines ?
- Do you want to produce vCards from Active Directory information?
- Do you want to create signature packages centrally and distribute them via distribution channels like e-mail or web-pages ?

If you answer yes to the questions above, you may benefit of Adolsign's functionality. Adolsign can scan signature templates in html, rtf or plain text format, replace scan codes with equivalent fields in Active Directory, and places processed templates into Outlook's signature directory. It is capable of generating vCard files, as well as processing multiple signatures based on group membership or values in AD-fields. Marking one signature as Outlook default is also possible. Adolsign can also create ready-to-install signature packages for distribution via e-mail, web-pages or other channels. All the functionalty above is available as a command-line utility, making deployment easy via login/startup scripts or software distribution systems.

How to install Adolsign?

Supported platforms are Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7/8/10 and Outlook 2000/2002/2003/2007/2010/2013/2016/2019. Adolsign comes as a ZIP file containing a directory structure. Adolsign executable is located at the bin directory. Simply unzip your downloaded copy and adolsign is ready to go !!

OPTIONS

--signature signature

Outlook signature represented by three files signature.htm, signature.rtf or signature.txt. Adolsign searches those files for scan codes and replace them with equivalent fields from Active Directory. Following scan codes are supported by default (You can add new fields by using the configuration file):

 field_login, field_fullname, field_firstname, field_lastname,
 field_othername, field_title, field_company, field_department
 field_office, field_telephone, field_homephone, field_mobilephone,
 field_fax, field_email, field_street, field_pobox, field_city,
 field_postal, field_country,field_description, field_division,
 field_state, field_employeeid, field_homepage, field_initials
--vcard

Generates a vCard which is attached to the signature generated.

--addfile file/directory

Copies extra file file/directory to the signatures directory directly or via an installer package. This option could be useful if you want to copy additional files like images. It can be specified multiple times.

--username name

Adolsign uses name for user name lookup instead of the name of the current user. Useful for offline package creation.

--makepackage

Make an installer package instead of copying signature files to Outlook signature directory. This option alows you to create signature packages offline and send them via e-mail or other distribution channels.

--default

Make signature default for new and reply/forward messages.

--newdefault

Make signature default for new messages.

--replydefault

Make signature default for reply/forward messages.

--configfile configuration file path

Adolsign can be further customized by a configuration file, which allows you to specify signatures for groups and new active directory field mappings. In addition, you can specify lookup tables for conditional field mappings. By default, Adolsign searches for the file adolsign.config in the same directory as itself. You can use this switch to specify an alternative path.

--targetpath target path for signatures

Specify target directory for signatures. Even if Adolsign is capable of finding that directory itself, it may be necessary to specify it explicitly in some situations.

--packagename Package name

This option allows you to specify the name of the distribution package. By default, it is username_signature.exe. Use of full paths is recommended.

--encoding

This option allows you to specify encoding of template files. The default is ISO-8859-1 (a.k.a ISO Latin-1). Using that option without a parameter will list all available encodings on your system. If your template files have characters which are not supported by ISO-8859-1, you may save them in UTF-8 format and use "--encoding utf8". A selected set of supported encodings:

 ascii,ascii-ctrl,cp1006,cp1026,cp1047,cp1250,cp1251,cp1252,cp1253,cp1254,cp1255,cp1256,cp1257,cp1258,
 cp37,cp424,cp437,cp500,cp737,cp775,cp850,cp852,cp855,cp856,cp857,cp858,cp860,cp861,cp862,cp863,cp864,
 cp865,cp866,cp869,cp874,cp875,cp932,cp936,cp949,cp950,euc-cn,euc-jp,euc-kr,iso-2022-jp,iso-2022-jp-1,
 iso-2022-kr,iso-8859-1,iso-8859-10,iso-8859-11,iso-8859-13,iso-8859-14,iso-8859-15,iso-8859-16,iso-8859-2,
 iso-8859-3,iso-8859-4,iso-8859-5,iso-8859-6,iso-8859-7,iso-8859-8,iso-8859-9,UCS-2BE,UCS-2LE,UTF-16,UTF-16BE,
 UTF-16LE,UTF-32,UTF-32BE,UTF-32LE,UTF-7,utf-8-strict,utf8
--readonly

Make sure that the default signatures are greyed out in Outlook

--verbose

produce progress messages. Default is Off.

--help

Produces this message.

EXAMPLES

NB! Contents of the configuration file adolsign.config will always be processed.

 adolsign --signature \\myserver\netlogon\mysign --vcard --addfile images-directory

adolsign will look for at least one of the files mysign.txt, mysign.rtf or mysign.htm in \\myserver\netlogon and create outlook signature mysign for the current user. Vcard file mysign.vcf will also be placed in the signatures directory and attached to the signature generated. In addition, contents of \\myserver\netlogon\images-directory will be copied.

 adolsign --signature corporate --vcard --username myuser --makepackage --addfile logo.gif --packagename c:\userpackages\user.exe

adolsign will look for at least one of the files corporate.txt, corporate.rtf or corporate.htm in the current directory, process them for user myuser and create a signature installer package named c:\userpackages\user.exe. The package will also contain vcard file myuser.vcf and the image file logo.gif from the current directory.

 adolsign --signature T:\templates\classic --default --encoding utf8

adolsign will look for at least one of the UTF-8 encoded template files classic.txt, classic.rtf or classic.htm in the directory T:\templates, and create outlook signature classic for the current user, which will also be marked as the default signature both for new and reply/forward messages.

CONTACT

ADOLSIGN website: http://itefix.net/adolsign e-mail: post@itefix.no

VERSION

Version 2.7.0, Jan 2019

CHANGELOG

changes from 2.6.6
 - Office 2019 support
changes from 2.6
 - New option --readonly to grey out default signatures in Outlook
 - Bugfix: Loading extra support for Unicode and Byte encodings
changes from 2.5
 - Office 2016 support
changes from 2.4
 - New option --encoding for specification of encoding of template files
changes from 2.3
 - Distribution packages can now set the distributed signature as default
 - New option --targetpath for explicit specification of target signatures directory
 - New option --packagename for explicit naming of distribution packages
changes from 2.2
 - Office 2013 support
 - Signatures are processed in the order they are specified in the configuration file, allowing prioritization
changes from 2.1
 - Builtin UTF8 support for Active Directory fields (Text and Html signatures only)
 - remove option --utf8
 - option anchor creates hyperlinks for rtf signatures as well
changes from 2.0
 - new conditional field directive '--lookup'
changes from 1.9
 - New configuration file format allowing to define multiple signatures with multiple attributes
 - Conditional processing based on field values in Active Directory (example - process template if company name in AD is 'My Company'
 - Support for recursive processing of extra files
 - Command line switches for default signatures don't take argument anymore. They applies only for the signatuure specified in command line.
 - Option --utf8 for explicit use of UTF-8 decoding/encoding during template processing
 - Treat anchor mailto properly without double slashes
 - Office 2010 support
changes from 1.8
 - new conditional field directive '--format'
 - new conditional field directive '--anchor'
 - %LOGONSERVER% variable is replaced by the logon server name in signature paths in the configuration file
 - Correct treatment of multiple signatures for one group
 - remove four digit random value from signature installer package names
 - Office 2007 support in signature installer packages
changes from 1.7
 - complete Outlook 2007 support
 - more flexible and powerful configuration file format, --configfile switch
 - customizable active directory field mappings
 - correct treatment of options replydefault/newdefault when only one of them is specified
 - improved check of domain group membership
 - add -default switch to conditional field handling
 - introducing basic support (remove *\par *) for ignoreline option for rtf singatures
 - add case switch with four options and multiple values (uppercase, lowercase, lowerfirst, upperfirst)
changes from 1.6
 - option *addfile* works for all modes
 - conditional field mappings
 - A new scan code: *field_initials* maps to Initials field in AD
 - Automatic vCard attachment to signature
 - Signature installer package name is extended with a 4-digit random number
 - Correct handling of signature files in the current directory
 - Outlook 2000 and 2002 support for default signatures
 - option *default* works without arguments
changes from 1.5
 - option *makepackage* for offline signature installer package creation
 - option *username* allows to specify other users instead of the current user.
 - option *addfile* allows you to add additional files to signature installer package
 - option *default* to specify a signature as default for both new and reply/forward messages
 - option *newdefault* to specify a signature as default for new messages
 - option *replydefault* to specify a signature as default for replay/forward messages
 - better documentation
 - some minor bug fixes
changes from 1.4
 - vCard support
 - Support for multiple signatures via domain group membership specified in the 'adolsign.config' file
 - A license file is required for full activation
 - Some minor bug fixes
Changes from 1.3
 - Can recognize signature directory names for localized Outlook versions.
Changes from 1.2
 - One new field : field_state
 - field_city maps correctly.
Changes from 1.1:
 - Four new fields: field_description, field_division, field_employeeid, field_homepage
 - Signature without a full path is assumed to exist in the start directory.
 - Scan codes without AD-equivalents are replaced by a blank string.

Release announcements

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