After you have finished your message and added the stationery background, you are ready to add an email button. (A button that when clicked will start a new email message addressed to you.)
Go to insert/picture
Browse
now find the button that you want to use (OE will default to your c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\stationery folder but when the window comes up with the file names, just go to the drop down box that says "look in" and you can change drives and folders just like in "my computer" or "explorer")
double click on it and that will bring you back to the window with the browse button
The box labeled "alternate text" can be ignored
Below that is a drop down box with the default of "baseline" showing
These are you choices for how the text NEXT to the button will line up with the button
You can choose something and look at it to see if it is what you want, and if it is not, then you can easily change it.
Just hit ok, when you are done.
That is the first part and has added a single graphic to your message. Now to add the link
Click on the graphic you just added. That will put a box around it. You can resize the graphic by moving the edges of this box.
Go to insert/hyperlink
The hyperlink information window will open
The first box is a drop down choice box again. It is defaulted to http:// (the start of a web site address)
change this to mailto: (you will notice that the bottom box now starts with mailto:)
Place your cursor in the bottom box just to the right of the : and type your full email address
It should look like
mailto:[email protected] (or org or net or edu or mil or, you get the idea)
Hit ok and you are done!
If you want to change the graphic or the way it is aligned (or to turn on a border) just RIGHT click on the graphic and select "properties". That will take you back to the window you had when you selected your graphic.
You can add more than one graphic - with or without a link. You may want one to link to your web page and one to link to your email address.
I know many people prefer to use a phony email address in the newsgroups to try to prevent spam, if you do - it is rather pointless and VERY annoying to have an email button link to a non-existant address. It would be better to not use it at all or use it to link to your website than to do that.