Email signatures are a key part of professional communication, providing essential contact information and sometimes adding a personal touch through images and logos. However, a common issue many users face is the enlargement of images in their WiseStamp email signatures when viewed by recipients. This problem often arises due to the use of Rich Text Format (RTF) in emails. Here’s how to resolve this issue and ensure your email signature appears polished and professional.
Understanding Rich Text Format (RTF)
Rich Text Format (RTF) is an older file format developed by Microsoft, used primarily in Word and other Microsoft products for documents that include various text formatting options. Although versatile and widely supported, RTF can introduce complications when used in your WiseStamp email signatures, especially with images.
Why RTF may enlarge images
When you create an email signature in an email client that uses RTF, the HTML code used to build the signature is converted to RTF. This conversion process can lead to inconsistencies, particularly with images. Text elements usually remain consistent, but images often lose their specific sizing commands and are displayed in their native size.
Native sizes are typically larger to improve how the image is displayed, especially on high-resolution monitors. When an image is included without resizing commands, email clients using RTF display the image at its original size, which may be larger than intended for email signatures.
Options to prevent enlarged images in your WiseStamp email signature
Use HTML format: Ensure you are not using RTF; use HTML format for your emails. HTML is more universally supported across different email clients and provides better control over how images and text are displayed.
Optimize image size: Resize your images to the exact dimensions you want them to appear before embedding them in your signature. This helps ensure that the images are displayed correctly regardless of the email client's interpretation.
Keep in mind that using images at 100% scale (where the image size matches its display size) resolves the RTF image formatting issue but may result in blurry images on high-resolution screens.Server-side solution: By using our server-side solution, the signature is injected into the email body. This bypasses the composing stage and uses HTML formatting.
⚠️ Important limitation to be aware of: Even if you follow all of the steps above, there is one scenario that is outside of your control. When a recipient replies using an email client that converts emails to RTF, that conversion will strip HTML styling — including your image sizing — and the image will appear enlarged again in the reply thread. There is nothing you or WiseStamp can do to prevent this from happening on the recipient's end. The only way to minimize the impact of this limitation is to pre-resize your images to the exact dimensions you want (the Optimize image size option above), so that even if sizing commands are stripped, the image file itself is already the correct size.
Why your WiseStamp signature images sometimes show as a file name or broken text
Sometimes your WiseStamp signature images appear as plain text, such as <img_8daffd03...png>, instead of showing the actual image, and the signature may lose its layout and stack vertically. In a WiseStamp signature, your images and layout are built with HTML, so they need the email to stay in HTML format to display correctly.
This usually appears partway down a reply chain and can affect different people at different times, which is why it often looks random. It happens when someone in the thread replies in Plain Text instead of HTML. Plain Text cannot keep the HTML that builds your WiseStamp signature, so the image references fall back to their file name and the layout collapses. Because this depends on how the recipient replies, it is not something you or WiseStamp can control on their end.
How to keep your WiseStamp signature intact
Use WiseStamp server-side deployment: If this happens often for your team, deploying your WiseStamp signature with our server-side option helps the most. WiseStamp injects the signature into the email in HTML on the server, so it is more likely to keep its layout. The trade-off is that WiseStamp adds the signature after you click Send, so you will not see it while composing the email.
It works alongside your existing setup. WiseStamp server-side deployment can run together with an email security or filtering service (for example, Barracuda) and with your existing Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace connection to WiseStamp. Depending on your environment, this may require a configuration change on your side (for Microsoft, this is usually done in the Microsoft Exchange Admin Center). The exact steps vary by setup, so our support team can walk you through the right WiseStamp configuration for your organization.
For a full comparison of WiseStamp's client-side and server-side deployment, including the pre-send and post-send trade-offs, see WiseStamp Signature Deployment Methods.