Q:
One of my friends who sends me e-mails all the time always has a pretty light blue color as her e-mail background. It looks so nice and I was wondering if you could tell me how I could do that for mine as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A:
That's an excellent question! I mean, who wouldn't want to spruce up their e-mails every once in awhile? Whether you're just sending a fun e-mail off to one of your friends or if you're sending out an e-mail invitation, it's nice to know you have some different options when it comes to how those e-mails will look before you send them off. And the best way to dress up your e-mails is to simply add a little color!

A colored background is a little less extravagant than a personal wallpaper design or even a stationery piece, but it still gives off a nice new feel to the e-mail message. I personally love changing up my e-mail background colors, depending on who I'm sending the e-mail to. My friends and family always compliment me on my choices as well. While some recipients don't like to receive e-mails that are too "busy," others do. And as long as you still make it easy to read, it's just something fun to play around with!

So, by now, I bet you're anxious to know how you can make this happen for your own e-mails. Am I right? Well, that's what this tip is all about, so we might as well get started. I'm going to show you how you can change your e-mail backgrounds for these different e-mail programs: Outlook Express, Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, AOL and Thunderbird. Hopefully, the client you use is in there somewhere and you can start to do this as soon as possible!

Outlook Express

First up is OE. Go ahead and click on the Create Mail button, just like you would to compose a brand new e-mail message. From there, go to the Format menu and then click on Background. Next, choose Color and leave your mouse on it for a little bit. A new drop down menu will appear where you can choose which color you'd like to use for your background. There aren't a whole lot of choices in OE, but there are some pretty ones and I'm sure you can find something that will work. Just click on the color you want and the background in your new e-mail message will automatically fill with the new color.

You can then go up to the "A" letter and choose a color for your text. Make sure you choose something that will jive well with your background color. Otherwise, your recipient won't be able to read what you write. Once you've chosen your colors, you can type out your e-mail message, add your recipient's e-mail address and then send it off. Yes!

Yahoo!

Now, Yahoo! does this whole background color thing a little differently, but it will still give off the same effect. Click on the Compose button to start a new message. From there, go down to your toolbar. You'll see all kinds of different things there like the bold, italics and underline buttons, for example. You'll also see one that looks like a highlighter and it has a yellow line underneath it. Click on that to choose your background color, but keep in mind that it will work more like a highlighter, instead of filling your complete background. Next, click on the "T" button and choose your text color. Again, make sure your two colors will look okay together. Then just start typing your e-mail message. Your background color will highlight your text color to make your background look uniform. Once you're done typing, insert your recipient's e-mail address and then send it!

Hotmail

For Hotmail, click on New Message and wait for the new window to come up. Once you're there, go down to your toolbar and look for the little icon of a paint bucket with paint spilling out of it. It will have a yellow line underneath it as well. Click on that and choose your background color. There are tons of colors to choose from in Hotmail! When you're done with that, go over one icon and click on the "A" letter and choose your text color. You can then type your message and send the e-mail off.

Gmail

Once you log in to your Gmail account, click on the Compose Mail link. Find the toolbar and look for the two "T" letters. The first one is for your text color and the second is for the background color. Gmail works a lot like Yahoo! though, because it also does the whole highlighting thing. Choose both of your colors and then just start typing. Again, the color you chose for your background will just highlight the color you chose for your text and it will look like a complete background color when you're finished. Yes, there will be some white area in the e-mail where you don't type, but the rest of the e-mail will look super cool. When you're done, push the Send button and off it will go!

AOL

Go ahead and get into your AOL e-mail area. Click on Mail Options and choose Write, in order to compose a new message. You should then see two "A" buttons in the toolbar. One is for the text and the other is for the background. Click on the first one for your text color and then the second one to choose your background color. AOL also works as a highlighter, so nothing will come up until you start typing. Again, make sure you choose two colors that will accent each other so that your recipient will be able to read it. Type your e-mail message and then send it off. That's all it takes!

Thunderbird

And last, but not least, there's Mozilla Thunderbird. Once you open Thunderbird, click on Write to start a new message. In the toolbar, you'll see two squares overlapping each other. One will probably be black and one will be white. The bottom one is your background color. Click on it to choose the color you'd like to use. The top one is for the text color. Click on it and choose an appropriate color. Once you've made your selections, type your message and send it.

So, as you can see, changing your e-mail background color is a very simple process, no matter which e-mail program you use. If you take the time to do it, your recipients will have something new to look at besides all the same old boring black and cialis rebate white colors that most e-mails have. Again, it's not as far out as a wallpaper or stationery piece, but it does a good job of giving your e-mails a more upbeat feel. You have to love that!