Then the next morning, I received the follow email. The highlighting is mine; otherwise, it is unchanged from what was sent by Microsoft Support.

From: Steven Yi (CS&S) <v-stevyi@microsoft.com>
To: George
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 1:52 AM
Subject: SRX060316602240 OL2003: signature is inserted at the beginning
 when template is HTML

Dear George,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Office Support Services. My name is Steven and I will be helping you with this service request.

After reviewing the case log, I understand this issue is:

-- When you use your oft template to create new message, if the template is HTML format, the signature will be inserted at the beginning of text; while if the template is Rich Text format, the signature will be inserted at the end of the text.

We will work together on this issue throughout the course of this case. If I misunderstood the issue, don't hesitate to correct me.

George, unfortunately, I'm afraid that this is a by-design imperfect feature of Outlook. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience brought by this issue. At current situation, I recommend you use the Signature button to manually insert your signature as a workaround. Please refer to the following screenshot.

Again, I'm indeed sorry for the inconvenience that this by-design feature of our products has caused you. I will forward this issue to our developer team so that they can investigate possibilities for improvement.

Meanwhile, you also can submit a wish for this to our Feedback department. This will let the developers know what you would like to be able to do and/or see added in the future version. You can send in requests to Feedback anytime and send Feedback very easily by going to
http://support.microsoft.com/common/survey.aspx?scid=sw;en;1208&showpage=1&ws=search.

Our developers are always interested in your ideas.

I hope the information above can help you. If anything is unclear in this email, please feel free to let me know. I am happy to assist you and look forward to your reply. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Steven Yi
Office Online Support Professional
Microsoft Product Support Services
v-stevyi@microsoft.com

Delighting our customers is our top priority. Please let my manager or me know what you think of the level of service provided. You can send feedback to Microsoft Management at mailto:managers@microsoft.com?subject=OfficeOnlineSupportIncident .