Bored with drab email messages? Then why not stand out from the crowd by designing some email stationery. A Windows PC already has all the necessary tools, be it Outlook Express in XP or Windows Mail in Vista.

By email stationery, we mean the use of attractive and colourful backgrounds for messages. You can either pick from ready-made examples or create your own, using a special wizard that comes with Microsoft’s email programs.

In this Workshop, we’ll show how to prepare an image of your own for use as a background in messages and then take you through the stages of the wizard so that you end up with stationery that’s legible and functional, as well as attractive to look at.