Add Business Card to signature without image

I’d like to add a Business Card (vCard) to be included with my signature but this also adds an image of it in my signature which I do not want. I deleted this image when designing my signature but that removed the Business Card as well.

Is there any way to create my signature with the vCard but without the image of it?

I’d like to add a Business Card (vCard) to be included with my signature but this also adds an image of it in my signature which I do not want. I deleted this image when designing my signature but that removed the Business Card as well.

Is there any way to create my signature with the vCard but without the image of it?

Starting with Outlook 2007 and continuing in Outlook 2010, whenever you add a Business Card to your signature design, the Signature Editor will automatically generate a picture of it as well and add it to your signature. To get rid of this image, but still maintain the vcf-file attachment (representing your Business Card) requires a registry tweak.

Registry Key
Outlook stores signature Registry references to the vcf-file in the following way;

Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Signatures
Value name: signature name
Value type: REG_SZ
Value: signature name_files\Full Name

Value example; Business Card
Value name example; Business Card_files\Robert Sparnaaij

Business Card signature reference in the Registry.
Business Card signature reference in the Registry.

Step by step example
To explain the exact working of the key and how to create a signature with a Business Card vcf-file but without the image, you can follow the example below.

  1. Open the Signature Editor
    • Outlook 2007
      Tools-> Options…-> tab Mail Format-> button Signatures…
    • Outlook 2010
      File-> Options-> section Mail-> button Signatures…
  2. Create a new signature and call it; Business Card
  3. Type your signature as you want it to show up.
  4. Press the Business Card button and select the contact you want to add the Business Card of.
    In this example, I select; Robert Sparnaaij
  5. Leave the image and press the Save button; this will create a vcf-file in the Signatures folder.
  6. Delete the image; this will leave the vcf-file in the Signatures folder.
  7. Close the Signature Editor and the Options to return to Outlook.
  8. Open the Registry Editor and browse to the Key path;
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Signatures
  9. Insert a new String Value via the Edit-> New menu
  10. Name the new string value after your signature.
    In this example that would be; Business Card
  11. Double click on “Business Card” to assign it the value representing the name and location of the vcf-file.
    By default it is in the following format; signature name_files\Full Name
    This means that you take the signature name, append that with “_files” and then type the Full Name of the contact of which you have added the Business Card for.
    In this example the value would be; Business Card_files\Robert Sparnaaij
  12. Close the Registry Editor.
  13. Create a new message in Outlook and insert the signature. If you have done things correctly, your signature will now include the vcf-file attachment but not the Business Card image.

Alternative way to construct the Registry value
Constructing value that you need to put in the Registry key is a bit of a puzzle. Luckily there is another way to “solve” this puzzle;

  1. Hold the CTRL button when clicking on the Signature button in the Options dialog; this will open the Signatures folder in Windows.
  2. You should see a folder here named after your signature with “_files” appended to it; open this folder.
    In our example this would be called; Business Card_files
  3. Here you should see the name of your vcf-file.
    In our example this would be; Robert Sparnaaij
  4. Take the name of the folder you wrote down at step 2, put “ \ ‘ character between it and then the name of the vcf-file from step 3 (without the vcf-extension), you’d have the registry value that you need to put in; Business Card_files\Robert Sparnaaij

Constructing the Registry value via information from Explorer. (click on image to enlarge)
Constructing the Registry value via information from Explorer. (click on image to enlarge)

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