No Automatic Signature on Custom Forms & Templates

Thank you to Diane Poremsky for providing this solution found at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/email/signatures-on-custom-forms-templates/

Diane provides solutions for all versions of Windows Outlook. I implemented the Outlook 2013 version. 

Outlook 2013

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Options
DWORD: NoAutosigOnCustomForms
Data Value: 1 = no signature; 0 = uses signature (the default)

That's right, we have to add a registry key. Worked as expected, once I put it in the correct directory. I navigated to the Options folder, but incorrectly selected a directory below. It has to be in the Options level folder. Heller.

1. Open the registry editor by typing regedit into the Start menu’s Search field or by press Windows key + R on your keyboard
2. Browse to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Options key in the registry
3. Right click on the Options folder and choose New > DWORD (32-Bit) Value
4. Type or paste NoAutosigOnCustomForms as the name
5. Right click on NoAutosigOnCustomForms and select Modify...
6. Enter a value of 1 if you don’t want the autosignature added.

You’ll need to restart Outlook for the change to take effect.

Creating User Names with Excel

Our usernames are a combination of the first initial of the first name and entire last name. Should there be a duplicate, we add a number. Below describes how to create the user names from a spreadsheet. However, care still should be given for those names that may contain a number. (e.g. Jack Johnson jjohnson and Joe Johnson jjohnson2)

Use CONCATENATE, LEFT, and LOWER to create user names.

Example: Don Ho dho

=LOWER(CONCATENATE(LEFT(C2,1), B2))

The formula returns 1 character of the word beginning on the LEFT in cell C2 joining it together with the entire word in cell B2. LOWER then converts the entire result to lower case.

Annoying Adobe Acrobat/Reader "Reading Untagged Document" Dialog

For about a week now, every time I opened a PDF document an annoying popup related to Adobe Reader X would appear.

Thankfully, an Adobe person provided a few workarounds to what seems to be a known issue since Adobe Acrobat/Reader 8. For my situation, I must have installed something that caused Adobe Acrobat/Reader X to think I had some type of assistive technology installed on my PC. The actual workaround I implemented was listed in the comments section of the blog post and it works well-so far.

Here are the steps:

• In a Windows Explorer window, navigate to 
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 11.0\Acrobat\plug_ins
• Rename Accessibility.api to Accessibility.api.bk
• Rename ReadOutLoud.api to ReadOutLoud.api.bk

Source: http://blogs.adobe.com/dmcmahon/2011/08/19/acrobatreader-how-to-disable-the-reading-untagged-document-dialog/