Rated 5 out of 5 stars

by Hottie-Doll on Feb. 19, 2015 · permalink

A LOT of people are having a hard time getting this addon up and running. Most have never used stationary with Outlook and have no idea where to start. It is a bit tricky the first time so I made this Quick Start For Newbies to help people out. Made for windows users in mind but can help out others too.

1) Download and install this add-on (Tip: Sorry about the "no duh", I did say for newbies, there will be more "no duh"s)

2) Make a folder, any place for now, just as long as you know where it is. (Tip: I have Portable* Thunderbird so I made a folder in my profile. This add-on, I think**, made a folder called "stationery" in my profile folder, if this happened for you to I would suggest you make a NEW folder in there.) Call is whatever you want you can rename it later.

3) Go to http://thundercloud.net/stationery/

4) Look at all the links under "The Selections below are for Outlook Express, Outlook 2003, and Windows Mail (Windows 7, Windows 8 and Vista users). If you are new to using email stationery, please visit our Help page for instructions on how to download and use."
You will see a bunch of links for stationeries. Pick one that sounds nice and click it.

5) A new tab/window will open. You will see a bunch of words and crap. Look kinda to the bottom, your looking for a link called "Click Here To Download This Collection For Outlook Express, Outlook and Windows Mail (Vista)" or "Please click here to download Nature's Art collection" or some such thing, and click it (Tip: You may be thinking "but I have windows 8.1 and Thunderbird" I know, it may says something about vista and outlook and stuff just click it.) I would suggest you download a "set" of them and not just one.***

6) You now should have yet another NEW tab/window opened up. Look for the link that has "----Outlook and and other Users----" UNDER IT and click it to download your templates. (Tip: Should be the center of the 3 links as of this writing)***

7) You should now have an .exe (executable) file, it will be in the wherever folder your system puts your downloads in. With my system it is on the desktop yours may be in C:\Users\"User Name"\Downloads or C:\Users\"User Name"\Downloads\Funny_Cat_Pictures. Find it and click it to open it. (Tip: Always a good idea to scan for bugs on anything you download before you open it.)

8) Some Windows systems will have a big scary thing pop up in your face; saying something like "Warning something is trying to run on your computer, so it can melt your hard drive and kill off everyone you love". Just click whatever you have to to let the program run. I did run 3 different virus scans on the ones I downloaded and they seem safe. (Tip: The pop up warning, if any, you get may be different than the one I remember.)

9) The Program will have a dialog window window pop up. Click "Next"

10) This will open the "read me" thing. No one ever ever read them but you can (It says I will own your sports car and your house), click next.

11) Now in this next dialog box window that open you will see a button that says "Finish" on it, DO NOT CLICK IT. I know you want to click it but DON'T. Remember that folder I had you make way back in Step #2 ? Now is the time to use it. Click the little button that has the " . . . " on it and then drill down to where the new folder you made is. Select it. NOW you can click "Finish" (Tip: If you do not use a "clean new" folder to "unpack" your new stationary in [In other words, you put this in a folder that has other stuff in it already.], you will end up with a folder with a bunch of stuff in it that is all mixed up. You can do that later but not in my newbie class.)

12) Delete the ".exe" file it is no longer needed (Tip: Treat it like a live Christmas tree, after Christmas, just throw it to the curb.)

13) Go back to Thunderbird. Find the inbox of the email account you want to send the email from. Then stick with it. To be clear, don't be moving around to different accounts when "in use" (using) this add-on. Look around now, some place, some where, you will have little buttons saying something like "Write", "Reply" or some such thing. DO NOT CLICK ANY OF THEM. Look for a little "down arrow", should be just to the right of of them there buttons we where just talk'n about. Click it and a little drop down menu will show up. Systems are a little different on this point but look for "Other Stationery". This is what you want to click. (Tip: The "Other Stationery" may be hidden under the "Stationery" section of the little drop down menu)

14) Now you should have a "Drill down" window open. Find that folder you put (unpacked) your new Stationery in. (Tip: the ones you just downloaded silly), and click on it to open it. You will see a bunch of files in there. Pick one and click it.

15) BINGO you have your first email with stationery on it. May seem simple but took me 4 days to do it. Well 4 days to do it the way I just showed you. Would have been sooner but I do not trust .exe files and did not use the ones I shown you here. I never said I was the quickest fox in the hen house. LOL (Tip; I am in the works of writing up a MUCH longer review to help explain some more points about this add-on so stay tuned)

16) If you have a problem with this add-on the Developer asks that you email him. Look at the right side of this you will see "Support E-mail", click that to get a hold of him. He is very good at fixing bugs and keeping up with the non-stop changed in T-Bird. DO NOT right a bad review until you at least see if it is something to do with your end like another add-on is badly made and does not work with this one or he may be working on fixing the very problem you have. (Tip: Compact Header is one of the add-ons that will mess up this add-on (and some others) so you will want to remove the Compact Header add-on if you use this one.)


* If you have Thunderbird portable you will also have to make sure your stationery folder is in your profile folder and the stationery's add-on settings are set to "Folder inside profile folder". Otherwise when you move your Thunderbird you will loose your stationery too.
** I have no idea how long the stationery folder has been there. I may have even put it there myself but I don;t think so.
*** They have a few different layouts there. There are even some pages that say for Thunderbird click here. But others only have outlook on them. When not sure most people just start clicking things until they get something pretty. I think the makers of the website plan on that. I would think "Outlook" would be your best best if there is no other choice.