When writing to friends, family or acquaintances, emoticons are a nice touch. But they should not be used in an official E-mail or E-letter as the recipient may not appreciate the appearance of 'casualness' that emoticons elicit. That being said, simply reserve the use of emoticons for other than business use.
There are any number of emoticons available for insertion into E-mails, E-notes, or casual correspondence, and some of them can be downloaded from various websites for free. The following ones are simple keystrokes that are most commonly used, but are by no means the only ones. :-) = smile. :) = smile. :-( = frown. :-0 = surprise. ;-) = wink. Additional marks can be added to indicate personalization: {:-) adds eyebrows or hairline (for those of us who have hair), }:-( would indicate a serious frown with knitted brow. :-0 indicates surprise, and {:-0 indicates great surprise with raised eyebrows. Now add lowered eyebrows to great surprise and you get }:-0 which might indicate disapproval. Some people use the number '8' for the eyes, instead of the colon, which would turn out looking like this: 8 -) . If you're a bearded individual, your emoticon might appear something like this: {:-)= . These can also be drawn in BOLD, and so on, ad infinitum. Again, remember to turn your head toward your left shoulder when viewing the above emoticons, as they are sideways representations. Be as creative as you can. It's a simple, quick and fun method of adding a personal touch to your electronic missives.
In the past couple of years, programmers have posted emoticons on various websites, free of charge, and added explanations and animation to many of them. For a list of 'static' emoticons, visit Kim Komando's Web Site, and type in 'emoticons' in the search box. Her site can be found at: www.komando.com . She has a list of emoticons that's about 3 pages long, and the reader can peruse the list for an explanation of each. Don't be surprised if you see a bunch of them on the web site that aren't familiar; not all of the emoticons are in common use.
Some web sites have their own list of emoticons that can be inserted into Emails. For instance, the Hotmail website has a bunch of them, including a heart, a thumbs-up, a thumbs-down, graphic smiley faces of all sorts, and a few others that can be inserted when writing an E-mail within the Hotmail application. These are strictly for Hotmail, and cannot be imported into other Email applications.
Recently, I discovered a site that has both static and dynamic emoticons represented in graphic form that can be added to Emails. The process takes a couple of steps to accomplish, but is easy to set up. Once saved, the emoticons can then be added to an Email in 2 steps. First, a folder must be set up for Emoticons - this makes them easily located. I set up a separate folder within "My Documents", which I aptly named 'Animated Emoticons'. (While this might not be very original, it certainly makes them easy to locate. Remember, the more descriptive the name of the folder, the more quickly you'll be able to find it.) Then, I went searching the Internet for a bunch of animated emoticons that I wanted to download and save in my folder, so that they were readily available for my use. One such site I found is Wacky B - it has a whole list of animated emoticons to pick and choose from. In addition, the site has instructions for saving and using emoticons in the various E-mail clients. The instructions are fairly straightforward, and following them step-by-step should prove to be easy, even for beginners. I would suggest you read through the instructions at least a couple of times before attempting to use the suggested methods. The site has several links to other sites with lots and lots of animated emoticons for download. The choice is yours - use as few or as many as you would like. The next step is to save them to the folder you created on your hard drive for animated emoticons. Once saved, they can be used at any time, in any E-mail. The next trick you have to learn is how to insert them into the E-mail correctly. I will explain the method for Outlook Express 6 here; other E-mail programs might have slightly different methods of inserting files or graphics.
1. Open your E-mail program as you would normally, and type in all the required standard information: To:, CC:, Subject:, etc.
2. Type your E-mail, and at the location you wish to add a emoticon that you saved in your emoticons folder, go to the menu bar, click on 'Insert', and select 'Picture…' .
3. On the first line, click on the 'browse' button and look for your folder with the animated emoticons, select the one you want to insert, and the 'picture source' line should have the title of the emoticon with its path that will be inserted into your E-mail. Click OK, and VOILA !!! There's the emoticon, inserted into your E-mail. As easy as that !! Leave the 'Layout' box settings alone; they don't need to be changed at all. Spacing will be automatic - the emoticon will appear wherever your cursor is blinking in your E-mail. If you want to put it down a line or two, simply hit the 'Enter' key once or twice. Note: most of the downloaded emoticons are in color - they look and stand out better that way. If you get tired of the emoticons you have in your folder, you can always go back to various sites and get new ones to add to your folder. I've seen devils, dancing girls, and numerous others which I personally would not put in an E-mail for fear of offending the recipient. However, the choice is yours: pick up as many of them as you want - just be careful to whom you send them, and which ones you save in your folder. In short, spice up your E-mails with the emoticons, animated or not, as your preference dictates, just as you would choose stationery to correspond with friends, family, and acquaintances. Make life interesting ! Enjoy the features your computer has to offer, as well as learning something new ! Just remember to use them judiciously; they can wear thin if they're over-used. Have fun. J
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