Letterhead printing is a good practice for all companies. Letterheads basically make most paperwork look more official and important. It also lends credibility and security to the content of the letter if a letterhead is present. This assures the reader that it came from a trusted and influential source. If you are a bit clueless in how to create a letterhead in Microsoft Word, then read on. Below are a few simple steps that you can follow to create a letterhead in Microsoft Word.
1. Go to the print layout view: Once you open a new Microsoft Word document, click on the view menu on top and look for the option Print Layout. This options lets you view your Word document as if it is printed. So click on this option once. This should give us a better look on how the letterheads will look like once printed.
2. Viewing the header and footer: Now, once the print layout view has been activated, click again on the View menu on the menu bar. Look for the option Header and Footer. This should let you go into a special editing mode where you can add text and images to the document’s header and footer. (For Microsoft Office 2007 users, you can insert a header by going to the insert menu and choosing the header option. This should open up some header templates that you can use. Simple click on the one you want to insert it)
3. Clearing the tab stops: Next, to make the editing of your letterhead easier, you need to clear the tab stops that has been set for most headers in documents. Go to the Format option in the menu and click once on the Tabs option. You should see a dialog box open. Look for the clear all button and click on it once. Once you’re done all the tab stops should be set to the default standard 0.5 inches for all tab stops. Click on OK afterwards to continue.
4. Type in the content of your letterhead: Once all the preparations are done, it is time to type in the content of your letterhead. Just click on the header section of the workspace and type in the information that you want for the letterhead. Typically you may want to type in the company’s name as the biggest group of text in the letterhead. Afterwards, you can add a section or department listing such as Human Resources or Advertising and Public Relations. Next, you can add in pertinent contact details such as the company’s telephone number, fax number, address, email address and the company’s website URL. As you type in this information, remember that all standard formatting rules can apply to them. Use the formatting toolbar to change the text’s font style, font size, spacing, typeface and other formatting elements. (If you are using the 2007 version of word, the template style should already be set for you to use if you want. You can change this however to your own specifications if you want.)
5. Insert a company logo or image: Of course, you also can consider adding an image to the letterhead. This can be in the form of the company’s logo, or a project mascot or theme. To insert an image, first make sure, you are still in the header and footer view as in step 5. Next, click on the Insert menu on the menu bar and move your mouse over the option Picture. A side menu should appear. Click on the option From file… A dialog window should appear. Use it to navigate to the image file of your company logo. Click on the image file’s icon once, and then click on the insert button. The image file should be inserted on the header where your cursor was. (for Word 2007 users, you can use a template that already has a space reserved for an image)
6. Formatting the letterhead image: In most cases the logo image can be too large for the header. So you may have to resize it to fit it for the header. Just click on it and then resize the image by using the adjustment boxes that appears when it is selected. Afterwards, move the image to the position you want for the letterhead. You may want to adjust the alignment properties of the image to place it at the position that you want. Simply right click on the image and click on Format picture… to edit the properties of the image.
7. Making a template for future use: That should finish your design for letterhead printing. Just close the header and footer view by clicking on the close option in the header and footer toolbar. To make your letterhead a template document, simply save the file as a Microsoft Document Word Template on the Save As… dialog window.
Great! Follow those steps and you should have a nice well designed letterhead. If however you want better designs for your letterhead you may need the help of professional layout or graphic artists. They should be able to produce more professional and elegant looking letterhead printing designs that are fit for a professional company. For the moment though you can use these steps for your own letterhead printing. Who knows, you might even be able to design something that looks better than most professionals can manage.
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