Letterhead is an important tool for businesses. It helps legitimize your business. Letterhead keeps you from having to retype the same information over and over, and if you design it well, it also gives a nice visual encouragement to the recipient to continue business with your company.

Letterhead should be used for all business correspondence. It is not hard to create, and can be done in virtually any Word Processing program.

You should have a business logo. If you don't have one, read up on it in our booklet on the subject.

Start your letterhead in your Word Processing program, by setting the top margin to 1/2 inch. This gives you room to put your standard info, while still maintaining minimum margins for an inkjet printer. Other margins should be set to 1 inch unless you want to put a slogan at the bottom of the page, in which case you set that margin to 1/2 inch also.

You can use several different design formats, but all should show your logo. You can insert a graphic, and then grab the "handles" on the corners of it to make it as small as you need to fit where you want it.

If you do not have a graphic logo, then you can still create a nice letterhead using a text based logo. One of the most commonly used features on a letterhead is a bar at the bottom of the letterhead, or a bar with the logo and company name above, and contact info in a single line below the bar.

You can insert your graphic logo if you are using one, into the top of the page, wherever it looks best. Remember, when using graphics for print, the actual image size should be about twice what you want it to be when it prints out - you will scale it down in your Word Processing program, by dragging on the handles in the corner to get it to the right size. If you use an image that starts out too small, you can end up with an image that looks fuzzy and pixelated (grainy) when it is printed, and that will not look professional.

Make sure your letterhead has your company name, address, telephone number, email address, and URL.

The entire letterhead should not take up more than about 3/4" from the top margin down.

Once you get a look that you like (it should be balanced or in an attractive configuration), you need to save your document. There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Save it as a regular document. If you do this, then each time you open it you will need to immediately use the SaveAs command to resave it as a separate copy so you do not mess up your original.

2. Save it as stationery. Some programs allow this option. The drawback is that if you want to change the original you have to open a copy, make the changes, then resave THAT as stationery of the same name to replace the original. If you save it as stationery, it will open a new copy each time, leaving the original untouched.

3. On a Mac you save it regularly, then find the file in the hard drive window, click on it ONCE, then select File-> Get Info, and mark the stationery checkbox. This automatically sets it to open a fresh copy each time you open it, leaving the original untouched. To make changes you have to uncheck the Stationery box, open the document, make changes, then reset it as Stationery.

4. Save it as a Template. Some programs call it a template, and it works similar to stationery. It opens a fresh copy each time, but unlike stationery, templates may not let you make changes to certain parts of them without changing settings first.

The advantage to using computer letterhead is that you don't have to order boxes of 20,000 sheets from the printer. You can just set up your letterhead once on your computer, and use it as needed, the letter head gets printed along with the rest of the letter. You can make changes as needed without wasting pre-printed copies. For a small business, all these things are very important cost containment issues.

Letterhead is so standardized in a business that when a business has to verify employment or other information that has to be known to come from the company, they require that it be printed on letterhead.

It is not a huge concern, but it is also not a detail you want to overlook if you have to correspond through the mail with anyone.

Adventure Tech-Web offers a range of small business services including logo, business card, letterhead, and brochure design, a complete range of web related services, proofreading and content writing. Please ask us for a quote before you decide you cannot afford the services you need.