Do you want to create professional documents on letterhead but don't have time and money to waste in typography? So I guess I have a "trick" that's right for you. What is it about? To use good old Word or other word processing software to create letterhead custom.
You may not know, but thanks to the header and footnote features, you can create a letterhead template complete with logo and information about you or your company to use just in case. Once created, in fact, the template can be recalled and used to create new documents all having the same header on all pages. I assure you that the results that can be obtained can be really excellent.
As already mentioned, the creation of letterhead is not an exclusive prerogative of Microsoft Word. If you don't have Office installed on your PC, don't worry, you can also use other great solutions available for Windows, macOS, Linux and even for portable devices. In short, you just have to choose which solution best suits your needs and learn how to create a sheet of letterhead following the directions I am about to give you. You will see, you will be able to do everything in a surprisingly easy and fast way!
Index
- Create a sheet of letterhead in Word
- Creating a sheet of letterhead in LibreOffice / OpenOffice
- Create a sheet of letterhead in Google Drive
Create a sheet of letterhead in Word
If you want to know how to create a sheet of letterhead in word, in the next chapters I will show you in detail the procedures you need to perform both on Microsoft Word, which on the other versions of this famous word processor: Word Online and the app Word for smartphones and tablets.
Microsoft Word
All you need to do to find out how to create letterhead with word, you normally start creating a new document (or open a previously created file) and set its margins so that the header is not too close to the edges of the paper. To set margins in Word, select the tab layout of the program, click on the button Edges che si trova in alto a sinistra e seleciona la voce Custom margins give the menu to compare.
In the window that opens, set the margins as you prefer by specifying the measurements (in cm) in the appropriate text fields and save the changes by pressing the button OK which is located at the bottom right.
Now you can move on to inserting your header. Then select the tab Inserisci Word, click on the button Footer and choose the writing style you like best among those in the menu that appears.
Once this is done, write in the field Footer that appears at the bottom of the sheet information about you or the office / company you work for (name, address, telephone, etc.) and double-click anywhere in the document to save the changes. To make the note look more professional, put your name or company name in bold.
Now, if you want, complete the work by inserting a logo and other information at the top of the document. To do this, select the tab Inserisciclick on your button Heading and choose Empty give the menu to compare.
In the field Heading which appears at the top of the page, clears the text box Type your text and insert your logo and all the information you want in place of it. To insert an image, click on the button Image contained in the card Inserisci Word and choose the file of your interest.
With the image inserted, move and resize it so that it is not too invasive and makes the document look more harmonious / professional, format the text as you see fit and, if you want to adjust other header settings, go to the tab Planning Word (top right).
In Word's Design tab you can select options to render the header different for the first page and / or for odd and even pages, you can adjust the position of texts and images and more.
When you are satisfied with the result, all you have to do is save your letterhead as a template to use later without having to re-enter the header and footnotes. Then click on the button Fillet Word (top left) and select the item first Save with name and then Shop by Department from the screen that appears.
In the window that opens, select Word template (.dotx) give menu to tendin Save eat and save your letterhead as a Word template by clicking the button Save.
That's all! From this moment on, you can recall your letterhead template simply by opening Word, clicking on the tab PERSONAL and selecting it from the screen that opens.
If you are unable to view your letterhead template in Word and / or the card does not appear PERSONAL on the application home screen, do this.
- Awards Win + R on the PC keyboard to call up the menu Run Windows and issue the command% appdata% MicrosoftTemplates;
- Copy the complete address of the folder you just opened (in the bar at the top of the File Explorer window);
- apri Word, go to File> Options> Save and paste the path you copied from the File Explorer into the field Default path for personal templates;
- Save the letterhead template again as explained above and it should show up on the Word splash screen.
Word Online
using Word Online, the completely free online version of Word, you can easily create a letterhead document. Obviously, being a limited version of Word, you will not be able to follow the same instructions provided in the previous chapter, but let's see together how to do it anyway.
First, you need to know that the functionality Header and footer is present in the tab Inserisci. After activating it, you have the possibility, through the appropriate boxes, to type the text or insert images (such as the logo of your business), in order to generate the letterhead.
If you want to keep a letterhead template, after drafting it, click on the items above File> Save As> Save As, in order to create a template to call up every time you have to prepare a document on letterhead.
Word for smartphones and tablets
As you probably already know, Microsoft Word it is also available in the form of an app for Android (also on alternative stores) and iOS / iPadOS and can be used for free on all devices that have dimensions equal to or less than 10,1 "(for larger devices, a subscription must be activated to Microsoft 365 service).
Even in its mobile versions, Word allows you to create documents with letterhead by uploading templates made from a PC or creating new ones using the header and footer (present in the tab Inserisci), just like in the desktop version of the software.
The files are automatically saved in the cloud but, if you want to save a letterhead template to be recalled as many times as you wish, click on the icon (...) at the top and select the items Save As> Personal OneDrive.
Creating a sheet of letterhead in LibreOffice / OpenOffice
If you don't have Microsoft Office installed on your PC and you use LibreOffice o OpenOffice, you can create a sheet of letterhead quite easily.
The first step you need to take is to create a new Writer (or open an existing one) and set the paper margins, so that the header is not too close to the edges of the document.
Then go to the menu Format> Page located at the top, use the text fields in the window that opens (bottom left) to set the margins you prefer and press the button OK.
At this point, click on the top of the sheet, click on the button Header (Default Style) that appears on the screen and create your custom header by inserting texts and images as you prefer.
If you want to change the header so that it is different for the first page of the document, for even and odd pages or, again, you want to customize the internal margins, click on it, press the button Header (default style) that appears at the bottom and selects the item Format header.
A window will open through which you can adjust the internal margins of the header and, using specific options to be checked or deselected, you can choose whether to have a content (therefore a header) equal left and right e same on the first page.
Successively click on your button OK to save the changes and that's it. If you want, you can also set borders and background header of the document by clicking the button Header (default style) Writer and selecting the appropriate item from the menu that appears.
As for the footnotes (i.e. the information you want to insert at the bottom of the sheet), you can set them by clicking on the bottom edge of the document and pressing the button Footer (default style) that appears on the right.
For the rest, there isn't much to add. When you are satisfied with the result, go to the menu File> Save with nome and save your document in the format you prefer, such as Word (DOCX / DOC) or the native OpenDocument (ODT) of OpenOffice and LibreOffice.
To create a model to reuse in the future, go to the menu instead File> Templates> Save as Template and choose the folder in which to save the template.
Subsequently, to create a new document using your letterhead template, all you have to do is call up the initial screen of the suite, select the item Patterns from the left sidebar and double-click your model icon.
If you have an Android smartphone or tablet, you can use OpenOffice on the latter as well. All you have to do is install AndrOpenOffice, an almost perfect port of OpenOffice for Android. You can download and use it for free, although some add-ons (quite negligible for creating letterhead sheets) are paid.
Create a sheet of letterhead in Google Drive
Need to create a sheet of letterhead on a computer that doesn't have Office and doesn't allow you to install new software? In this case you can contact an online service, such as Google Drive which allows you to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and other documents directly from the browser. All you need to use it is a Google account.
To create a sheet of headed paper with Google Drive, connected to the home page of the service, log in to your Google account (if necessary), press the button New che si trova in alto a sinistra e seleciona la voce Google documents give the menu to compare.
At this point, you need to name your document by typing it in the field Untitled document which is at the top left and you need to set the paper margins. Then go to the menu File> Page Setup and type in the value of margini you want to use for your document (in cm) in the box that appears.
Now double-click on the top margin of the sheet, in order to recall the header and footer settings and insert the texts and images that you want to use as the header of the document. To insert a picture, call up the item Image from the menu Inserisci and drag the image to use into the browser window.
If you want, putting the check mark next to the item Different header / footer on the first page, you can set a different header on the first page of your document.
To insert footnotes and then add information about you and / or your company to the document, double-click the bottom edge of the sheet and fill in the footnote field that appears automatically. Again, by ticking the box Different header / footer on the first page you will get different footnotes on the first page of the file.
Mission accomplished! You now have your document complete with header. The file can be saved directly online, on Google Drive (in this case you do not have to do anything, the file is automatically saved on your account), or it can be downloaded offline on your computer by going to the menu File> Download As and selecting one of the available file formats.
Subsequently, to create a new document using the basic template you made in Google Drive, right-click on it in the Drive start menu and select the item Make a copy to create an exact copy and work on that.
The Google Drive Docs service is also available as an app for Android and iOS / iPadOS. This means that you can create and edit letterhead sheets even from smartphones and tablets.
