Creative Tip: Create Letterhead Templates in MS Word.
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You’ve designed a new logo, identity, and business papers for a good client. It looks great. They are happy. Then a simple request derails everything:
“Can I get a copy of my new letterhead to use in Microsoft Word?”
That seemingly innocent question has driven more than one designer to distraction. While this week’s creative tip won’t win people over to designing in Microsoft Word full-time, we can help make this client request a little easier to accomplish.
The key to designing a letterhead template that maintains the look of your printed business papers is to use Microsoft Word’s absolute position option when placing images.
Here is a quick four step tutorial.
Step 1: In a Microsoft Word document, choose Insert > Picture > From File…
Place the images for your logo one at a time. Prepare them beforehand at the size and resolution you need, and save them as PNG files (read Save logos in PNG format for use in PowerPoint.)
Tip: Keep the Word document file size smaller by using several individual images instead of one large one. In the case of our example, the logo itself is a 300ppi color PNG, while the address type is a black and white 600ppi graphic for greater detail when printing.
Step 2: Control-click on the placed image and choose Format Picture from the pop-up menu.
Step 3: Select a wrapping style of “Behind text” and click Advanced.
Step 4: In Advanced Layout, set an Absolute position for your graphic.
This Advanced Layout dialog box allows you to position your placed graphics in relationship to the page itself. In our case, the main logo is placed 6.625 inches to the right of the page (Word rounds up to 6.63).
Tip: Switch back to the graphic program that was used to create the original letterhead to check these measurements.
Congratulations. Once you’ve placed all your graphics, test printing your resulting files from a couple different computers (email it to a PC-savvy friend if you don’t have Word for Windows). Once you’ve tested the results, save the resulting document as a Microsoft Word template and send it on to your client to enjoy.
Bonus: Place your graphics into the document’s header to prevent meddling.
If you don’t want your clients accidentally repositioning or changing your placed graphics, an easy technique is to place the graphics into the document header (choose View > Header and Footer).
Even though the header is at the top of the page, our use of absolute positioning allows you to place the graphics anywhere on the page they are needed.
Download our example file:
Source: This tip inspired by a recent phone troubleshooting session with Hammerquist & Nebeker (a CreativeTechs Priority Support client).
June 26th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Take things a step further. When you place graphics in the header, you are also given the opportunity to establish different headers for the first and subsuquent even/odd pages. This is handy if you want only the logo and no address info to appear beyond the first page of your letterhead document.
June 26th, 2006 at 8:58 am
great tip, thanx!
June 26th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
That’s a great great tip for using different headers between the first and subsequent pages Steve! Thanks.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:28 am
thanks. this really helped. do you have a tip on how best to import the logo and adress block into my clients email format?
July 7th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Joyce,
We do have this written as a tip for Microsoft Entourage on the Mac: Add your logo to Entourage’s email signature.
Creating custom email signatures is a common question. The basics are the same for most email software, but the actual steps vary, so I don’t know about your particular client. In general, save the logo as a GIF or JPG and they create their signature using their email programs preferences.
-Craig
July 10th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
thanks for the tip. is there any way to prevent logos saved as headers from appearing shaded onscreen? i know the shading disappears when printing the document, but i would like to get rid of it for soft proofs as well.
thanks and take care,
gretchen
July 10th, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Thanks Gretchen,
I do not know of a way to prevent the headers from appearing faded. Although I would like to discover one. Anyone know a Microsoft Word trick that I don’t?
-Craig
July 28th, 2006 at 8:12 am
The one problem is the splitting between high rez black and white type, and full colour logo graphics. Far more common is letterhead with coloured type. Then what?
I’ve found that in the far majority of cases, most Word users do NOT have access to postscript printers. (Otherwise, this wouldn’t even be a problem worth discussing!). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing– but it makes things more complicated.
There are two main methods of achieving high rez (crisply edged) coloured output, and I’m assuming everyone here is thinking about Windows-based clients.
First– go to vector. Word does support the Windows vector formats– WMF, and EMF. And the good news is that AI does a very good job at exporting basic vector shapes into these formats. For many cases, you simply export the AI file to EMF and place that into the header footer for excellent results. However… this does not work well with any AI original that contains any transparency effets (drop shadows, feathering, etc.) or included rasters.
EMF or WMF? EMF is preferred because it supports true bezier curves (WMF translates these into polylines).
Okay, what if your design DOES contain transparency or raster effects? Then you go to the second route– which you’ve already described– rasterization.
Here’s where the postscript/non-postscript printer question comes into play. In almost every respect, a Postscript printer offers far more graphic power than the alternative cheapine deskjets etc. –except…. in the case of raster file outputting and halftoning.
Believe it or not, a $25 Walmart inkjet printer can create better looking output, pixel for pixel, of a rasterized line logo (or type) than most postcript colour printers. The difference? Halftones.
By default, all (or nearly all) postscript printers push any and all rasters (with the critical exception of 1-bit bitmaps) through the built-in postcript halftone screens.
That means even if you have tons of extra pixels available per inch available in the image, these will get tossed out during the postscript screening process. If you’ve ever tried to send a newspaper an ad as a high rez TIFF and wonder what happened to your type– this is it.
The cheapie inkjets though, have no such limitation. In fact, their drivers are just smart enough to create a temporary ‘picture’ in the printer spool file at the resolution you’ve selected, and by design, that image is not screened using geometric dots as in postscript, but assembled as a fine ’spray’ of dots. It’s called stochastic, or FM (frequency modulated) screening. If you’ve ever been to a printing convention you’ve no doubt seen what this method can do (waterless presses et al) when it comes to edge detail.
Okay then, how do you optimize a letterhead graphic for this type of output? First, to take advantage of this much higher dpi output, you should remember to always shut off anti-aliasing when you rasterize the vector version of the original. In Photoshop, this translates into a simple unchecking of a box when you ‘Open’ (actually, you’re rasterizing) the vector Ai or EPS original.
Resolution, colour? I usually open the file at anywhere from 600 to 1200 dpi, RGB. Won’t this translate into humongous Word files? NOT, necessarily. A lot depends on how dependent your art is on the NUMBER of unique colours. If it’s a rainbowfest, for say, a fruit salad manufacturer, filled with gradients, drop shadows and other guck, then yeah– it’s gonna be big.
However, most letterheads are usually 90-100% pure line. Type and flat coloured logo work. And remember, for pure line edges, no gradients or rasters, EMF is your best bet.
But, seeing as we’re talking here is about when that is NOT the case, the next choice is what file format to choose. PNG was mentioned, and it’s quite powerful and easily supported in MOST MS Office environments (there are still some older versions of Word kicking around that will not print these out though, just be forewarned). And, PNG can be very compressible. But then, so can other formats.
Take GIF for instance. In many cases, the 256 maximum unique colour limit of GIF is more than enough to support a small gradient or drop shadow effect. And with Word files, you want to embed the graphic files, not link, and if you want high rez (to take advantage of high-rez inkjet printing) this becomes important.
Yikes, look at the time.
Anyhow, I just wanted to point a few of these other issues. There are a few more that need to be covered to fully understand what’s happening in Word graphic/print optimization (transparency, screen display workarounds, etc.). But maybe another day.
Oh, and another useful setup option is the use of Word section markers to create ‘multiple’ header/footer pages that allow the user to automatically remove the first page letterhead when using the file. You can easily set it up to kick in a secondary ‘footer’ panel when the document goes into multiple pages. But, another day.
August 14th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
Wow! Thanks Craig. Also, thanks to Bob for the insightful additional info. It’s just what I was looking for.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:54 am
Granted I think this is pretty simple stuff for many people, but it is still useful for a lot of people. So thanks for putting it out there for those people who might need it.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Great tip! Thanks for posting it! I’ve been looking for something similar to use with Outlook stationery. Does anyone have tip for creating an html “letterhead” template for use in Outlook. I regularly get requests from clients asking for an electronic version of their letterhead for their email - and most of them use Outlook.
Thanks!
August 17th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Hi,
You can take this one step further, by making your file an actual Word template file.
Just choose Save As, document template (.dot).
There are two main advantages to doing this, when one goes File New, the template now shows up as an option, secondly, when you go to save the document, it will ask you for a file name, just like a new file.
Do a search for .dot files,and you can easily copy and paste templates to share with others.
HTH,
Mishka
http://isitbeertimeyet.ca/
August 17th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
I have been doing letterhead this way for years, but I add one thing: autotext dates on both page 1 and subsequent page headers. I also add the file name via autotext in a very tiny font. Finally, before I email it, I usually convert it to a good old PDF so they cannot accidentally change my letter format or contents. I know that is does not print absolutely perfectly on the other end, but I have had many positive and no negative comments.
August 17th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Nice little tip. Thanks for sharing it.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Very nice article, describing a technique that is quite useful, but often overlooked. MS Word has some powerful features. Thanks for taking the time to write about one of them.
August 26th, 2006 at 6:43 am
“That seemingly innocent question has driven more than one designer to distraction.”
LOL, it seems there has never been a truer statement as evidenced by all the emotional comments in response to this article.
While I agree Word should have been left to word processing, the fact of the matter is it caught on. Thus the demand for Word Templates!
I don’t know about you, but all my boss’ have had the attitude of “I don’t care, make it work.” And if that’s not enough they’ll add the customer is willing to PAY for it.
So do I not sell out and insist that it be done in the proper way (which never includes Word)? OR do I pay my light bill? ROFL
To me the answer is simple and exactly what drives businesses large and small…there is a demand and from the sounds of it a niche market…which means if I can provide a product that fulfills the need others aren’t willing to do or cant do I can charge a pretty penny for my services GRIN.
So to all of you who try it anyway, good for you for being resourceful! And to all that have won the argument to do it properly THANK YOU for taking the time to educate the consumer, because YES Word Templates suck and are a pain in the butt (but they are a fact of life at the moment)!
I’d love to see more sharing on WORD as a “layout” program rather than ignore it and hope the problem will go away. Maybe the powers at be will continue to improve their product as a result of these kinds of discussions. WORD has it’s place, have you ever tried any VB programming-WOW fun stuff?
September 25th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Thank you so much for sharing. This bit of info helped me.
September 26th, 2006 at 5:33 am
This tip seems to work great, until you venture into the world of PC work-stations. I’ve been pulling my hair out (what I have left) to try and figure out why the document looks great and works out really well on my end (Mac). But then send the document out for public use and it does not work on the PC user work-stations. They can open the document, but do no see the image. If they double click anywhere on the page or open and close the Header/Footer menu, the image will appear. Once they click on the page again, the image disappears. The image is an inch wide vertical bar that runs the length of the page. I’ve tried the image as a jpeg, png, tiff. I’ve even tried the bar as two parts with a Word drawn box to fill in the blank space of the bar. And……Nothing. Anyone had any experience with this?
September 27th, 2006 at 8:50 am
What if the stationary was offset printed, but the secretary wants to see on screen how her letter is going to look. I mean, is there an option to make lettehead templates, exactly as described above, so that the logo etc shows on screen, but then prevent that the letterhead actually prints, along with the text of the document.
This might be useful to at once print a physical copy of the letter on pre-printed stationary, while saving a pdf for archiving.
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I have a vertical design that I want to put on the letterhead in word. I don’t want it to be editable so when someone types in their letter, they cannot move it or delete it. The header/footer option only allows at top and at bottom horizontally! Can the footer be made vertical for example? Or another solution?
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I think this will work for you Kim. Our example word document actually has a vertical logo in use. You can put a logo of any type into the header or footer.
Step 4 of the tip uses an Absolute position to let you place your graphic anyplace on your page you want.
Good luck.
-Craig
October 4th, 2006 at 6:13 am
hi Craig, I put the image in the footer and then changed the absolute position, but when I do that it takes it out of the footer and makes it just an image inserted, so that it is movable and can be deleted by a user. Is there something I’m missing to keep the veritcal image in the ‘footer’ category so that it is unmovable?
thanks so much!
October 27th, 2006 at 9:19 pm
Thanks for the great post! This has been a huge help for me after having professional stationary designed. Since most of my work is virtual, I really didnt need to spend the $$ to have it printed.
I also used the same technique to make an envelope template too.
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:05 am
I have seen people asking how to use a header without it being transparent looking inside the document, but have not seen anyone address this.
I too am looking for an answer to this question. I have clients that only view the page online and don’t want it to be faded looking. Whether the logo is full colored when printed out is irrelevant to me.
November 3rd, 2006 at 1:29 am
Thanks! Just what i was looking for! :() next up is making a powerpoint template..
November 29th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
“Posted by: jiggasaurus | September 26, 2006 05:33 AM
What if the stationary was offset printed, but the secretary wants to see on screen how her letter is going to look. I mean, is there an option to make lettehead templates, exactly as described above, so that the logo etc shows on screen, but then prevent that the letterhead actually prints, along with the text of the document.
This might be useful to at once print a physical copy of the letter on pre-printed stationary, while saving a pdf for archiving.”
same problem, anyone have any idea?
December 8th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
What if the stationary was offset printed, but the secretary wants to see on screen how her letter is going to look. I mean, is there an option to make lettehead templates, exactly as described above, so that the logo etc shows on screen, but then prevent that the letterhead actually prints, along with the text of the document.
This might be useful to at once print a physical copy of the letter on pre-printed stationary, while saving a pdf for archiving.
Posted by: rhythmus | September 27, 2006 08:50 AM
I’ve got the same issue with another client. Any ideas?
December 21st, 2006 at 1:25 pm
To rhythmus et al:
I had this problem in my office. We used to have separate templates: one with the logo for emailing, making PDFs, etc and another without the logo for preprinted letterhead. Of course this was really unhelpful if you needed to use a single document in both ways!
I came up with a solution that uses a single template with some VBA code (a macro) that toggles the logo on or off. The logo is stored in the template file, and the macro basically just inserts it in a specific spot (or deletes it if the logo is already in place.
I put the “toggle” button on a toolbar. See screenshots:
logo switched off
logo switched on
Having said that, I remember it was not a trivial thing to work out. It involves tagging the image with a “name” property, then putting it into an AutoText entry, placing a bookmark in the right spot to receive the logo, and writing all the code to recognize whether the logo was currently on or off, and insert it if necessary.
It took a good many hours, and I made it work only through sheer obsessive tinkering…
January 2nd, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I just found a pretty thorough how-to for the on/off logo problem here.
January 4th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Wow. Great thread.
Can you advise as to whether one can “lock” the header and footer in a document (including, for example, if you placed your logo in the header) such that the info cannot be altered or copies, but that the body remains fully editable? Thanks.
January 5th, 2007 at 5:46 am
I have just started working letterhead within a header. I often have to use the shrink to fit option but that shrinks the letter head, too. (Shrink to fit is a better option for me than just decreasing font size because there are multiple size fonts in the document and shrink to fit maintains their proportions whereas decreasing font size makes all text the same font size.)
Thanks for any help.
Marg
January 5th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Hi and Happy new year.
Like me,I am sure many people might think of saving the letter head printing/ enlop priniting going to printers may it digital or screen printing.
Nice and great tip.
I have created letter head template In Autocad 2006, then saved it as PDF.Then opening the PDF File, I save the letter head as PNG, / HTML Extr and used it word.
Is there simple way, from Autocad to word or vise verse.
Thanks for the help.
January 31st, 2007 at 2:25 am
why do you people use microsoft for your letter heads please tell me i need to know for my gcse
February 8th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Hi all - great topic!
I’m very keen to know if it is possible to “lock” or make “uneditable” the header/footer also. It’s important that end users can not change the template at all.
Does anyone have the answer to this, or is there another method, solution, application that specialises in this??
Cheers-
February 26th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for all the great tips.
I could use one more:
I followed the instructions and my black and white art, which isn’t very big, is saved in a PNG format. However, my client said that it takes a really long time to make a pdf in word from the letterhead and that it takes an insanely long time to print.
(the word document is 252 kb and the png file placed in it is 60 kb)
is there something else i should/can do?
thanks so much,
aliza
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
does this work for Windows XP?
December 6th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Does anyone know how to prevent images from being printed?
I have set up a letter head template for my client displaying the logo for theire business. But i have already printed off the letterheads so in word i want them to be able to see there logo so they dont type over it but since it’s already been printed i don’t want it to print again.
thanks all
December 6th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Shay - I’m not sure if there is a way to tell word not to print a specific image. I couldn’t find a way on the Mac version of Word.
Donna - This same technique does work in Windows. The dialog boxes are slightly different, but the same approach works on both Mac and PC.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:49 am
I am pretty happy with the first page of a letterhead template i have designed. My question is how to change it for pages beyond the first page of a business letter. Basically i have a logo on top of the first page as part of the header and then i have address and phone info in the footer on the bottom.
For subsequent pages beyond page 1, I would like to not have the logo on top, but have some different company info in the footer.
If i go into Page Setup - Page Layout and say I want a Different Page 1, it wipes out all header and footer info on Page 1 - but let’s me do whatever I want on page 2 and beyond.
Ideas, please.
December 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
All of these responses are great, but it is beyond me why Microsoft doesn’t heed the call - for 20 years now folks have been having the same problems with Microsoft’s word processing softwares. Come on, Microsoft stole, lifted, and commandeered almost everything else that Apple and their affiliates have done, like GUI, why not drag-and-drop all of the really important features of Quark Xpress?
The hijinx some one has to go through to put a logo on Page Two is just incomprehensible - as if we’re the first people who have run into this problem !!! I could understand if Word was in beta testing, but come on already.
Just another reason to stick and stay with Mac.
December 30th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Dick Gibson,
Try doing the “Document Set-up/Different Page 1″ first and then add your graphic in the footer. Worked for me. I was having the same trouble.