Digital letterhead to cut costs and help you go green!

Many businesses are going green, and as a result it has become increasingly more common to deliver info packages by email, rather than use conventional mail.   In response to this trend, I’ve had a recent influx of client requests for a solution that would make it easy to include letterhead branding in documents even when emailing.

In 10 simple steps I’m going to teach you how to add a letterhead image to an existing Word document. (Assuming this is where you create the bulk of your business documentation)

This method will help you keep informational sheets up to date and looking sharp, and gives you the convenience of being able to work on them yourself, as needed without sacrificing style. Initial design for items such as letterhead, brochures, fliers, postcards, etc. should still be referred to a graphic designer.

Adding a letterhead image to a Word Document

1. Go to the View menu and select Header/Footer
2. With your cursor in the header section select Insert > Picture > From File and choose the TIFF, JPG, or PNG file for your letterhead from wherever you have it stored
3. Image will appear in the middle of the page, and push the content down further.  To resolve this you need to format the image
4. Right click on the image, and select Format Picture
5. In the resulting dialogue box, choose the Layout tab and set layout to Behind Text
6. Click OK
7. With image still selected, drag it up and to the left so it lines up with those edges
8. Hold mouse over lower right corner and click and drag to resize until the left edge also aligns.TIP:  If you can’t get it to align exactly as you like, you can gain more control over positioning by making sure your Formatting Palette is open (View > Formatting Palette) and then use the Align & Distribute controls in the Size, Rotation & Ordering section to center the image to the page both vertically and horizontally.  To view a screencap of this in a new window click here.
9. Voila!
10. Select close and work within your document as usual.TIP:  If you want to change the margins for your text, this is done in the formatting palette also, under the Document Margins section.

I always recommend saving your document as a PDF before you distribute it electronically.  You can send it as a Word document but this doesn’t ensure that the recipient will see it as you intend since this can depend on what version of Office they use.  The only time I deliver documents in Word format is when the recipient needs to be able to make changes or additions.

Need a free basic PDF creator?  I suggest Primo PDF – www.primopdf.com If you want more than the basic, their Nitro PDF Professional is competitively priced at $99 and offers you many of the features of Adobe Acrobat at a fraction of the price.

TIP:  Once you’ve installed Primo PDF, to create a PDF from Word click File > Print > and select Primo PDF from the list of printers in the print dialogue.

I hope this information has been helpful to you.  As always I welcome your feedback, and topic suggestions so please feel free to comment or drop me a message.  Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!!!

To find out more about how we can help take the pain out of putting your marketing pieces together or to request assistance with your own digital letterhead, visit our website at www.catchthis.ca  and pop us an email.  We look forward to hearing from you!