A letterhead or a letterheaded paper is a piece of stationery paper that has the name, address, phone and fax number, email and website address and logo/ design of the company. In some cases, a background is included as well. A letterhead is also referred to as a heading that includes these details and is put on the sheet of paper which is to be used for official purposes.
Letterhead is an important printed sheet of paper and is essential for the company for the following reasons:
- It gives a company a corporate identity.
- Personalized and customized letterhead portrays a good image of the company. It shows the company as strong and stable as the company is investing in printed stationery.
- It gives the impression/image of the company to potential or existing customers.
- It helps in building a brand image as well as serve as an advertising and sales tool.
- It gives a consistency to the outlook of formal documents and communication.
- It makes the information stated on it official, legal, verified and authentic.
Therefore, it should be designed with accurate details presented in an attractive outlook. The chosen colors, font, size, format and template should be appropriate, professional and eye-catching.
In most countries, the standard size for letterheads is A4 (210*297 mm). However, in North American countries, the size used is 8.5*11 inches (215*280 mm). As for the other features, they may vary as per company demands or requirements. However, that too should be within the realm of available options as well as set standards.
In an organization, letterhead is used for professional and formal correspondence. Some of the uses of a letterhead are:
- Issuance of letters.
- Internal communication such as minutes of meetings, memorandum, inter-departmental communication, etc.
- Issuance of notices including legal notices.
- Issuance of warnings.
- Issuance of tenders.
- Communication with clients.
- Contracts
- Endorsements, verifications or referrals.
When designing a letterhead, a company may get it designed or use the available templates. Microsoft Word is one of the software that has many templates available for letterheads which are easy to use, edit and customize. Therefore, many companies opt for the MS Word templates to design their letterheads.
The method to use templates has slight variations in different versions of MS Word. For instance, the features in 2007 version are different than 2010 version which has further changed in the 2013 version. With the introduction of newer versions, the design and options of the templates also change slightly. However, it is not hard for the companies to understand and use different versions as all versions are user-friendly and the variations are not significant.
Whether a word letterhead template is used or a company gets it designed specifically for itself, the design should be formal and professional so that it can easily be used for all the formal correspondences.
