Hi. I've just been moved into a job that involves administrative work. I am a bit anxious about some of the secretarial aspects like letter writing. Are there rules on how you should layout letters and envelopes? How many lines between different parts and formatting? I'm a bit confused about what is best practice. Nina Hi Nina Sometimes the skills and experience of secretaries is not fully appreciated, and I think it is in this sort of area where this becomes more apparent. You can spot a poorly laid out letter a mile off, but it can hard to appreciate why it doesn't look right. Here are some tips. - My first port of call would be a secretary or PA working higher up the ladder. Approach them and ask if they could give you some sample letters so you can copy the style and layout expected by management. This person will also know if there are corporate guidelines written down somewhere. Don't be shy. It shows you are interested in meeting their professional standards, and it may make you a good contact for future advice. Generally people like helping others, and this is a good way of making friends in a new environment.
- If you are taking over from someone else, you might find letters filed away in a cabinet, or on the computer network, in which case you could copy the layout of those. If you're not sure, take a copy of one and ask the person you are going to be typing the letters for if they are happy with the layout, or if they want to change it. That shows initiative on your part, and a desire to turn in a good quality piece of work.
- Some organisations have electronic templates for documents set up on the computer system. These are often found with the other Word templates. You might need to ask around to find these.
- Pop down to your local library and see if there are any 'how to....' books on writing letters. Most libraries will have a good range of books under the business section.
- Search the internet. I did a quick search for 'letter template Word' and got a selection of links, one of which was from Microsoft
My own layout tips are: - Most business letters are done on letterhead paper so you probably don't have to worry about putting in the sender's address.
- The recipient's address should go on the left, and these days the left margin is left-aligned, not indented. Below the last line of the address leave a blank line and put in the date. I tend to go for a left aligned date but if the letterhead address is printed on the right of the page you could align it on the right.
- Insert a couple of spare lines and then the salutation (Dear....), another blank line and then the subject. Formatting the text of the subject varies quite widely, so I would go for what looks most pleasing on the eye. I tend to bold and centre it, unless the corporate style states otherwise.
- Another blank line and then the letter starts. These days we do not indent paragraphs so a full left aligned paragraph is correct. You may wish to justify the paragraph. Justify means that both the left and right hand margins are lined up in the paragraph. When using justify, check that the word spacing in the lines is pleasing to the eye. Sometimes short paragraphs look better with left justification only.
- After the last paragraph leave a blank line and then put the signature line. If you have named the person after Dear, put 'Yours sincerely', if you letter starts Dear Sir/Madam you put 'Yours faithfully'.
- Leave enough space for the signature and then put the name and job title of the sender below.
- Sometimes you need to do copies to other people. Leave a line or two of blank space at the end and then put cc: and the person's name. Occasionally you need to do hidden copies, where copies are given to others, but without the knowledge of the main recipient. Some people use hc: for hidden copy, others lc: for lower copy, or bc for blind copy (not seen so often these days). In both cases do not include the hc/lc/bc on the letter being sent out.
- Always read through the letter before getting it signed. Once signed take a copy for filing and send the letter off as directed.
That's it! If anyone has any favourite letter design tips let me know.
Secretaries and admin staff are often called upon to throw together a flyer because they are the only ones in the office who know how to use the software!! Chances are you did not receive any training in design so here are some tips to help you to produce a well laid out document - Use a proper desk top publishing programme if you can. Rummage around the templates offered and see if you can find one that has the look you think would suit your project. In most programmes the templates come in a number of colour schemes so experiment with the options too. Word 2007 comes with some flyer templates so try those as well.
- Consider who you are communicating with. I once had a printer produce a design for a brochure with lots of snazzy headlines placed at wonky angles, in bright primary colours which looked fab. The readers of the newsletter were going to be elderly people who might not have liked wonky headlines and snazzy styles. We asked for a more conservative style for this audience.
- Most newsletters have a banner, just like a newspaper. Make this bold and keep it short and snappy. In fact imitating a newspaper style is a good idea - after all they do it that way for a reason, i.e. to attract readers.
- If your leaflet is A4 you might have two long stories or three shorter ones so divide up the space accordingly. You can decide to give each story equal space and make a very geometric design but I prefer a page with stories of different sizes. You might have two the same size and one much larger. I tend to have one large feature story or image on each page. It presents a less confusing pattern to the eye and directs the reader to the focal point of the page quickly. If your main story is important but you are short on text give it a generous headline and make the image as large as possible.
- Put down your text boxes on the page, paste in the text and see how much room you have left. Images and photos can be added and sized to take up the remaining space. Vary the size of the photos too. You could have a very large photo with just a caption, or a small photo in a longer article. You could use white space as a design feature in the form of large distances between stories and down margins, but make sure this technique is used consistently throughout the document.
- Only use two or three font styles on a page. You can get a good effect using one font for a headline and a different one for the stories. Mix and match two or three on the page and it will look more planned (which hopefully it is).
- Try to avoid having headings butting up against each other. If you can't avoid it, format them differently. For example, make one bold, the other light. You can format the text differently too. Sometimes I format the heading bold and the story light, and the story next to it is the reverse, i.e the heading is light and the story bold. This works well when you are positioning similar length stories next to each other on the page.
- Try to avoid very wide columns of text, for example if using A4 don't run an article over more than half the page unless it is in a large font such as a subheading across the top of a story. The eye tires as it moves along the line, so narrower columns of text are much easier to read. That's why you see them in newspapers!!
- If you have a photo of a person make sure that they are looking into the page not out of it. Experiment with both and you will see what I mean. Same with images of planes or cars - position them so that they are moving into the page not outwards. With objects like this you can flip the image, but don't do this with a picture of a real person. This is altering the look of the person and is not acceptable
- When using colour in headlines and images you will get a more pleasing affect if they are either matched or are contrasting. For example, you may have a picture of a tree and a green coloured headline somewhere else on the page which picks up the tone of the tree. Or you may have a picture which features the colour yellow, which you can contrast with blue in anther image. If you are familiar with a colour wheel, complimentary colours are next to each other, contrasting colours are opposite. Have a look at the colour wheel below:
 The colour wheel I hope these tips help to improve the look of your flyers and newsletters. When you come across flyers that other people have designed, study them to see what you like and what you don't. What works and what doesn't. With practice you can develop some pretty effective design techniques.
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