Designing Your Document

Our book provides a clear list of things to do in order to write a clear, readable, and well-designed business letter. It contends that in order to write a letter that physically looks good on paper, you should do the following:

• Use quality white paper.
  
• Use standard size envelopes.
• Center the letter on the page so that it is surrounded with white space.
• Put the date 3 lines underneath the letterhead, or below the address line.
• Put the inside address 2-6 lines below the date, make sure it is on the left side of the page.
• Make sure your margins are atleast one inch.
• If you have a letterhead use full-block style.
• If you are using a blank sheet of paper use modified-block style.
• Put the salutation 2 lines underneath the inside address, on the left side of the page.
• Begin the body 2 lines below the salutation.
• Paragraphs should be single space, but there should be a double space between paragraphs.
• Place the closing 2 lines below the body.
• If the letter is 2 pages, make sure page 2 has atleast 2 lines of text from the body.
• Lastly make sure each part is spaced, and placed correctly.
• You might also include typist initials, enclosure notation, cc (appears on all copies), and bcc (appears onlu on the leter to the blind copy recipient), 2 lines underneath the closing.