Creating a letterhead that works with Pages, MS OFFICE and Open Office

Question

Level 1

6 points

Creating a letterhead that works with Pages, MS OFFICE and Open Office

I have to create a letter head template that can be used by people on PC who have either MS Office (word doc) or OPEN OFFICE (odt) as well as people using Mac iWork PAGES. In my old PC days I could easily make a template with the letter head (some graphics and text boxes) and anyone in the office could use it. Now I am perplexed in how I can get a document with graphics (the logos and some background boxes) so that it appears as a letter head when it is opened in other computers. If I save it to a MS word document, all my graphic boxes (backgrounds) pop up to the top, the text of the company name is moved to the back (behind the graphics) and the logo is resized which means for anyone to use it on a PC they have to readjust all the stuff. Some of these people are not the brightest monitors in the unit so I can't expect them to have to redo all the graphics. And the same problem for the people who have the freebie Open Office, even a worse box of scrambled eggs with our letterhead and logo then.

Any suggestions on what I can do? We have too many people in too many locations to simply print up a box of letterheads for everyone for as few letters they do write, but we need to make sure all our letters are, shall I say, on the same page. Anyway I can create that letterhead on a blank template that won't change no matter who opens it up in what ever?

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on May 21, 2009 8:02 PM

Reply

Answer 1

May 21, 2009 8:09 PM in response to mrbarth

You will need to create a template for each application separately.

Apple's assertion that Pages is compatible with MsWord and PCs is only because Apple is good at +Thinking Differently+. Code for an overactive imagination.

Peter

Reply

Answer 2

J.C

Level 4

1,601 points

May 22, 2009 1:08 AM in response to mrbarth

Hi There

A possible workaround is that you could use one of the applications to create the letterhead, save that document somewhere. You can then take a screenshot of that letterhead by pressing the command + Shift + 4 keys at the same time and dragging the crosshair around the letterhead. This will save a graphic of the selection on the desktop. You can then just drag this graphic into each application as needed. If you ever need to change the details of the letterhead you will have to take the screenshot again with the edited details and drag the new graphic into your documents.

Not the most elegant solution but a workable one atleast
Hope this helps
J.C

Reply

Answer 3

dwb

Level 7

33,220 points

May 22, 2009 1:31 AM in response to mrbarth

The key will be simplicity of design using no formatting other than left, right and center alignment and page margins, I suspect. My first attempt would probably be to create the entire letterhead graphically at 300 dpi = the entire letterhead being a single graphic element.

Reply

Answer 4

May 22, 2009 3:56 AM in response to J.C

If it is just the graphics that concerns you, you need to create a .pdf of the letterhead. Preferably with the fonts outlined so there is no possibility of any font problems, but even without outlining embedding mostly works.

DO NOT take screen snaps (crude 72dpi RGB bitmaps) nor convert to a 300dpi tiff or jpeg, both will produce fuzzy images causing problems with fine details, as well as creating oversize files.

Peter

Reply