A letterhead is a collection of text, images, and colors at the top of a letter that contains various details about who you are as a sender. In Microsoft Word, you can either create these using templates or start from scratch, and—most importantly—save your finalized design for repeated use.

Any time you’re working on a Word Document, it’s handy toturn on Show/Hideby clicking “¶” in the Home tab to see more clearly how the document is laid out.

Two letterheads created from templates in Microsoft Word.

Why Are Letterheads Beneficial?

Letterheads are more than mere fancy designs at the top of a piece of paper. In fact, they have many benefits. Although mostly used in business-related correspondence, anyone can add a letterhead to their outgoing mail. For example, I use a pre-designed letterhead on my job application cover letters. Here’s why:

How to Use a Word Template to Create a Letterhead

Word has many templates you can choose from to create your letterhead, and it’s best to begin with a new Word document. Although you can apply a template to an existing document through File > Options > Add-Ins > Templates, this tends not to work exactly as you would hope.

Once you have opened Word, click “New,” and then typeletterorletterheadinto the search box.

The Microsoft Word ‘New’ menu, with the search field highlighted.

Single-clicking one of the results will show you an enlarged version (and you can then click “Create” if you’re happy), while double-clicking will instantly download and create the template for you.

The template will then load, ready for you to adapt as necessary.

Microsoft Word’s letterhead template options.

Benefits of Using a Template Letterhead

Drawbacks of Using a Template Letterhead

The letterhead will go in theheader of the first page, so before you start designing your content, ensure your page is correctly set up.

First, double-click anywhere in the header section at the top of page 1, and check “Different First Page” in the Header And Footer tab on the ribbon. This will ensure your letterhead is on the first page only.

Word’s Header And Footer tab, with Different First Page checked.

Next, you need to adjust the margins, so that you can use the full width of the page. With the header still activated, drag the horizontaltabs on the rulerto the sides of the page, and move the upper boundary upwards. If you can’t see the ruler, check “Ruler” in the View tab.

Adjusting the margins in the header will have no impact on the margins of the main body of your letter. It’s also worth remembering that you might lose a few millimeters from the top and sides of yourdocument when it’s printed, so verify you don’t have any important details near the edge.

Microsoft Word’s header, with the margins widened.

Next, you need to decide whether you’re going to create and format your header using a table or text boxes and shapes.

In this example, I inserted a table with three columns—one for the logo, one for the contact details, and one for the name and position. I then filled the middle and right cells in color, changed the text sizes and alignment, andadjusted the table border formatting. Tables are ideal if you want to segment your letterhead into various sections, and you’re fine with the outlines being rectangular and square.

A letterhead made in Microsoft Word using a table.

For this next example, I searched Word’s stock images forwavy(via Insert > Pictures > Stock Images), and cropped my favorite choice to fit nicely into the header. I then used text boxes with different alignments to add the text on top. This approach is ideal if you want a fancy background behind your text, but these designs might not work well if you want to add an additional image, like your photo or company logo.

To ensuretext boxes work as desired, right-click the edge of a text box, hover over “Wrap Text,” and click “In Front Of Text.”

A letterhead made in Microsoft Word using a stock image.

Benefits of Creating Your Own Letterhead

Drawbacks of Creating Your Own Letterhead

Whether you’ve used a template or created your own letterhead, once you’re happy with how it all looks, you cansave it as a templateso that you can reuse it in future letters.

Press F12 to open the Save As dialog box, where you should give your letterhead an appropriate File Name, and choose “Word Template” from the Save As Type drop-down menu. Then, click “OK.”

The Save As window in Word, with Letterhead allocated as the file name, and Word Template as the file type.

When you’re ready to start a new letter, open Word, click “New,” and switch to the “Personal” tab. There, you’ll see all the templates you have created and saved.

Once you’ve single-clicked a template to select it, Word will open a new, unsaved document, with your letterhead ready to go. The first thing to do is to name and save your new letter as a standard Word document in an appropriate place on your computer. Then, you’re able to start writing your well-presented letter!

A new Word document window opened, with New and Personal selected, and the templates higlighted beneath.

If you find your letter runs on for too many pages, check out ourtips for dealing with lengthy Word documents. While you’re there, explore thedifferent ways you’re able to format the rest of your Word document, so that it matches your quality letterhead.