FORMATTING A BUSINESS LETTER

A business letter is correspondence written by an individual to deal with business of a personal nature. All parts of a business letter start at the left margin. Margins Top 2 Sides 1 Bottom ~1 The two inch margin is designed to accommodate the company letterhead that business letters are usually printed on. The business letter can be broken down into 6 parts: Return Address/Date, Letter Address (inside address), Salutation, Body, Complementary Close, and Name of writer. Additionally, there are 2 special parts, the Reference Initials and Attachment/Enclosure Notation 1. Start by downloading the business letter from e-chalk. (You will do this for 2 different: Business letter1 and Business letter2)

PAGE SETUP
In order to prepare to type a business letter, you will need to setup your page. The first thing you need to do is to set up your margins as specified above. This is done by tracing the following steps: 2. Save the business letter on your USB drive or in your My Document folder as Firstname lastname Business letter# (# will be either 1 or 2) 3. On the Home Tab, go to the Styles group, and click on the No Spacing style. This will remove all preformatted space in the document; this is very important and will guarantee that the business letter is correctly formatted. 4. Go to the Page Layout tab on the ribbon (at the top of the screen), in the Page Setup group, an click on the Margins button

5. Click on Custom Margins

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6. Set the top margin to 2 and click OK at the bottom of the dialog box

RETURN ADDRESS/DATE
The Return Address in a business letter is made up the writers address, and should have a single (SS) between each line. The date is SS below the Return Address and should reflect the current date. There should be a quadruple space (QS) below the date (a total of 4 enters from the end of the date). 7. Setup the heading as indicated in the document (such as replacing Your Name with your name and inserting todays date) 8. Place your cursor (blinking black line controlled by mouse) behind the date. Key enter 3 times.

LETTER ADDRESS
The letter address (inside address) in a business letter is made up of the receivers address. The persons name should always be preceded by a title such as Mr., Mrs., or Dr. There should be a double space (DS) between the Letter Address and the Salutation 9. Place your cursor behind the zip code in the letter address and key 1 enter (which will cause a blank line between the Letter Address and Salutation.

SALUTATION
A salutation is merely a greeting in a letter such as Dear Sir: or To whom it may concern:. There should be a DS between the Salutation and the Body of the letter. 10. Place your cursor behind the end of the salutation line and key an enter.

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BODY
The body of a business letter should be single-spaced (SS) with a double-space (DS) between. There should be a DS between the body and the Complementary Close. 11. Highlight the entire text of the body. 12. Click the Page Layout tab on the ribbon, go to the Paragraph group, and type 12 in the After text box.

13. If you use the above directions, there should already be a DS between the body and the Complementary Close.

COMPLEMENTARY CLOSE
The complementary close is where you show your appreciation for the time the reader took to read your correspondence. There should be a QS between the Complementary Close and the Name of the Writer. 14. Put your cursor at the end of the complementary close. 15. Key an enter 3 times.

NAME OF WRITER
The Name of the Writer is the name of the person who is sending the letter regardless of who actually types it. There is a DS between the name of the writer and any Special Parts of a letter. 16. If there are any special parts below the typed name, key one enter after the typed name.

REFERENCE INITIALS
If someone other than the author keys the business letter, the typists initials are keyed double-spaced below the body of the business letter. 17. If the name in the Name of Writer field is not yours, type your initials under the body of your business letter, they can either be capitalized or not. If there is an attachment or enclosure notation at the end of the letter, key an enter after your initials.

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ATTACHMENT / ENCLOSURE NOTATION

The Attachment/Enclosure Notation appears at the end of the business letter if another document is attached to the business letter. This notation should be double-spaced (DS) at the bottom of the business letter after the body and the reference initial, if used. An attachment is where something is actually attached to the document (stapled or clipped) An enclosure is where something is simply enclosed with the business letter. 18. If there is an attachment or enclosure notation, it should be keyed after the body and/or the reference initials and should be formatted at a DS.

FINISH UP
19. Save your document again. 20. Submit your document in e-Chalk. 21. Record your confirmation number on a sheet of paper. When you get done, both confirmation numbers should be on this sheet of paper and it should be turned in.

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