Basic Letter Layout

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello.
• 00:05 In this lesson we're just going to kind of review the basic letter layout.
• 00:09 Anytime you're typing a semi formal or formal letter,
• 00:12 there is a structure you need to be aware of.
• 00:15 And so when you open up your blank document,
• 00:18 the first thing you type at the top is the date.
• 00:21 Then you press enter four times, one, two, three, four.
• 00:24 And then we enter the greeting line, which may be dear sirs, or dear whoever.
• 00:31 And then, I'm gonna hit enter twice.
• 00:33 And here you're gonna type the text.
• 00:35 So I'm gonna go ahead and throw in random text again, like we did the last time,
• 00:40 just to put some text on the screen.
• 00:42 After you type the text, we're going to give it one more line, hit Enter.
• 00:47 And, we're going to type the closing, which would be, Sincerely.
• 00:52 And then, 1-2-3-4, four returns, and down to your signature line.
• 00:58 So I know this is very basic and
• 01:00 we sort of did this in the other lessons, but we're gonna take it a little farther.
• 01:05 And this time when we've got our three paragraphs of three sentences each,
• 01:09 you need to know about paragraph structure.
• 01:11 It is very formal in a formal letter to indent the first line.
• 01:16 So I am going to place my insertion point at the very front of the first paragraph,
• 01:21 and I'm gonna hit my Tab key, a tab will basically put a half inch space,
• 01:25 from the margin to the start of the paragraph, and that is very formal.
• 01:29 Now you're gonna find the end of the paragraph, and
• 01:31 you can visually see it right down there.
• 01:33 So I'm gonna find the the end of the paragraph, and I'm going to hit
• 01:36 Enter just once, and that's gonna put a nice little space between my paragraphs.
• 01:40 They do that for ease of reading, it's not just to put a random space in there,
• 01:45 it's to help the person reading the letter,
• 01:47 break apart the statements you're making in the paragraph.
• 01:50 Again, place your insertion point in front of the second paragraph, go ahead and
• 01:53 hit Tab that puts a half inch in front of it.
• 01:57 Click behind the second paragraph, the very end of it and hit Enter,
• 02:02 and that will put a space.
• 02:04 And one last time, click in front of the third paragraph,
• 02:08 puts your insertion point there, go ahead and hit Tab, that puts a nice indent.
• 02:12 And in this case, we didn't have to click behind the last one to give it a space
• 02:17 because we already had a space.
• 02:19 And we ended with sincerely and your signature line.
• 02:22 So that's basically how you set up a letter format.
• 02:26 Now you're gonna have another issue and
• 02:30 that one I can't help with you with too much is, what do you say in the letter?
• 02:34 How do you word a letter?
• 02:35 Well, I can't coach you cuz I don't know what your specific need is, but I can show
• 02:40 you some hidden magic inside Microsoft Word, and it's on the file ribbon.
• 02:46 So if you float your mouse way up her on the top left, click on file.
• 02:50 You have some options in here, and the second one says new.
• 02:54 When you click on file new, look what happens.
• 02:59 Here it gives you suggested searches for business letters,
• 03:03 personal letters, industry letters, print, design sets, events, education.
• 03:08 Look at all of these.
• 03:10 So, I want to look at, you might have an option there that says letters.
• 03:14 I think I may have clicked on it before, so it went right here, but
• 03:17 I wanna look at personal letters.
• 03:20 So, I clicked letters before, click Personal.
• 03:23 And now look at all of this that comes up, look at all this,
• 03:27 already designed for you.
• 03:29 And over on the right hand side we have Education letters, Business letters,
• 03:33 Industry Letters, Events, Family letters, Household, Student letters.
• 03:38 What could you possibly need?
• 03:41 Here it all is.
• 03:41 I'm gonna go ahead and
• 03:42 click on Business letters to see what other categories will be in here.
• 03:47 And so you can scroll down.
• 03:48 We have all kinds of posters.
• 03:50 Here I have a business letter for sales, stripes design.
• 03:54 Let's see, a letter to a doctor.
• 03:57 Letter requesting, assistance with a job search, that sounds wonderful.
• 04:03 So if I want to view this letter, double click it.
• 04:07 It will open up on your screen and there you have it.
• 04:11 Now, what's happening here, I'm not quite sure why my screen adjusted that way.
• 04:17 I'm not quite sure what happened right there, but it's okay, we can go on.
• 04:21 These are called fields.
• 04:23 Any time you click on these fields you just start typing.
• 04:26 It's basically suggesting, give me your street address,
• 04:30 your city, state, zip, today's date.
• 04:33 You just click on these fields and start typing.
• 04:35 You don't even have to know how to lay it out,
• 04:38 they've already structured the letters for you.
• 04:41 And now if you scroll down it's saying it's already worded for you.
• 04:45 It was a pleasure to see you at the, and it's prompting you for
• 04:48 the organization name.
• 04:50 And over here, as you will see I have several years of experience as a,
• 04:54 and it's prompting you to fill in the job title that you have experience for.
• 04:59 So you are being helped out so much here in all those documents under file new,
• 05:04 if we go right back there, all these documents are free for
• 05:08 you to use because you have an operating copy of Microsoft Word on your screen.
• 05:12 So please take a few minutes,
• 05:14 peruse that, you will be amazed at what's already been done for you.

Lesson notes are only available for subscribers.