How to make a company letterhead yourself, free
If you need a letterhead today and cannot wait for print, you can build one yourself. It takes an afternoon and nothing you do not already have.
Using a word processor
This is the practical route, because the finished file is the one you will actually type letters into.
- Start a blank A4 document and set the margins to 20mm all round.
- Put your logo and business name in the header, and your address, phone, email and website in the footer. Using the header and footer rather than the body means they repeat on page two and never move when you type.
- Set the body text in one typeface at 11pt or 12pt, with line spacing of about 1.15.
- Add the small print a company needs in the footer at 8pt: registered name, registered office, registration number and directors.
- Save it as a template, not a document, so you cannot overwrite it by accident.
Using a free design tool
Free online design tools have A4 letterhead templates you can put your own logo and colours into. They look better than most word processor efforts and are worth using if you want something with a band of colour or a more considered layout. Two things to watch: replace every piece of placeholder text, including the ones below the fold, and export as PDF rather than an image so the text stays sharp.
Make sure it prints
- Keep colour off the edges unless a printer is producing it. Office printers leave an unprintable margin of a few millimetres.
- Test on your own printer before you commit. Colours come out duller on plain paper than they look on screen.
- Use a real logo file. A logo pulled off your own website is usually too small and goes soft the moment it is enlarged.
Where doing it yourself stops paying
Printing your own is fine for the occasional letter. It stops making sense when you are sending enough that ink and time cost more than printing would, when you want a paper that feels like something, or when you want colour running to the edge of the sheet. At that point the design is the part you have already done, and having it printed properly on 120gsm bond is not expensive: see A4 letterheads. Our designers will set it for you, quoted with the job, if you would rather not do it at all, and the rest of the business stationery range can be made to match.
