Letterheads

This document describes letterheads in more detail. It also contains the specifications for the different letterhead layouts.

All SMARTEDGE documents are in paper size A4

What are letterheads in SMARTEDGE?

A letterhead is a PDF file that SMARTEDGE merges into produced documents. A letterhead is merged in as the background (bottom) layer of the produced document after the document has been created.

Each document uses different letterheads for Page 1 and subsequent pages. In many instances a different letterhead is required on pages after page 1, because these pages utilises more of the page, however, the same letterhead can be used on all pages depending on the layout of the letterhead.

Since the letterhead is inserted as the bottom layer of the produced document, "watermark" type of letterheads can be used. A "watermark" image or drawing can be put in the middle of the page and the document will print on top of the image. Care should be taken to ensure that the opacity of the image is sufficient. Background colors can also be used in the letterhead.

Since a letterhead is added to each document that is produced, the size of the letterhead file should be considered carefully. If a letterhead is 200KB in size and an average document is about 5KB in size, each document produced will be 205KB. For a single user company this means that extra storage charges will apply after only 250 documents because the 50MB included storage will be exceeded by the stored documents only. It may also affect your bandwidth charges if the documents are often opened or e-mailed.

A high-quality letterhead can be a very effective marketing tool for the company, and adding a few nice logos of renowned brand names the company supply can far outweigh any extra charges for storage.

How Letterheads are Selected

SMARTEDGE allows for a specific letterhead for each Self-Contained Unit (branch). For companies with no branches, there is only the Company Letterhead.

Which letterhead to use is determined by the setting on the Unit, see menu Configuration » Organisation » X20 Organogram, or click here to read more about selecting letterheads on business units.

Different Letterheads for Different Documents

SMARTEDGE allows for specific letterheads for different document types. If a document does not have its own letterhead, the selected letterhead should be [Use General] for that document.

Separate letterheads for Page 1 and Page N are selected.

In addition to the letterheads, a fixed standard text (General Terms & Conditions) can be added for each document type in Configuration » Company Administration » X00 Company Preferences » Texts

The following documents can have their specific letterheads:

Letterhead	Description
General	This is the company's (or business unit's) general letterhead and is the letterhead used if no specific letterhead is selected for a document. if all documents use the same letterhead.,This is the only letterhead needed
Customer Statement	This is the letterhead to be used for Customer Statements.
Invoices and Credit Notes	This is the letterhead to be used for Invoices. It is also used for Credit Notes.
RFQ Acknowledgements	This is the letterhead to be used for RFQ Acknowledgements (Request for Quote Acknowledgement). An RFQ Acknowledgement is a receipt for a Request for Quote, and contains the items and quantities, but no prices.
Quotes	This is the letterhead to be used for Quotes. Please note that quotes include a text for customer acceptance and signature.
Proforma Invoices	This is the letterhead to be used for Proforma Invoices.
Order Confirmation	This is the letterhead to be used for Order Confirmations. It is also used for Return Confirmations (confirmation for Sales Returns).
Delivery Slips	This is the letterhead to be used for Delivery Slips. It is also used for Return Slips (Sales Returns). Please note that Delivery Slips include a text for Goods Received and signature.
Purchase Orders/Returns	This is the letterhead to be used for Purchase Orders and Purchase Returns.
Request for Quotes	This is the letterhead to be used for Request for Quotes that the company issues to its suppliers.
Payment Receipts	This is the letterhead to be used when producing Payment Receipts (receipt for payment received from customer) and Remittance Notes (note to supplier about payment made).
Product Data Sheets	This is the letterhead to be used when producing PDF Product Data Sheets.
Price Lists	This is the letterhead to be used when producing PDF Price Lists.
Service Cards	This is the letterhead to be used when producing PDF Service Cards.

Internal Documents

Internal Documents, such as Internal Invoices, do not have their own letterheads. For these documents the general letterhead is used.

How To Create A PDF Letterhead

There are several methods for creating PDF files:

Adobe Acrobat Professional (not the reader). This is the original PDF creator and is the most feature rich way to create a PDF document. However, many companies do not have the Acrobat Professional licence.
PDF printer drivers can be downloaded from the internet. There are free versions available. These allow you to print any document to a PDF file instead of printing to a printer.
Document converter programs that can convert a Word Processing document to a PDF file.

Please note that the quality and size of the documents may vary substantially between different vendors of these products. We advice that you try out different versions if you are not happy with the results you get.

Letterhead Specifications

The following paragraphs describes how documents are produced.

Fonts Styles and Size used in Documents

SMARTEDGE uses Helvetica as the font in produced documents. Helvetica is used because it is a basis/standard font in PDF and therefore the font type does not need to be included in the document, reducing the size of the document. However, Helvetica is not a font usually available in Windows. The closest font to Helvetica is Arial or Verdana. This help document uses the Arial font. Often Arial or Verdana is converted to Helvetica when a PDF document is produced, however that depends on the method used to create the PDF file.

The PDF basis fonts are:

Times-Roman
Helvetica
Courier
Symbol
Zapf Dingbats

The advantage of only using these fonts are that no extra space is required to store the font description with the PDF document, reducing the size of the document.

Font Sizes Used in Documents

Standard Text is in 9 point.

Small header text is in 7 point (for example the header "Delivery Instructions").

Emphasised text is in 10 point (for example Customer Name and Address).

Large text is in 12 point (for example the document type text (INVOICE)).

Letterhead Layouts

SMARTEDGE provides for four different letterhead layouts. The different layouts determine the document layout which affect how the letterhead must be.

Selecting the wrong layout for a letterhead may result in the document being written on top of text in the letterhead.

The following paragraphs gives specifications for the different layouts.

Layout A

Layout A is the most space efficient layout and allows most item lines on page 1. Layout A reserves 30mm on the top and bottom of the page for the letterhead.

Letterhead Header
Left: 0mm Height 30mm

Body used by document
Height 235mm

Letterhead Footer
Left: 0mm: Height 30mm

Click here to see an example of a letterhead for layout A.

Click here to see an example of a quote using layout A.

Click here to see an example of an invoice using layout A.

Layout B and Layout C

Layout B and Layout C allows for more space to be used by the letterhead than Layout A. The letterhead can extend further down on the right-hand side of the page.

Letterhead B and C has exactly the same size specifications,the difference between the two layouts is that Layout C inserts a PAGE BREAK after the header information. This means that item lines (or transactions for Customer Statements) always starts on page 2, when using Layout C.


Letterhead Header Left: 0mm: Height 35mm
Name and Address Block	Letterhead Header Left: 120mm: Height 80mm (35mm + 45mm)
Body used by document Height: 185mm
Letterhead Footer Left: 0mm: Height 30mm

Click here to see an example of a letterhead for layout B.

Click here to see an example of a quote using layout B.

Click here to see an example of an invoice using layout B.

Click here to see an example of the same invoice using layout C. Note that the page 2 letterhead should be changed for this company because the logo interferes with the text on page 2.

Layout D

Layout D also inserts a PAGE BREAK after the header information. This means that product lines (or transactions for Customer Statements) always starts on page 2, when using Layout D.

The difference between Layout B/C and Layout D is that Layout D has a right-hand side margin of 50mm, allowing letterhead information to be printed to the right of the document body.


Letterhead Header Left: 0mm: Height 35mm
Name and Address Block	Letterhead Header Left: 120mm: Total Height 80mm (35mm + 45mm)
Body used by document Height 185mm		Letterhead Right Margin Left: 155mm: Height 185mm
Letterhead Footer Left: 0mm: Height 30mm

Click here to see an example of the same invoice using layout D. Note that the page 2 letterhead should be changed for this company because the logo interferes with the text on page 2.

Page 2 Specification

All layouts share the same specification for page 2.


Page 2+ Letterhead Header Left: 0mm: Height 30mm
Page 2+ Document Information Block	Left: 120mm: Height 60mm (30 + 30mm)
Body used by document Height 205mm
Letterhead Page 2+ Footer Left: 0mm: Height 30mm

For examples of page 2 layout, click any of the Layout C or D examples above.