Rich Shepard wrote:
Letters are about the only writing I do with OO.o; everything else is on
LyX. I, too, would like a business letter template (full block mode)
with my logo/letterhead on the first page and the recipient's name, the date, and
current page number on subsequent pages.
If your logo goes at the top of the page, you can do it with
komascript's scrlttr2. The info for the subsequent pages can be handled
by fancyhdr. (I think ... still playing with komascript.) If your logo
is in the left margin, and only on the first page, then you have the
same problem I face.
1. (This is the only major issue.) Our letterhead includes logos on both
the left side of the paper and along the top. Dealing with the top is
not a problem, but for the life of me I cannot find a way in komascript to make
the left margin two inches on the first page (which will be
letterhead) and one inch on every other page (plain bond).
Two minipages? The left for the sidebar and the right for text?
I didn't try minipages, but I tried putting a parbox with fixed height
on the left where the logo would be. It just pushed what would have
been page 1 off to page 2, still flush to the normal left margin.
Komascript treats addresses, greetings and closings, signatures, dates
etc. separately from the text body. Putting a parbox (or, presumably, a
minipage) in the text body didn't work, and neither did using
\AtBeginDocument or \AtBeginLetter to try to place one at the start of
the letter. There may be a good place to insert one, but I haven't
found it. I may take a shot with a minipage; perhaps it will work
better than the parbox did.
2. (Minor annoyance.) Komascript right justifies the date; I would
like to left justify it. (I leave the other elements of that line, such as
location, blank.)
3. (Minor annoyance.) I would like to shrink the vertical distance
between the end of the recipient's address and the date line.
These two should be adjustable in the preamble code of the template.
One would think so. The excellent (if rather lengthy) komascript
documentation lists a number of pseudolengths you can set, but these two
are not among them. I tried to read the scrlttr2 class file (not being
particularly proficient in tex/latex coding), but I couldn't find an
adjustable pseudolength relating to either of these, and I was not about
to hack the class file.
I wonder if something like the invoice template in SQL-Ledger might be a
good starting point? I added my logo to that and it's used to print
invoices from the A/R module of the software.
I may take a look at this. I might end up taking some basic class like
letter and trying to wedge in a logo. Mass mailings are not an issue; I
just need something that looks right for an individual letter.
If I had time to spend on this I'd like to dig in to the komascript
letter code and see about modifying it. My experience with the OMR form (thanks to
Herbert's patient guidance) has been valuable. Unfortunately, until I
get my fuzzy system model completely re-written I have no spare time.
I noticed the reference to fuzzy logic in your sig. I take it you do a
lot of work for the government? :-) As I recall, fuzzy logic is built
on fuzzy truth: true; false; sort of true; true enough to fool the
voters; ...
/Paul
