Create Professional Letterhead in Microsoft Word: Tutorial 1 of 4
How to Insert, Align & Group Shapes, Icons, Logos & Text Boxes
In today's digital age, creating an impactful first impression is crucial, whether you're corresponding for business or personal reasons. A well-designed letterhead adds a touch of professionalism and personality to your communication. In this comprehensive tutorial series, I'll guide you through the process of crafting your own stylish letterhead templates using Microsoft Word.
You can also access the step-by-step video tutorial series Playlist on my YouTube Channel or click below to watch the first lesson:
How to design your letterhead template from scratch by inserting and formatting shapes, icons & text boxes, and tips on how to align and group everything in Word. Learn how to make creative letterhead templates in Microsoft Word in this step-by-step video tutorial series.
Pick Your Design - Get Inspired!
Prior to diving into Word, consider sketching your letterhead template design ideas. Online resources offer numerous Letterhead images to inspire your design direction. With your design vision in place, you can start creating it in Microsoft Word.
Here is the Letterhead Design 1 Template that we created in the first video lesson. If you want to get a jump start on your own custom letterhead using this template, you can purchase my Letterhead Template package (includes 3 designs) and then customize all the elements for your own needs. Here is a link if you are interested: Letterhead Template Package
Insert Icons in Microsoft Word
With your Microsoft 365 subscription, you have access to an extensive library of royalty free graphic elements like icons, images, stickers, and video clips. For our letterhead design, we will insert a few icons to represent our company logo at the top, and then for the phone, email, and website areas at the bottom of the letterhead.
Open a New document in Microsoft Word
Click on the Insert tab, then click Icons in the Illustrations area of the ribbon
The Stock Images menu pops up
Click the Icons tab and search for “circle” and hit Enter
Select your desired icon and click Insert (NOTE: you can select and insert multiple Icons at one time if desired)
The icon will appear on your new document. You can re-size the icon by selecting it, holding the Shift key and dragging the corner of the icon with your mouse to make it larger or smaller. This keeps the aspect ratio, so the icon won’t get distorted.
Then make sure the icon text wrapping is set to “In Front of Text.” This allows you to select it and move it anywhere on the page.
Next, you can insert a Text Box for your Company Name and Tag Line.
Go to the Insert tab
Select the Text Box drop-down and click Draw Text Box
Click and drag your mouse to draw the Text Box
Type your Company Name and Tag Line. Go to the Home tab to adjust the font, size, and attributes
Click to select the Text Box, go to the Sape Format tab, click Shape Outline > No Outline
How to Align Icons, Shapes, and Text Boxes in Word
Now we can align our icon and text box before we group them together.
Select the Icon and then hold the Shift key and select the Text Box to select both elements
On the Shape Format tab, in the Arrange area, click the Align drop-down and select “Align Middle”
This action snaps the selected elements so they line up in the middle with each other.
How to Group Icons, Shapes, and Text Boxes in Word
While the icon and text box are still selected, hover your mouse over one of the selected items and right-click your mouse.
Select Group > Group
Once grouped together, you can move the shape together anywhere on the page. If you ever need to make adjustments to either of individual elements, you can select the image, right-click and select Group > Ungroup.
Be sure and watch the video lesson to see how we create the other shapes and elements on this letterhead design, including the capsule shaped lines and check out the other tutorials in this series for more key tips in #microsoftword.
You can access the additional video lessons here:
Good luck with your custom letterhead design!
