Typing an Official
Letter
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what you'll learn
● How to create an official letter
– Format of an official letter
– Real-life examples
● invitation letter to a function organized by you
● Lessons
– Reapplying basic Microsoft Word skills
– Using numbered and bulleted lists
– Working with tables, rows and columns
– How to preview and print a document
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background story
● Student ● Working adult
– you are the President of – you are the Head for your
Volunteers' Club company's Annual Dinner
Committee
– your club is organizing a
fund-raising event for – write an official letter
orphaned children inviting your CEO to the
event
– write an official letter
inviting your school principal – list out the venue, date and
/ dean to the event time
– list out the venue, date and – list out the program
time activities
– list out the program
activities
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how should we start?
● Open a new file
Sender's address
● Save it as 'Invitation
Letter'
Recipient's address
● Identify the formatting
Date
of an official letter
Recipient's Body
salutation
Title Sender's signature
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before you type
● What are the best font faces?
– Times New Roman
– Arial
– Verdana
● What is the usual size?
– Anything from 10 to 12 for body text
– Something slightly bigger, bolder for titles, headings
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exercise > sender's address
● Type out your address
– Name
– Your title, if any
– Street, City,
– Postcode and State
● Sample
Usamah Jamaludin
President, Volunteers' Club
Sek. Men. Taman Melawati
Hulu Klang, 53100
Selangor
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exercise > add a line
● In between the
sender's and the
recipient's
addresses, there is
a line separating
the two
● After you have
finished typing the
sender's address,
– Format -> Borders
and Shading
Click!
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exercise > move the cursor
● You need to
'forcefully' move the
cursor beyond the
newly added line
– Double-click anywhere
after the line, and the
cursor should follow
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exercise > recipient's address
● Type out the name,
salutation and address
of the person you want
to send the letter to
● At the last line of the
address, move the
cursor to the right side
– Type today's date
– e.g 28th September 2006
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exercise > salutation and title
● Salutation is basically
how you properly
address people based on
their social ranking
– Dear Sir
– Dear Madam
– Dear Mr President
● Title basically
summarizes the
intention of the letter
– Invitation to Company's
Annual Dinner
● Title is bold, underlined!
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body of an official letter
● Body
– The body of an official
letter is made up of
paragraphs
– The first paragraph is not
numbered, explaining the
general intention of the
letter #### #### ### ###### ###
– The preceding paragraphs 2. #### #### ### ######
### ###
are numbered starting
3. #### #### ### ######
from 2, 3, ..., detailing the ### ###
letter further #### #### ### ######
– The closing paragraph is
similar to the first one. It
is not numbered
● Start first paragraph!
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more about the body
● Paragraph 1
– general overview of the program
● Paragraph 2
– venue, date and time of the program
● Paragraph 3
– schedule of program activities
● Paragraph 4
– closing paragraph
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exercise > numbering
● You can list paragraphs,
sentences and important
points using numbers
● To enable numbering, Format
-> Bullets and Numbering
– look for a shortcut on the Formatting
Toolbar!
– Bullets / Numbering will stay on when
you move onto a new paragraph /
sentence / point
– Use numbering to number your 2nd, 3rd
and subsequent paragraphs
● Use indentation to format
paragraphs!
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exercise > bulleted lists
● Similar to numbering, we can also use bulleted lists
● For example, in paragraph 2, it is best to display the
date, venue and time in the following format
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intro to table
●
For the 3rd paragraph, create a table that shows the
schedule of activities
● For example,
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exercise > add table
● Adding a table using
the menu
● Adding a table using
the toolbar
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exercise > working with table
● To work on a table
– click on a table
– make sure cursor is inside the table
– the cursor will always be in a cell
– you can start typing in the cell!
● To move to another cell
– just click on another cell, OR
– press TAB
● Type out the schedule of program activities
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exercise > modifying tables
● You can do various tricks to tables
– Insert/Delete/Select rows/columns
● Table -> Insert/Delete/Select
– Split cells
● Table -> Split Cells
– Change table style
● Table -> Table AutoFormat
– Autofit table to its contents
● Table -> AutoFit
– Make your own style
● Format -> Borders and Shading
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exercise > modifying cells
● Select certain cells, and
right-click
– Merge few cells
– Change text direction in cells
(left to right, right to left, up,
down)
– Cell alignment (left, center,
right, top, middle, bottom)
● Resizing using the
mouse
– Move the borders around
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exercise > finish up!
● Finish the following
– Paragraph 4 – the closing
paragraph
– Sender's signature
#### #### ### ###### ###
2. #### #### ### ######
### ###
3. #### #### ### ######
### ###
#### #### ### ######
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exercise > spelling and grammar
● If you type in
English, you can use
Word built-in
Spelling and
Grammar tool
– Tools -> Spelling and
Grammar
● On spelling error
– Ignore
– Change
● Remember to check
this box for
grammar check!
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exercise > check all the time
● You can set Word to
always check your
spelling and
grammar
– Tools -> Options ->
Spelling & Grammar
– Misspelled words and
grammatically incorrect
phrases will be
automatically underlined
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exercise > print preview
● Before we print our
document, it's good to
preview the 'estimated'
printout
● File -> Print Preview
● You can zoom in and out
to judge how it will look
on paper
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exercise > print
● To print
– File -> Print
● Basic things to
play around
– Select printer
– Number of copies
/ sets
– Specific pages to
print
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