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Author: Shaun Fawcett Article source: http://resumeservicecenter.info/. Used with author's permission.
Anyone who has read any of my articles on the subject of
letter writing or resume writing will know how important
I believe it is to minimize the number of pages, preferably
limiting them to one page whenever possible.
And, we all know how tacky it looks when we put the
finishing touches on a letter and it overflows onto the
second page by one or two lines. Very unprofessional!
So, there are a number of handy little tricks that I've
used over the years that can help "squeeze" a letter or
other document onto one page without it being noticed by
the average reader. These tricks can be applied using any
standard word processing software program.
I'm not sure whether a purist at a secretarial school would
approve of some of my methods since they may deviate from
certain technical standards, but I have used them hundreds
of times and nobody has ever been the wiser. The main point
being that I was able to keep a letter on one page when the
first version overflowed by a few lines onto a second page.
Below are my "page compression tips", listed in the order
in which I suggest you apply them:
1. Adjust Side Margins First
Move both the left and right margins out about 1/4 in. closer to the edge of the page.
2. Top and Bottom Margins Next
Move the top and bottom margins out about 1/4 in. closer to the edge of the page.
3. Eliminate The Overflows
Edit out the one or two word "overflows". What I mean here is this: After the letter is drafted take a good look at each paragraph. See if there are any that have an ending sentence that "overflows" onto an additional line for the sake of one word. If so, make a minor edit or two in the paragraph that shortens it a little so that the last word or two will not overflow onto the following line. Using this method, you can often gain two or three extra lines in a one-page letter.
4. Play With Your Spacing
Adjust the line spacing on the page. You can gain considerable space on a page by adjusting the line spacing of the text. For example, if the default line spacing is set to "single" at 12 points try setting it to "exactly" at 12 points if your font size is 12. If that doesn't do it, try "exactly" at "11 pts".
Often you have to experiment a bit with this one to get the look just right.
5. Reduce The Font Size
As a last resort, try reducing the size of the font by 1 point size, say from 12 to 11 points.
6. Edit One More Time
If it still doesn't "fit", there's one final thing you can try if you're the author of the letter. Go back and edit it one more time. Look for redundant thoughts and phrases, or those that can be combined into one sentence rather than two. Is every word and phrase absolutely essential to your message? You'll be amazed at the space savings that this process can result in.
As I stated earlier, try the above methods in sequence,
one-at-a-time, checking each time to see if your latest
change has done the trick for you.
What happens if it still won't fit?
Now, if you've used all of the above tricks and you still
can't get the letter to fit onto one page, it's time to
admit that you've got a real two-pager. In which case,
you should then think about "reversing" some of the
compression tricks that you applied when you tried to
"squeeze" the letter, and then concentrate on making
a balanced looking second page.
There's nothing worse looking than a letter with a one or
two sentence second page! So in this case, you may want
to actually "stretch" the letter out a bit.
Often, at this stage I actually increase the line spacing
and reduce the margins slightly so that there will be a
decent sized overflow onto the second page.
For example, try reversing steps 1, 2 and 4 above. So
instead of decreasing the top, bottom and side margins
on page one, try increasing them by 1/4 in. all around.
Then increase the point size and see if that helps.
Ideally, try to get the page to break cleanly at a
paragraph break, for a nice tidy page-to-page transition.
Again, I have used these little "compression" tricks
thousands of times, and nobody has ever pulled out their
ruler and chastised me for inaccuracy.
The important thing is to end up with a professional
"looking" letter.
In fact, if you do a very detailed check of the real-life
templates included in any one of my Writing Toolkits you
would find that I have used one or more of the above tricks
on many of them. But, I'm not telling which ones!
Click the link below my name to see a full list of all of those Writing Kits.
© 2005 by Shaun Fawcett Shaun Fawcett, is webmaster of the popular writing help site
WritingHelp-Central.com. He is also the author of several
best selling "writing toolkit" eBooks. All of his eBooks and
his internationally acclaimed f-r-e-e course, "Tips and Tricks
For Writing Success" are available at his writing tools site:
http://www.writinghelptools.com
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