If I Create A Letterhead Design In InDesign, Could A Client Use It In Word On A PC?

Q: If I create a letterhead design in InDesign, could a client use it in Word on a PC? The client would like a letterhead design to use in Word on their PC. I'm not a Word user - I always use InDesign, Illustrator etc. Tho I do have Word for Mac, I've hardly used it. I could happily design a letterhead in InDesign or Illustrator or Quark. The whole Word thing is unfamiliar, but I guess with some study I could create the letterhead there instead. I'd just prefer to use InDesign. It seems such a simple request, but I'm really not sure of how to approach this one. Would be crazy to decline the job. Ant tips would be gratefully received, thank you.

A: I've done these in the past and it was a nightmare. I had to split the letterhead into pieces (header, footer, side column), exporting each to EPS, then create a Word template with margins indicating live area (where they type), then insert the images in position-locked frames, create a section so letters that go 2 pages long use the "2nd page" look of the identity, etc. But as long as you and they have a late-model version of Word, which makes it easier (mainly the text wrap options for placed pictures), the following should work (try an FPO and send it to them to make sure before you design the actual letterhead): Create a one-page letterhead FPO in ID (with some text and images) and export to PDF Open Word X, Insert->Picture->From File and place the PDF Select the picture, Format->Picture->Layout, choose "Behind Text" icon, then click the Advanced button there. In advanced, position your PDF so it's offset 0/0 from the page boundaries and it doesn't move with the text Click OK to back out of all the dialogs Go to Format->Document, set the margins for the live area ... hopefully the PDF will be blank there so your clients can see what they're doing Type some placeholder text there, style it, create style sheets for it (like if you want them to use a particular font/size for text in the letterhead) and apply them Then try printing the thing, hopefully it'll be fine ... and send it to the client and ask them to do the same. By default when you insert a picture it gets embedded into the Word file so you don't have to send the PDF. (You can link it if you want, instead.) Assuming everything's okay, do the same with a "real" (not FPO) PDF. If they can't print, try converting the PDF to PNG as Sandee suggests ... problem is that this rasterizes the letterhead, though, so resolution of thin rules and text may not be ideal. When the client signs off on it, your last step is to save it as a template in Word

and send it to them w/instrux on where to put the file on their hard drive... each user has a Templates folder I believe in the Word folder. Then to write a letter, they go to File->Project Gallery and double-click your letterhead template, which opens as a new untitled document. One glitch that you may have to work on is what happens when the letter they're writing extends to 2 pages. Anyway as you can see, if you go this route, you need to increase your fees for the project to account for the "convert to Word" part. ;-) If you're up to it, might as well pitch a custom fax cover sheet template to them as well, using the same method. Depends if they fax from Word that often or not.