Creating Stationery

Stationery differs from letterhead in that letterhead simply provides a graphic in your mail memo, whereas stationery can contain a graphic, list of recipients, and information in the body of the mail memo. Use stationery for reports that you generate frequently, such as a customer status report. Stationery is also useful when you want to create a signature or use a graphic for a signature. You can create as many different stationery designs as you like. Stationery is stored in your Stationery view and you can create mail memos using stationery at any time.

There are two kinds of stationery you can create: Memo stationery and Personal stationery. The Memo stationery uses the Mail Memo template, the same template you use when you create an email in Notes. This template contains only one rich text fieldthe body fieldand has no header or footer fields.

Different from Memo stationery, the Personal stationery template has a total of three rich text fields to support graphics and formatting at the top and the bottom of the document.

Because the Memo stationery uses the Mail Memo template, a quick way to create stationery is to create a memo as you would any mail message, by clicking the New Memo button on the Action bar. When you have completed the fields you'd like to save, choose Tools, Save as Stationery, from the Action bar. Give the stationery a name and click OK. This saves your memo as Memo stationery.

To create Personal stationery, do the following:

1.	Open your mail database and click Tools in the Navigator pane, then select Stationery.
2.	Click the New button on the Action bar and choose Stationery - Personal.
3.	The blank stationery form appears. If you have previously selected a letterhead, the letterhead graphic also appears. If you intend to put your own graphics or photos in your stationery, consider removing your letterhead graphic by choosing Plain Text from the list of letterhead choices. It will result in your memos looking like the one in Figure 5.2. Figure 5.2. Blank stationery, ready for your customization. Whenever you create a mail memo using your saved stationery, all fields in the stationery form open in edit mode, allowing you to make changes to this form on-the-fly.
4.	Fill in the header informationthe To, cc, bcc, and Subject linesif you want them to remain the same each time you use this stationery. These important fields are part of the purpose of creating stationery. Information you put into these fields is saved with the form.
5.	Fill in the first rich text field that appears in the body of the memo. This is an optional step; however, if you leave this field blank, it appears as a blank field at the time you create a memo using your stationery. In other words, you can't make this field disappear from the form by leaving it blank. Include any graphics or formatted text. This field name (Header) is misleading, since the header area of the memo is the area that you completed in the previous step (number 4). Unfortunately, we think Lotus made a bad call when they named this field Header. The result is that this stationery has two headers: One is the header area, the other the header field, and they are not at all related. To insert graphics in this field, choose Create, Picture from the menu and select a graphic from your personal files on your PC.
6.	Fill in the body field (optional). It's the second rich text field contained on this form. Remember, a rich text field can contain formatted text (bold, italics, colors) as well as graphics. It's not a good idea to put too many graphics in your stationery form, though, as this results in large files that may take a long time for people to download when they are retrieving their mail messages from you. This is an optional step, but leaving the field blank does not delete the field from your saved form.
7.	Fill in the third rich text field: the footer field. This is an optional step but leaving the field blank does not delete the field from your saved form.
8.	Click the Save button on the Action bar.
9.	A dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 5.3. Enter a name for the stationery in the What Would You Like to Call This Stationery? box, and then click OK. Figure 5.3. This Personal stationery contains information that will be used again and again. When saving your stationery, create a descriptive and meaningful name so you can easily identify the correct stationery to use in the future.

Figure 5.3 is an example of a Personal Stationery template with a graphic heading and a table in the body field. With this kind of design leverage, you can use your stationery for many reports, such as weekly expense or sales reports.

The stationery is stored in the Stationery folder (see Figure 5.4).

Figure 5.4. The Stationery view is the only view that shows a list of stationery you have created and saved. You don't need to be in this view to create new memos with your stationery.

To use your new stationery, go to the Inbox, Drafts, Sent, or All Documents view and click the Tools button on the Action bar. Select New MemoUsing Stationery. The Select Stationery dialog box appears (see Figure 5.5). Select the stationery template you want to use and then choose OK. A new mail message appears, including the elements you incorporated into your template. All fields are in edit mode, so you can make changes to the fields at this time. Note that your changes will not be saved as changes to the form itself; they are only reflected in the memo you are creating. Enter your information and send it as you send any other mail message.

Figure 5.5. Choose the stationery for your new memo from the Select Stationery dialog box.

To change your stationery design, select it from the Stationery view and click the Edit button on the Action bar. Make your changes and save the document. To delete a stationery, select it in your Stationery folder and press the Delete key.

To create Memo stationery, follow the preceding instructions for creating Personal stationery, but choose Memo Stationery from the New Stationery button on the Action bar.