1 · Letter page
A letter's own page, beside the default one: 35mm at the head, 35mm at the sides, 35mm at the foot — the standard 20mm margin plus a 15mm inset on every edge, with the text justified at 12pt across the full width that leaves, about 66 characters. The letterhead reaches back out to the standard margin, so the addresses and any crest frame the text. No running head and no folio, which is what the empty head and foot of the right-hand sheet show. The markup beside this pane is the whole of it: the class goes on the document element, and every pane below carries it.
Composition
7
The default page
2 · Sender block
The name line in small caps at body size, the lines beneath it a step smaller — a hierarchy of data, not decoration. Never bold and never larger: that turns a letter into stationery. Leave out what a letter does not need: no email address, no telephone number, unless the correspondence calls for one.
Adilson Carvalho
10 Wentworth Avenue
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Australia
3 · Address block
Line-broken data, not prose — the recipient's address exactly as it would sit on an envelope: the name in small caps at body size, the rest a step smaller, tighter leading than the body, never justified, and the line breaks as authored.
The Registrar
Institute of Typographic Studies
88 Rundle Street
Adelaide SA 5000
4 · Address label
The caption that says whose address this is: sans, uppercase, tracked open and faint, on a line of its own above the block. It never appears outside an address block — but it is set by eight declarations of its own, and the address beneath it shares none of them.
To
The Registrar
Institute of Typographic Studies
88 Rundle Street
Adelaide SA 5000
5 · Address column
The sender and recipient blocks together, held at the standard margin from the paper's edge. Where the text sits further in — as it does on a letter's own page, 15mm inside the standard margin — the column reaches out by the difference, so the letterhead stays where an envelope window expects it. Where the text is nearer the paper than the standard margin, the column stays with the text.
From
Adilson Carvalho
10 Wentworth Avenue
Surry Hills NSW 2010
To
The Registrar
88 Rundle Street
Adelaide SA 5000
The text of the letter begins here, at the page's own margin.
6 · Crest
Optional: a crest or monogram in the top right corner, 20mm wide, held at the standard margin from the paper's right edge by the same rule as the address column. A mark drawn in one ink takes the accent. A letter without one leaves the corner empty.
To
The Registrar
88 Rundle Street
Adelaide SA 5000
7 · Date line
Oldstyle figures, flush left — the same numeral convention the rest of the document already sets, not a date format of its own. Three lines of space above it set the letterhead off from the letter.
8 · Line under the date
A dedication, a feast, a devotion — whatever the writer puts under the date. Italic, muted and a step smaller, on the date's own next line, so the two read as one block.
27 August 2026
St Monica, mother of St Augustine Bishop, ora pro nobis
9 · Salutation
A greeting, set like any other paragraph in the letter — no weight change, no size change, no heading trying to happen — with two lines of room above and below it.
10 · Quotation — in a letter
A prayer, a line, a remembered phrase: indented on both sides, italic and muted, with no rule. A rule is the essay's quotation; a letter sets its quotations apart by indent and colour. Inside a letter, every block quote takes this form.
That was my prayer while I waited.
Forgive me my failure to act, O Lord, and if I miss confession today, I will take that as a warning.
The queue moved at a glacial pace.
11 · Footnote — in a letter
The same marker as the rest of the document's apparatus — superscript, no brackets. On a one-page letter, the rule and the numbered note it sits above are the page foot in every sense but name.
Dear Registrar,
I am writing about the setting of the Institute’s annual report, which arrived this morning and which I read with more attention to its margins than to its contents. I hope that is taken in the spirit intended.
The text column runs to something near a hundred and ten characters. By the second page I had lost my place twice, and by the fourth I had stopped reading and started measuring.
This is a cheap problem to fix, and I would be glad to send the specification I use for my own documents.
- Measured on page four, between the outer margins: 168mm at a 10pt body, which is about 112 characters.
12 · Closing
The same plain rhythm as the salutation it echoes — the only difference is the room around it: three lines above, two below, not a style of its own.
13 · Signature block
The typed name, with room above it to sign. No ruled line: a rule above a name is a form to be filled in, and this is not a form.
Yours sincerely,
Adilson Carvalho
14 · Enclosures
Enc. introduces a sentence; it does not head a section, so it carries no small caps and no weight change of its own.
Adilson Carvalho
Enc. typeset.css; two specimen pages
15 · Postscript
A postscript is a sentence that happens to begin with P.S. — the label is not a heading, so it matches the text it introduces exactly. It stands off what precedes it by the signature's own three lines.
Enc. typeset.css; two specimen pages
P.S. The tables were excellent — tabular figures throughout, which is more than most annual reports manage.