Official Digital Letterhead for a Unit

I've run into some brick walls talking to the Global Service Center and the Distribution Center in my request for a digital version of the personalized letterhead for our unit. I can order reams of physical letterhead to print letters on but who prints physical letters anymore? All Church correspondence comes electronically these days and I would like to do the same but to do so I would like to have a Church-quality copy of the letterhead that I can order physically. Making us physically print letters on the provided letterhead stationary and then scan it back to digital seems very silly and reduces the quality of the document.

Anyone know how to get an official digital version of Church letterhead for your specific unit?

Thanks,

Bishop Cary Talbot
Vicksburg Ward - 045594

You may want to refer to General Handbook 38.8.8.

In light of that section, it strikes me as odd that the church still provides stationary for local units that contains the church's wordmark. I can only speculate that the church isn't concerned about the stationary being misused, but is concerned that the digital file would be.

There is a contact email in that section that you can try if you wish to pursue the issue.

Thanks for the pointer. I will inquire to the email address listed in Section 38.8.8 and see what they say. I'll post the response I get here.

Section 38.8.8 indicates that the Wordmark and Symbol "are to be used only as approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles." Since printed letterhead is still provided to Unit leaders to use for official purposes, I'm assuming this is therefore an approved use. I'm curious as to what they'll say about my request. Since the Church is moving to an all-digital world (our Stake is piloting digital Temple recommends right now), I would hope that providing an official digital letterhead to each until would be a simple matter. We shall see.

Personally (I have no special knowledge), I don't think the question is about the church "moving to an all-digital world" as much as the question is, "Will every individual member follow church policies when it comes to using the wordmark and symbol in digital communications?" When I ponder that (in my experience in the units I have lived in), the answer is, unfortunately, no.

PDFs and stationary are, themselves, a vestige from print media. If you're attaching a letter as a PDF to an email message, I would recommend just sending an email message with the content of the letter in the body of the email instead – rather than trying to straddle between digital and print paradigms by using digital stationary. It will be easier for people receiving the email to not have to open an attachment.

Agreed - for 99% of the time I wish to send a letter, email works just fine with no need to include an attached PDF. However, for those instances where a more formal letter on official letterhead is appropriate (and sometimes even needed), having a digital letterhead seems like the best way to do this. Just today I sent a letter to the Mayor of our town, inviting him to a special service where our Mission President will be speaking. I wanted this to be a formal invite on official letterhead because that is what I felt was proper. Just an email wouldn't convey the same level of formality.

As it is right now, my only option for sending an official letter on Church letterhead is to order 1000 copies of printed letterhead (at a cost of ~$45 plus shipping) when a simple digital download of a Word document could save all that effort, cost, shipping and time.

I've noticed a difference in the official communications the Church provides, perhaps you could follow that. For "Notices" (in the Official Communication Library, select the Notices tab), all the letters have the official symbol in the letterhead. But for "First Presidency" letters (choose the First Presidency tab), they simply have a text section at the top, no logo / symbol. Obviously there's a reason why some letters are Notices, but if the simpler header is sufficient for a First Presidency letter, perhaps it's sufficient for the scenario where you don't have any physical letterhead. Not ideal, but maybe sufficient.

That said, I feel it's always going to be necessary to have at least a small quantity of physical letterhead available, there's eventually going to be times when your Bishop needs to deliver a physical letter to somebody and a digital copy won't suffice. But that's a Bishop's decision.

BrianEdwards wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:23 pm I've noticed a difference in the official communications the Church provides, perhaps you could follow that. For "Notices" (in the Official Communication Library, select the Notices tab), all the letters have the official symbol in the letterhead. But for "First Presidency" letters (choose the First Presidency tab), they simply have a text section at the top, no logo / symbol.

Interesting observation – I didn't notice that before!

BrianEdwards wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:23 pm That said, I feel it's always going to be necessary to have at least a small quantity of physical letterhead available, there's eventually going to be times when your Bishop needs to deliver a physical letter to somebody and a digital copy won't suffice. But that's a Bishop's decision.

Though if digital letterhead were available, you could prepare your letter with that and print it directly – you wouldn't need a stock of physical letterhead set aside.

I think we'll all be happy if digital letterhead becomes an option -- or even better, becomes the option! But I'm not holding my breath, and I expect I may be out in the pasture by the time that eventually happens...

BrianEdwards wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:23 pm That said, I feel it's always going to be necessary to have at least a small quantity of physical letterhead available, there's eventually going to be times when your Bishop needs to deliver a physical letter to somebody and a digital copy won't suffice. But that's a Bishop's decision.

As it turns out, that happens to be my current calling.

talbotje wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:12 pm Agreed - for 99% of the time I wish to send a letter, email works just fine with no need to include an attached PDF. However, for those instances where a more formal letter on official letterhead is appropriate (and sometimes even needed), having a digital letterhead seems like the best way to do this. Just today I sent a letter to the Mayor of our town, inviting him to a special service where our Mission President will be speaking. I wanted this to be a formal invite on official letterhead because that is what I felt was proper. Just an email wouldn't convey the same level of formality.

As it is right now, my only option for sending an official letter on Church letterhead is to order 1000 copies of printed letterhead (at a cost of ~$45 plus shipping) when a simple digital download of a Word document could save all that effort, cost, shipping and time.

Section 3.8.8 of the General Handbook permits local units to use the name of the Church so long as the unit name is a prelude to the name of the Church, it's official to the church unit (it gives a sacrament meeting program as an example), and it doesn't imitate the wordmark. I read this as local units can create their own letterhead. Like was done of old. At least, that's what I've done in my callings to date, including digital letterhead for letters issued by our stake presidency. I've created it as an .svg file for the stake's letterhead font and style (which does not imitate the official wordmark in any fashion) and made a word doc template file that is all set up to make preparing a letter a breeze. I am open to anyone pointing out any problems with this approach. Because ultimately, there are reasons to have letterhead, and making the letter digital in its initial publication is far superior to printing a letter only to scan it to a PDF with the degradation of quality and the added steps. (our area presidency did this recently; though, granted, they still have letterhead with the name of the area on it. )