newlfm date annoyance

Question

I have been using newlfm a part of TeXLive since 2007 for my official correspondence. I noticed that newlfm broke backward compatibility since TeXLive 2009. I read documentation (which is very long) several times over arguably not too carefully but I have never found a solution for the following annoying problem with the date. This is what I am talking about. enter image description here

Date should be aligned with the first letter of my first name "Predrag". This is the source code

\documentclass[12pt,stdletter,sigleft]{newlfm}
\usepackage{charter}

\widowpenalty=1000
\clubpenalty=1000

\newsavebox{\Luiuc}
\sbox{\Luiuc}{%
        \parbox[b]{1.75in}{%
                \vspace{0.5in}%
                \includegraphics[scale=1.0,ext=.eps]
                {figures/UILogoLG3L}%
        }%
}%
\makeletterhead{Uiuc}{\Lheader{\usebox{\Luiuc}}}

\newlfmP{headermarginskip=20pt}
\newlfmP{sigsize=50pt}
\newlfmP{dateskipafter=20pt}
\newlfmP{addrfromphone}
\newlfmP{addrfromemail}
\PhrPhone{Phone}
\PhrEmail{Email}

\lthUiuc

\namefrom{Predrag Puno\v{s}evac}
\addrfrom{%
        Predrag Puno\v{s}evac\\
        Science Laboratory\\
        Some University\\
        Urbana, IL 61801
}
\phonefrom{000-000-0000}
\emailfrom{xxx@hotmail.edu}

\addrto{%
Faculty Search Committee\\
Department of Science\\
Some University\\
Somewhere, SC 29634-0974}

\greetto{To Whom It May Concern,}
\closeline{Sincerely,}
\begin{document}
\begin{newlfm}

I am writing to apply for the position of bla bla

Thank you for your consideration.  I look forward to
hearing from you.

\end{newlfm}
\end{document}

I have avoided putting date on my letters due to the above behavior for several years. However, I decided that if I can not fix the above package I will switch either to plain TeX or ConTeXt for letters at least. By the way the more I play with ConTeXt the more I like it. I can not wait for Mark IV to mature little bit more.

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 03 '17 at 12:30

Perhaps not the best option, but you can use the dateno class option

\documentclass[12pt,stdletter,sigleft,dateno]{newlfm}

to avoid automatically typesetting the date and then add \today in \addfrom, to inherit its alignment

\addrfrom{%
        \today\\
        Predrag Puno\v{s}evac\\
        Science Laboratory\\
        Some University\\
        Urbana, IL 61801
}

Here's a complete example using portions of your example code (I suppresses all commands using the image since I don't have the actual image file):

\documentclass[12pt,stdletter,sigleft,dateno]{newlfm}
\usepackage{charter}

\widowpenalty=1000
\clubpenalty=1000

\newlfmP{headermarginskip=20pt}
\newlfmP{sigsize=50pt}
\newlfmP{dateskipafter=20pt}
\newlfmP{addrfromphone}
\newlfmP{addrfromemail}
\PhrPhone{Phone}
\PhrEmail{Email}

\namefrom{Predrag Puno\v{s}evac}
\addrfrom{%
        \today\\
        Predrag Puno\v{s}evac\\
        Science Laboratory\\
        Some University\\
        Urbana, IL 61801
}
\phonefrom{000-000-0000}
\emailfrom{xxx@hotmail.edu}

\addrto{%
Faculty Search Committee\\
Department of Science\\
Some University\\
Somewhere, SC 29634-0974}

\greetto{To Whom It May Concern,}
\closeline{Sincerely,}
\begin{document}
\begin{newlfm}

I am writing to apply for the position of bla bla

Thank you for your consideration.  I look forward to
hearing from you.

\end{newlfm}
\end{document}

enter image description here

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 15 '17 at 15:44

Another dirty hack is to use \dateset and then \parbox to manually align the date. That way you do not need to amend your address, which is useful if you use a letter database, letrinfo.tex, potentially containing many addresses. However, the drawback is alignment will have to be done manually every time for new addresses. Just add the line:

\dateset{\parbox{width}{\today}}

Where you need to adjust width so that the date aligns with the text of the address. In your document, on my machine, it was approximately 1.8 inches:

\documentclass[12pt,stdletter,sigleft]{newlfm}
\usepackage{charter}

\newlfmP{headermarginskip=20pt}
\newlfmP{sigsize=50pt}
\newlfmP{dateskipafter=20pt}
\newlfmP{addrfromphone}
\newlfmP{addrfromemail}
\PhrPhone{Phone}
\PhrEmail{Email}


% ***** Manually adjust the position of the date. *****
\dateset{\parbox{1.8in}{\today}}


\namefrom{Predrag Puno\v{s}evac}
\addrfrom{%
    Predrag Puno\v{s}evac\\
    Science Laboratory\\
    Some University\\
    Urbana, IL 61801
}
\phonefrom{000-000-0000}
\emailfrom{xxx@hotmail.edu}

\addrto{%
Faculty Search Committee\\
Department of Science\\
Some University\\
Somewhere, SC 29634-0974}

\greetto{To Whom It May Concern,}
\closeline{Sincerely,}
\begin{document}
\begin{newlfm}

I am writing to apply for the position of bla bla

Thank you for your consideration.  I look forward to
hearing from you.

\end{newlfm}
\end{document}

newlfm date annoyance

2 Answers2

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