1

I have a letterhead background that I use on cover letters. I am having spacing issues with some text being obscured by the letterhead image. I have tried using \\, \\*, vspace{5in} etc to no avail.

How should I ensure that my text is not obscured by the letterhead image?

The example pdf output is available here

enter image description here

and the letterhead image is available here.

enter image description here

Here is my example:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage{setspace}
% \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\setlength{\parskip}{10pt plus 1pt minus 1pt}
%\usepackage{hyperref}

\addtolength{\oddsidemargin}{-0.75in}
%\addtolength{\voffset}{-1.25in}
\addtolength{\textwidth}{1.75in} 
%\addtolength{\textheight}{1.50in}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\thispagestyle{empty}


\usepackage{eso-pic}
\newcommand\BackgroundPic{
\put(0,0){
\parbox[b][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
\vfill
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.9\paperwidth,height=1.2\paperheight,
keepaspectratio]{Letterhead_example1.jpg}%
\vfill
}}}


\begin{document}
\AddToShipoutPicture{\BackgroundPic}

\parskip

\begin{flushright}
My Place, State \\
 \today \\
\end{flushright}


\begin{flushleft}
To,\\
\textbf{Hiring committee}\\
People\\
And\\
others
\end{flushleft}
% \vspace{2pt}
\begin{center}
 \textbf{Cover letter for that job that would lead me to a world of happiness}
\end{center}


\lipsum[1-7]



\begin{flushleft}
 Thank you,\\ 
\parskip 7.2pt
 Me\\
Always me!!!!
\end{flushleft}

\end{document}
Moriambar
  • 11,466
dearN
  • 2,760

1 Answers1

2

If you just wanted to push the text down a bit you could use \vspace*{...}. (The \vspace* command, unlike \vspace, works at the very start of a page.) However, that would only help on the first page. If you're using your letterhead on every page, then you'll want to adjust the top margin of your text. Therefore, you could try adding \setlength{\topmargin}{1in} in your preamble. (Note that this leaves a top margin of two inches, since 1 inch is always added to the value in \topmargin. See here for discussion of this phenomenon.)

Community
  • 1
John Wickerson
  • 14,559
  • aah top margin! I should check this out. – dearN May 16 '13 at 18:49
  • Both options: \vspace{...} and \setlength{\topmargin}{1in} worked fine. What is the general norm though in these two options?> – dearN May 17 '13 at 15:45
  • You mean the difference between those options? \vspace is a one-off, but \topmargin applies to every page. I think the 'norm', though, is to use the geometry package for this kind of thing, as it is powerful and easy-to-use. – John Wickerson May 17 '13 at 21:17