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Guide

Letterhead and footer

A letterhead is the part of a page that is the same every time: your logo, your address, a coloured rule, and at the foot a registration line and a page number. There are two ways to get one into a template, and they suit different situations.

Header and footer Base-PDF letterhead
What it is Blocks you build in the editor, repeated on every page A PDF of your stationery, stamped behind every page
Data in it Yes — company details can be fields; page numbers work No — it is a fixed picture of the page
You can edit it In the editor, like any other block Only by replacing the PDF
Shows in PDF, HTML, Word All three PDF only

If you can build your letterhead from text, a logo and a line, build it. Use the Base-PDF letterhead when a designer gave you a finished page you must match exactly. You can use both together: a PDF for the artwork behind, a header for the parts that change.

Part 1 — A header and footer built in the editor

The example below is a two-page letter. Its header carries the logo, company name and address with a coloured line beneath; its footer carries the company contact line and "Page 1 of 2".

  1. Click an empty part of the page, then open the Section tab. Switch Header on. The band appears at the top of every page of this section, dashed and labelled "Header — click to add".
  2. Click the band. The palette's "Adding to:" line now reads "Adding to: Header", so the next block you add goes there. Add a Row with three columns: a narrow one for an Image (your logo), a wide one for a Stack of two Text blocks (company name, "Brand and print studio"), and a 60 mm one with a right-aligned Text for the address.
  3. Make the company name and address fields so the letterhead can be reused: type {{ $data.company.name }}, {{ $data.company.street }}, and so on. The sample data (below) fills them in while you work.
  4. For the line under the header, select the Row and give it a bottom border in your accent colour in the Box section. A separate Line block is not allowed in a header or footer (the tile is greyed out with the reason) — a border does the same job.
  5. Switch Footer on and build the same way: a Row with a Text for the contact line and a Page number block in a 40 mm column on the right. The Section tab also has + Add page number, which drops a page-number block into the zone in one click; its text is Page {{ $page.number }} of {{ $page.count }}.

The sample data used by the example:

{
  "company": { "name": "Northwind Studio", "street": "12 Harbour Street", "postcode": "LV-1050",
               "city": "Riga", "phone": "+371 6000 0000", "email": "hello@northwind.example",
               "web": "northwind.example" },
  "letter": { "date": "2026-10-07", "reference": "NW-2026-117",
              "recipient": "Ms Mara Ozola", "subject": "Your brand workshop in November" }
}

What you should see. The letter runs onto a second page. Both pages carry the same header, with "Northwind Studio" in the accent colour, and a footer reading "Northwind Studio · hello@northwind.example · northwind.example" with "Page 1 of 2" on page 1 and "Page 2 of 2" on page 2.

How tall the band is. The height you set is a minimum. If your content needs more, the band grows and the body starts lower on every page of the section; the band's label says so ("Header · 36 mm (minimum 26 mm)"). Keep headers short — a header and footer that together leave less than 20 mm for the body make the document hard to use.

Hiding the header or footer on the first page. Turn on Hide on the first page under the Header or the Footer. The first page of each section then has no header (or footer), and the body uses that space. Word calls this "different first page".

Hiding it on other pages. Use Hide on pages under the zone. Type page numbers counted across the whole document: 5 hides it on page 5; 1,5,7-9 hides it on 1, 5, 7, 8 and 9. The band's space is still reserved on the pages where it is hidden, so the body does not move up (unlike Hide on the first page, which gives the space to the body). Because the numbers count the whole document, 1 can only mean the document's first page; to hide something on a later section's first page, use Hide on the first page (it applies to every section's first page).

What a header or footer will not take. A zone repeats on every page and is never split, so it takes Text, Page number, Image, Row and Stack — the blocks that do not need to grow or break. A Table, Repeater, Line and a Page break are greyed out while the palette is aimed at a zone. See Headers & footers for the editing rules.

Part 2 — A Base-PDF letterhead

In the Section tab, Base-PDF letterhead is "a PDF stamped behind every page of this section (PDF output only)". Use Upload or pick one you already uploaded. The PDF is kept in your workspace's media; Settings → Media lists it.

How it behaves:

  • Only the first page of your PDF is used. It is stamped behind every page of the section, stretched to the section's page size. If your stationery is A4, set the section to A4, or the artwork is distorted.
  • It is behind your content, so leave its printed area clear of your own blocks: set margins wide enough to keep text off a printed logo or a coloured band (Margins in the Section tab).
  • It is a fixed picture, not data. For anything that changes per document, put a field in a block on top of it.
  • It appears in the PDF only. HTML and Word downloads leave it out, and the download tells you so (letterhead-omitted-html, letterhead-omitted-docx). If you send Word files or HTML to customers, build the letterhead with a header instead.
  • Each section has its own letterhead (or none). A multi-section document can use a different PDF for each section.
  • A migrated PDF or image is a different thing. When you migrate a PDF or a scan, Ristmark reconstructs its layout from a picture of the page; that visual reconstruction is Beta, and is not a letterhead. The Base-PDF letterhead is just an image of the page placed behind your own content.

The Section tab also has a Reference backdrop (tracing): a dimmed guide to line your blocks up against. It never prints, unlike the letterhead.

Variations

  • Different first page. Turn on Hide on the first page for the header or footer, and build the first page's own content (a bigger logo, say) in the body or the letterhead.
  • A footer on one section only. Headers, footers and letterheads belong to a section; add a section (see Sections) when the second half of the document needs a different footer.

Output differences

PDF and HTML repeat the header and footer on every page, and number pages through {{ $page.number }} and {{ $page.count }}. Word gets a real Word header and footer, but the page numbers are written in as text for each page, as the document was generated; they do not renumber if you add pages by hand in Word. Hide on the first page becomes Word's own "Different first page" setting, so Word users see it in the page setup too. The Base-PDF letterhead is in the PDF only.

If something looks wrong

  • The header is pushing my text down. The band grew to fit. Shorten its content, reduce font sizes, or lower the header's height; compare the label's "(minimum …)" figure.
  • The footer sits on top of my last paragraph. A fixed band of too little height printed over the body. Raise the footer's Height, or fill it with fewer lines.
  • My letterhead PDF looks squashed. The PDF's page shape differs from the section's page size; match them.
  • Page numbers all read "Page 1 of 1". The page-number block is in the body, not in the footer; add it from the footer's + Add page number.
  • The Word file has no letterhead. Correct — Base-PDF letterheads are PDF only; use a header.

The letter from this guide is kept as the tested examples letterhead-and-footer-1 (header and footer on every page) and letterhead-and-footer-2 (footer hidden on the first page); both are checked automatically to lay out and produce PDF, Word and HTML without errors.