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WRITING LETTERS WITH MOM

Introduction

 Mom's simple but effective letter-writing macros are a subset of the document processing macros, designed to ease the creation of correspondence.

Because the letter macros are a subset of the document processing macros, you can use control macros to design correspondence to your own specifications. However, mom makes no pretence of providing complete design flexibility in the matter of letters, which are, after all, simple communicative documents whose only real style requirements are that they be neat and professional-looking.

Tutorial on writing letters

Mom letters begin, like all mom-processed documents, with a reference macro (in this case, AUTHOR), a DOCTYPE (LETTER, obviously), the essential PRINTSTYLE macro, and START, like this: 

	.AUTHOR    "Yannick P. Guique"
	.DOCTYPE    LETTER
	.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
	.START
PRINTSTYLE, above, could also be TYPEWRITE. Mom has no objection to creating letters that look like they were typed on an Underwood by a shapely secretary with 1940s gams.

After the START macro, you enter headers pertinent to your letter: the date, the addressee (in business correspondence, typically both name and address), the addresser (that's you; in business correspondence, typically both name and address), and a greeting (in full, e.g. "Dear Mr. Smith," or "Dear Mr. Smith:").

The macros for entering the headers are simple (they're not even toggles): 

	.DATE
	.TO
	.FROM
	.GREETING
You may enter them in any order you like, except for GREETING, which must come last. Mom ignores any headers you omit and spaces the letter's opening according to what you do include. See Default for letters to find out how mom formats the headers.

(In pre 1.1.7-a releases of mom, the order of entry was fixed at the above. This has been changed, although if you do follow the above order, mom will continue to behave exactly as she did in pre 1.1.7-a.)

Once you've filled in what you need to get a letter started, simply type the letter, introducing each and every paragraph, including the first, with the PP macro.

At the end of the letter, should you wish an indented closing ("Yours truly," "Sincerely," "Hugs and kisses"), invoke the macro CLOSING on a line by itself and follow it with the text of the closing. N.B. Don't put your name here; mom supplies it automatically from AUTHOR with enough space to leave room for your signature.

Assuming our tutorial letter is for business correspondence, here's what the complete letter looks like. 

	.AUTHOR    "Yannick P. Guique"
	.DOCTYPE    LETTER
	.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
	.START
	.DATE
	August 25, 2004
	.TO
	GUILLAUME BARRIÈRES
	Minidoux Corporation
	5000 Pannes Drive
	Redmond, Virginia
	.FROM
	Y.P. GUIQUE
	022 Umask Road
	St-Sauveur-en-dehors-de-la-mappe, Québec
	.GREETING
	Dear Mr. Barrières,
	.PP
	It has come to my attention that you have been lobbying the
	US government to prohibit the use of open source software by
	endeavouring to outlaw so-called "warranty free"
	applications.
	.PP
	I feel it is my duty to inform you that the success of your
	operating system with its embedded web browser relies heavily
	on open source programs and protocols, most notably TCP/IP.
	.PP
	Therefore, in the interests of your corporation's fiscal health,
	I strongly advise that you withdraw support for any US
	legislation that would cripple or render illegal open source
	development.
	.CLOSING
	Sincerely,
This produces a letter with headers that follow the North American standard for business correspondence. If you'd prefer another style of correspondence, for example, British, you'd set up the same letter like this: 

	.AUTHOR    "Yannick P. Guique"
	.DOCTYPE    LETTER
	.PRINTSTYLE TYPESET
	.START
	.FROM
	.RIGHT
	Y.P. GUIQUE
	022 Umask Road
	St-Sauveur-en-dehors-de-la-mappe, Québec
	.TO
	GUILLAUME BARRIÈRES
	Minidoux Corporation
	5000 Pannes Drive
	Redmond, Virginia
	.DATE
	.RIGHT
	August 25, 2004
	.GREETING
	Dear Mr. Barrières,
Notice the use of .RIGHT after .FROM and .DATE in this example, used to change the default quad for these macros.

Defaults for letters

 In letters, if the order of header macros is 

	.DATE
	.TO
	.FROM
	.GREETING
mom sets
  1. the date flush right, page right, at the top of page one, with a gap of two linespaces underneath
  2. the addressee in a block flush left, page left, with a gap of one linespace underneath
  3. the addresser in a block flush left, page left, with a gap of one linespace underneath
  4. the greeting flush left, with a gap of one linespace underneath

which is the standard for North American business correspondence.

If you switch the order of .DATE, .TO and/or .FROM, mom sets all the headers flush left, with a gap of one linespace underneath each. (The default left quad of any header can be changed by invoking the .RIGHT macro, on a line by itself, immediately before inputting the text of the header.)

Following the headers, mom sets

Other important style defaults are listed below, and may be changed via the typesetting macros or the document processing control macros prior to START. Assume that any style parameter not listed below is the same as for PRINTSTYLE TYPESET or PRINTSTYLE TYPEWRITE. 

PARAMETER             PRINTSTYLE TYPESET   PRINTSTYLE TYPEWRITE
---------             ------------------   --------------------

Paper size            8.5 x 11 inches      8.5 x 11 inches
Left/right margins    1.25 inches          1.25 inches
Header margin         3.5 picas            3.5 picas
 (for page numbers)
Header gap            3 picas              3 picas
 (for page numbers)
Family                Times Roman          Courier
Font                  roman                roman
Point size            12                   12
Line space            13.5                 12 (i.e. singlespaced)
Paragraph indent      3 ems                3 picas
Spaced paragraphs     yes                  no
Footers*              yes                  yes
Footer margin         3 picas              3 picas
Footer gap            3 picas              3 picas
Page numbers          top, centred        top, centred

*Footers contain a "next page" number of the form .../#

The letter macros

 All letter macros must come after START, except NO_SUITE.


Macro: DATE

Invoke DATE on a line by itself, with the date underneath, like this: 

	.DATE
	October 31, 2002
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the date, enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself, immediately after .DATE.

If you wish to insert additional space between the date and any letter header that comes after it, do so after inputting the date, not at the top of the next header macro, like this: 

	.DATE
	October 31, 2002
	.SPACE     \" Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space, 

	.SPACE -1v \" Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.

Macro: TO

Invoke TO on a line by itself, with the name and address of the addressee underneath, like this: 

	.TO
	JOHN SMITH
	10 Roberts Crescent
	Bramladesh, Ont.
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the address, enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself, immediately after .TO.

If you wish to insert additional space between the address and any letter header that comes after it, do so after inputting the address, not at the top of the next header macro, like this: 

	.TO
	JOHN SMITH
	10 Roberts Crescent
	Bramladesh, Ont.
	.SPACE     \" Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space, 

	.SPACE -1v \" Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.

Macro: FROM

Invoke FROM on a line by itself, with the name and address of the addresser underneath, like this: 

	.FROM
	JOE BLOW
	15 Brunette Road
	Ste-Vieille-Andouille, Québec
If you wish to change the default quad direction for the address, enter .LEFT or .RIGHT, on a line by itself, immediately after .FROM.

If you wish to insert additional space between the address and any letter header that comes after it, do so after inputting the address, not at the top of the next header macro, like this: 

	.FROM
	JOE BLOW
	15 Brunette Road
	Ste-Vieille-Andouille, Québec
	.SPACE     \" Or, more simply, .SP
If you wish to remove the default space, 

	.SPACE -1v \" Or, more simply, .SP -1v
will do the trick.

Macro: GREETING

Invoke GREETING on a line by itself, with the full salutation you want for the letter, like this: 

	.GREETING
	Dear Mr. Smith,

Macro: CLOSING

Invoke CLOSING on a line by itself after the body of the letter, with the closing you'd like (e.g. "Yours truly,"), like this: 

	.CLOSING
	Yours truly,

Macro: NO_SUITE

If you don't want mom to print a "next page" number at the bottom of multi-page letters, invoke .NO_SUITE, on a line by itself, prior to START.

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