Lesson 4 of 5 · about 25 minutes

A clear document: the notice and the supplier letter

🏠The everyday picture

A neat notice on a shop door is easy to read from a distance: a big heading, a few short lines, the date and who it's from. A messy one has five fonts, spaces used to push words into the middle, and the important line hidden in a paragraph. Word processors make the neat one easy, if you use the right buttons.

📘What it really is

Four ideas do most of the work:

Styles. Instead of making a heading bigger and bolder by hand, pick the Heading 1 style (Word: the Styles gallery on the Home tab; Google Docs: the box on the toolbar that says "Normal text"). Every heading then looks the same, and Word can build a contents list from them.
Alignment buttons, not spaces. To centre a line, use the centre button. Spaces look right on your screen and go wrong on another computer or when printed.
Lists. The bullet and number buttons make lists that keep their shape when you add a line.
PDF for sending. A PDF looks the same on every phone and computer, and is hard to change by accident. In Word, File, then Save As, and choose PDF (or File, then Export). In Word for the web, File, then Download, then Download as PDF. In Google Docs, File, then Download, then PDF.

📝A worked example

Gupta General Store's door notice:

STORE CLOSED ON SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER               ← Heading 1, centred

We'll be closed for stock-taking.               ← Normal text
Normal hours from Monday 9 November, 8 am to 9 pm.

For urgent orders, call 98xxxxxx10.             ← bold

Gupta General Store · 7 November 2026           ← small, right-aligned

And the reorder letter to the supplier, using the "Reorder" list from Lesson 3:

Your shop's name and address at the top, then the date.
"To" and the supplier's name and address.
A one-line subject: Order for 10 November delivery.
A numbered list of items and quantities, copied from the filtered sheet.
One line on delivery and payment, then your name.

🖱️Try it

Write the door notice for your own shop, school or office. Use Heading 1 for the main line, the centre button instead of spaces, and one bold line for the most important fact. Save it as a PDF and open the PDF to check it.

⚠️Common mistakes

Pressing Enter many times to reach a new page. Use Insert, then Page Break (Google Docs: Insert, then Break, then Page break), so later edits don't push things around.
Using a picture of text (a screenshot) instead of typed text. People who use screen readers can't hear it, and you can't correct it.
Sending the .docx when you mean "please read this". Send a PDF to read; send the .docx only when the other person needs to edit it.

✅Quick check

You want a heading centred on the page. Spaces or the centre button?

Show the answer

The centre button. Spaces depend on the font and screen size, so the heading moves on another computer; the centre button keeps it in the middle everywhere.

A supplier must not change your order by mistake. Which file do you send?