I think that the letter class should have some additional features:
The letter style I use is
from_address date
to_address
[Dear Foo Bar,]
<body>
signature
whereas the LaTeX letter style puts the from_address to the right, and the
to_address, if present, somewhere else.
In addition, the LaTeX style has a strange text formatting, which really is
an emulation of a style used for mono-spaced fonts (like when using a
typewriter), namely, no paragraph indent with an empty line signifying a
new paragraph instead.-- Once upon the time, when typeset letters were a
novelty, it might have been suitable to emulate this, but nowadays, it
appears at least that one should have easy access to a normal typeset look.
Of course, I have written a style file overriding these LaTeX defaults, but
I think that these simple features should easy to choose. In addition, with
new version of LaTeX, one must maintain the style overrides.
So I suggest that one has the following commands
\address[<just>]{<name>} -- <just> = l | c | r, left, center or right adjust
\date[<just>]{<date>} -- <just> = l | c | r
-- When date & address are adjusted the same, one should possibly be able
to decide which one is above.
\CornyLaTeXTypewriteEmulation & \NormalTypeset modes for the text body.
-- Possibly a way to decide where to put the to_address field.
\signature[<pict>]{<name>} -- When the optional field is present, <pict>
takes the place of the space allocated for the handwritten signature.
-- The signature could also be left, center or right adjusted. I have never
seen the center adjustment, but the left adjust exists, perhaps influenced
from email and the like.
Hans Aberg
|
