To make a good impression on the recipient of business letters, they should be reader-friendly, practical and clearly laid out. This rule does not necessarily apply to private correspondence, but uniform formatting should always be adhered to in business letters.
The 5008 standard sets out writing and design rules for texts, but is not a law and does not have to be strictly adhered to. However, it does make sense if word abbreviations, emphasis or simply the layout of business letters follow a certain pattern and are not all jumbled up like cabbage and turnips. Your business correspondence is your figurehead, and your customers will judge you by it. Ideally, of course, the whole company should have a uniform image for all types of correspondence that you have defined for letters and emails.
DIN 5008 does not regulate what your letters should contain, only how they should look. This includes the design of the address field, the telephone number, the position of the subject line, the date or the attachment note. DIN 5008 provides the framework or the means of orientation - you have to implement it yourself.
Telephone numbers
Spellings for telephone numbers: It is usual to separate numbers with a space or hyphen.
In the country code, the 0 of the area code is omitted and a plus sign is placed in front of the country code.
+49 123 45678-90 (for correspondence from abroad)
Margins
The margins of a DIN 5008 letter are 2.5 cm from the left-hand edge and at least 1 cm from the right-hand edge. Individual paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
Letterhead
The letterhead comprises a maximum of seven lines and contains the name, address and telephone number with e-mail address.
Address and sender
Nine lines are provided for the address, which takes up an area of 40 x 85 mm (left). The sender can be placed in small print above the address field or there is a postal note with return address details. If the address is written in accordance with the standard, it fits exactly into the window of an envelope after being folded accordingly.
Subject line
The subject line sits 8.4 mm below the address field and is printed in bold so that it immediately catches the eye. The word "subject" is no longer used, but everyone knows immediately what the letter is about.
Letter content
As a rule, Arial size 11 or Times New Roman size 12 fonts are used for body text. The font should not be smaller, otherwise it will be difficult to read.
Footer
Business letters contain legally required information in the footer, such as the commercial register number, the company's registered office, type of business, managing director and bank details.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should not be used too much, as they can make the letters more difficult to read.
Punctuation
The period is placed directly after the abbreviated word without a space - e.g., e.g., etc.
Formatting
Highlighting is important information that is marked by centering, indenting, underlining, italics, bold marking, different font sizes or colors.
