[Tex/LaTex] Date placement in letter class

letters

I'm using the letter template from the wiki. Here's the code:

\documentclass{letter}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\signature{Joe Bloggs}
\address{21 Bridge Street \\ Smallville \\ Dunwich DU3 4WE}
\begin{document}

\begin{letter}{Director \\ Doe \& Co \\ 35 Anthony Road
\\ Newport \\ Ipswich IP3 5RT}
\date{March 27, 2016}
\opening{Dear Sir or Madam:}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed tellus lacus,
suscipit ac condimentum eget, commodo in metus. Praesent malesuada placerat 
tortor ac convallis. Nam ultrices est metus, et pellentesque augue porta 
non. Nulla risus diam, congue non massa in, fermentum commodo lectus. Aenean
quis aliquam velit

\closing{Yours Faithfully,}

\end{letter}
\end{document}

All I want to do is keep the date on the right hand side, but move it down below the second address block. This is my first post on StackExchange so I'm sorry for the lack of an image.

Best Answer

You can use the \patchcmd command from the etoolbox package to patch the \opening command:

\documentclass{letter}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\makeatletter
% If pagestyle is firstpage, remove old placement of date
\patchcmd\opening{{\raggedleft\@date\par}}{}{}{}
% If pagestyle is empty, remove vertical space after addess
\patchcmd\opening{\fromaddress \\*[2\parskip]}{\fromaddress}{}{}
% If pagestyle is empty, remove old placement of date
\patchcmd\opening{\@date \end{tabular}\par}{\end{tabular}\par}{}{}
% Insert new placement of date
\patchcmd\opening{{\raggedright \toname \\ \toaddress \par}}{{\raggedright \toname \\ \toaddress \par}{\raggedleft\@date\par}}{}{}
\makeatother

\signature{Joe Bloggs}
\address{21 Bridge Street \\ Smallville \\ Dunwich DU3 4WE}

\begin{document}

\begin{letter}{Director \\ Doe \& Co \\ 35 Anthony Road
\\ Newport \\ Ipswich IP3 5RT}
\date{March 27, 2016}
\opening{Dear Sir or Madam:}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Sed tellus lacus,
suscipit ac condimentum eget, commodo in metus. Praesent malesuada placerat 
tortor ac convallis. Nam ultrices est metus, et pellentesque augue porta 
non. Nulla risus diam, congue non massa in, fermentum commodo lectus. Aenean
quis aliquam velit

\closing{Yours Faithfully,}

\end{letter}
\end{document}

or you can patch it manually by including the following in your preamble:

\makeatletter
\renewcommand*{\opening}[1]{\ifx\@empty\fromaddress
  \thispagestyle{firstpage}%
    %{\raggedleft\@date\par}%       <--- REMOVED
  \else  % home address
    \thispagestyle{empty}%
    {\raggedleft\begin{tabular}{l@{}}\ignorespaces
      %\fromaddress \\*[2\parskip]% <--- REMOVED
      %\@date \end{tabular}\par}%   <--- REMOVED
      \fromaddress%                 <--- ADDED
      \end{tabular}\par}%           <--- ADDED
  \fi
  \vspace{2\parskip}%
  {\raggedright \toname \\ \toaddress \par}%
  {\raggedleft\@date\par}%          <--- ADDED
  \vspace{2\parskip}%
  #1\par\nobreak}
\makeatother

Both yield the same output:

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Using BibTeX with letter class

Taking the definition from the article class, I get good results with

\begin{filecontents}{letter.bib}
@article{First,
  author  = "Other, A. N.",
  title   = "Some things {I} did",
  journal = "J. Irreproducible Results",
  year    = "2011"
}

@article{Second,
  author  = "Aaa, S{\o}mebloke",
  title   = "Tigers",
  journal = "Ann. Improbable Res.",
  year    = "2011"
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{letter}
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{thebibliography}[1]
     {\list{\@biblabel{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
           {\settowidth\labelwidth{\@biblabel{#1}}%
            \leftmargin\labelwidth
            \advance\leftmargin\labelsep
            \usecounter{enumiv}%
            \let\p@enumiv\@empty
            \renewcommand\theenumiv{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
      \sloppy
      \clubpenalty4000
      \@clubpenalty \clubpenalty
      \widowpenalty4000%
      \sfcode`\.\@m}
     {\def\@noitemerr
       {\@latex@warning{Empty `thebibliography' environment}}%
      \endlist}
\newcommand\newblock{\hskip .11em\@plus.33em\@minus.07em}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{Some person}
\opening{Hello}

Some text \cite{First}, more text \cite{Second}.

\bibliographystyle{unsrt}
\bibliography{letter}

\end{letter}
\end{document}

I've used the unsrt style here, as plain would put the references in alphabetical rather than citation order. I've also modified the definition of thebiliography a little, removing the section-related stuff as this does not really seem relevant to a letter. (I also took out the code related to the openbib option for the article class, again as it does not seem relevant.)

The second edit to the question asks about natbib. For me, this works if I load natbib after defining thebiliography and if I make \bibsection 'safe':

\begin{filecontents}{letter.bib}
@article{First,
  author  = "Other, A. N.",
  title   = "Some things {I} did",
  journal = "J. Irreproducible Results",
  year    = "2011"
}

@article{Second,
  author  = "Aaa, S{\o}mebloke",
  title   = "Tigers",
  journal = "Ann. Improbable Res.",
  year    = "2011"
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{letter}
\makeatletter
\newenvironment{thebibliography}[1]
     {\list{\@biblabel{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
           {\settowidth\labelwidth{\@biblabel{#1}}%
            \leftmargin\labelwidth
            \advance\leftmargin\labelsep
            \usecounter{enumiv}%
            \let\p@enumiv\@empty
            \renewcommand\theenumiv{\@arabic\c@enumiv}}%
      \sloppy
      \clubpenalty4000
      \@clubpenalty \clubpenalty
      \widowpenalty4000%
      \sfcode`\.\@m}
     {\def\@noitemerr
       {\@latex@warning{Empty `thebibliography' environment}}%
      \endlist}
\newcommand\newblock{\hskip .11em\@plus.33em\@minus.07em}
\makeatother
\usepackage[numbers]{natbib}
\let\bibsection\relax
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{Some person}
\opening{Hello}

Some text \cite{First}, more text \cite{Second}.

\bibliographystyle{unsrtnat}
\bibliography{letter}

\end{letter}
\end{document}

[Tex/LaTex] Reducing white space above date in Letter Class

The easiest approach here, without mucking around with page dimension modifications, is to insert a vertical re-adjustment using \vspace*{<len>} where <len> is some negative value. For example, in the following MWE, I've used \vspace*{-10\baselineskip} to vertically "back up" 10 lines:

enter image description here

\documentclass{letter}
\usepackage{showframe}% http://ctan.org/pkg/showframe
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}

\signature{Nathan S. Lachenmyer}
\longindentation=0pt
\let\raggedleft\raggedright

\begin{letter}{%
Senior Staff Recruiter \\
XYZ Corporation \\
Rt. 56 \\
Anytown, New Jersey 05867}

\vspace*{-10\baselineskip}% Correct for vertical displacement

%This is my header
\centerline{\huge \bf \sc Nathan S. Lachenmyer} \par
%\begin{center}
%\line(1,0){450}
%\end{center}
\hrulefill

%letter begins here
\opening{Dear Person:}

Letter goes here

\closing{Sincerely Yours,}
\end{letter}

\end{document}

I've added the showframe package to highlight the page/type block dimensions setup using the letter document class. If you wish to change these to occupy more of the page real estate, use the geometry package.

Ps. Instead of using \line with some fixed measurement to draw a horizontal line, use \hrulefill, which will fill across the entire text block without causing overful \hbox warnings.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Using BibTeX with letter class

[Tex/LaTex] Reducing white space above date in Letter Class

Related Question