Seasonal Letters

Configurable decorative stationery for LaTeX, by aqsa.

Seasonal Letters keeps letter content separate from page decoration. Combine four seasonal palettes and original vector botanical motifs with seven weekday emblems. First pages can carry a full design while continuation pages use a quieter border. User images can be added without editing the package source.

What it solves

• Reuse the same letter with different stationery settings.
• Let paragraphs flow onto continuation pages without fixed-height text boxes.
• Choose plain, ruled, or grid paper and a white-paper, ink-saving print mode.
• Define named themes and add your own corner artwork or paper background.
• Keep the runtime small: no bundled image collection, proprietary fonts, or shell-escape requirement.

The built-in artwork is clean vector line art inspired by old stationery. Painterly concept images from the design discussion are not package assets. Weekday and season are explicit settings, not inferred from the date.

Start here

Copy seasonalletters.sty and seasonalletter.cls beside this file:

~tex documentclassa4paper{seasonalletter} SeasonalSetup{season=autumn,weekday=wednesday,paper=grid} begin{document} begin{SeasonalLetter} SeasonalHeading{From the reading room} SeasonalOpening{Dear friend,} Your letter goes here. It can continue naturally over several pages. SeasonalClosing{With warm wishes,}{Alex} end{SeasonalLetter} end{document} ~

Compile twice with pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX, or LuaLaTeX. The package uses the LaTeX 2020-10-01 shipout hooks. TikZ/PGF, graphicx, and etoolbox are required. The optional class also uses geometry, fontenc, and mathpazo. No system fonts or external images are needed. Standard TeX Live and MiKTeX installations can provide these dependencies; this package is not yet claimed to be in either.

Examples and documentation

• Manual: full option reference and extension guide.
• Seven-design gallery: seven independent season/day combinations on A5 sheets.
• Two-page letter: first and continuation pages.
• Print mode: US Letter, white paper and grey art.
• Standard letter class: preserves normal letter commands and address layout.

Use the package with an existing class via: ~tex usepackageseason=winter,weekday=friday{seasonalletters} ~ It does not change that class's margins, font, addresses, or letter commands. Call SeasonalReset before each new letter to restart first-page decoration. Read the manual's integration notes before using postal-window layouts.

Build and verify

With Python 3, pypdf, pdfplumber, and a TeX installation:

~sh python tools/build.py –engine pdflatex python tools/build.py –engine xelatex python tools/build.py –engine lualatex python tools/package.py ~

The build uses a disposable directory, compiles examples and regression cases, and exports the user-facing PDFs into the repository root. Verification of PDF page sizes and text boundaries needs Python's pypdf and pdfplumber. Portable Tectonic is supported with –engine tectonic –executable /path/to/tectonic. See VALIDATION.md for checks actually run for this release.

Customisation

~tex SeasonalDeclareTheme{archive}{ season=autumn,weekday=saturday,paper=ruled, border=single,accent=brown!70!black} SeasonalSetup{theme=archive,output=print} ~

The guide/ruling inset keys describe the writing rectangle; they do not change the document's geometry. The optional class provides suitable margins. The package does not validate tagged PDF/PDF-UA output, infer local seasons, or mirror decoration for book binding.

Licence and contact

Copyright (c) 2026 aqsa. MIT License; see LICENSE. This covers the package, class, original vector art, examples, manual, and development scripts. No third-party artwork or font files are bundled. Dependencies retain their own licences.

Repository: https://github.com/Aqsa48/seasonsletters

Report issues: https://github.com/Aqsa48/seasonsletters/issues

Maintainer: aqsa <aqsa.umar3505@gmail.com>.