Japanese business letters using Microsoft Office 2003 and later

In Japan, business letters are used very frequently and you often have to read a lot of Japanese business letters, if you are working in a typical Japanese business environment.

In that context, a typical Japanese business letter starts with a salutation of season and salutation of appreciation. A typical letter ends with salutation and appreciation about the company.We usually have a tough time writing the business letters or reading the business letters, especially the 挨拶（あいさつ）Greeting, salutation part.

Microsoft Office 2003 and later provides a wonderful solution to this problem. It has a toolbar called – あいさつ文 or (Japanese Greetings).
The toolbar can be accessed by –
1. If you are using English version of Microsoft Office 2003 or later, go to View -> Toolbars -> Japanese Greetings.
2. If you are using Japanese version of Microsoft Office 2003 or later, go to 表示（Ｖ）-> ツールバー-> あいさつ文

Once you open, you see a dialog as shown below:


After opening this dialog, there are different options for Japanese greetings viz. Greeting, Opening salutations, And Closing salutations.
On pressing “Greeting” button you can see the following screenshot:




In this dialog, you can select the salutations, greetings for different months.

In addition, there are other options such as “Opening” salutation, closing salutations which are shown as below:
Opening salutation, words, and greetings:


Closing salutation, words, and greetings:



This really helps for a person who knows Japanese but is not that comfortable with writing Japanese business letters. This toolbar also saves our time in framing the correct salutation for a specific time. In addition, this can be really helpful for a person who is preparing for JETRO BJT (Business Japanese Test).

You can select the salutation sentences as per your wish and the salutation, greetings part of the Japanese business letter is done in a minute or two !!