Salutation and Punctuation

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

When we address the recipient of a communication, which of the following salutations are correct?

Dear Madam or Dear madam
Dear Friend or Dear friend
Dear President or Dear president or Dear Mr President

Further, is it necessary to punctuate it with a comma in an open-end letter format?

2

I think in formal letter, it is used colon Dear Madam:

3

I doubt if the colon is suitable after the salutation.

4

Dear Madam /Dear Friend /Dear (Mr) President - those would be my choices followed by a comma and the first letter of the word in the next line would be a capital letter.

5

Thank you, Alan. I also prefer initial capital letter for the word that follows ‘Dear’.

However, in an open heading, I see no punctuation after salutation, after subscription, after date etc as indicated below.

XYZ Pvt Ltd
Downing Street
London

Dear Sir

Yours sincerely

November 14, 2017