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Using Microsoft Publisher
I've been receiving questions about creating holiday newsletters — you know, the type folks send to friends and family at this time of year. The easiest way is to use a word processing program like MSWord to write the letter, and then to insert photos and/or colorful clipart dress up the letter. Just click on Insert and choose from among the various options.
If you would like more control over how the text and graphics are arranged on a page consider using Microsoft Publisher, which sells for about $160. This DTP (desktop publishing) program is used extensively by businesses for creating brochures and advertising flyers, as well as by clubs, churches, and community organizations for doing their bulletins and newsletters.
Publisher comes with a number of "wizards" that ease one into creating layouts for greeting cards, postcards, and business cards, among many other types of publications. The program also has templates for creating cards that are to be folded in various ways, making it easy to independently design each surface to be displayed after folding.
If your newsletter is to be printed on a standard 8.5x11-inch sheet, I'd suggest clicking the Blank Page icon. To add text to the page, click on the blue A in the vertical tool box, whereupon your cursor will become a small cross that lets you draw a "text box."
Use the word processing toolbar to choose fonts, colors, and styles. Text boxes can be reshaped to accommodate your input, and can be moved around on your page as needed. If you plan a traditional 3-column newsletter, each column will be a separate text box; but text can be made to flow seamlessly from one to another.
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Pictures can be inserted and moved around on a page as needed. Click Insert>Picture File, and browse to the target graphic. Images can be resized by grabbing a corner and adjusting as you see fit. To maintain a picture's aspect ratio, hold down SHIFT while adjusting its size.
If you press ALT when grabbing a corner, you can rotate the image to a different angle. By clicking the toolbar's Rotate icon, you can choose Clockwise or Counter-clockwise and type in the number of degrees you want.
If you place a picture on top of any text, the typing will rearrange itself to flow around the picture. However, you can click the "Bring to Front" or "Send to Back" icons to change the order of overlapping items.
To crop a picture use Format>Crop Picture, whereupon clicking on an image's corner will change your cursor into a "double-scissors" icon. If you've clicked the upper left corner, pushing the "crop" icon toward the picture's center will cut away material from the top and left edges. Moving in from other corners crops the edges accordingly.
Free Trial Version of Publisher
You can download a trial version of Publisher from
Microsoft.com
to see if you like the program.
You could even use the trial version to create your holiday newsletter without buying the program.
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