Using Microsoft Publisher Brochure TemplatesMicrosoft Publisher is the software that is probably the most widely used for creating brochures on a PC, at least among people who are doing the designing themselves. Microsoft Publisher brochure templates are easy to use, can integrate other files on your PC and use a "puzzle piece" locking system for ease in moving various elements around. Microsoft Publisher Brochure Templates: User Friendly MS Publisher is included in certain versions of the Microsoft Office Suite software packages. Since Publisher is made by Microsoft like all the other Office programs, Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint, they all use the same Windows interface and commands. Also, they are compatible with one another. For example, if you want to import a graph made in Excel to a brochure in Publisher, it will easily insert the graph into your Microsoft Publisher Brochure. You can choose to start from scratch or there are numerous brochure templates in Publisher to get you started. Once you choose a template, you can delete any elements you don't want on your brochure, you can change the color scheme and you can insert your own graphics and text. It takes a lot of guess work out of the design process. Additionally, everything is already laid out and measured so that it will all line up correctly when printing. Once you get the hang of using Publisher, you can explore more complicated tasks and you will feel very comfortable using it. You may be able to create the same looking document in Word, but if you have access to Publisher, the latter will be your choice in any brochure design work. Integrating Other Files into Your Microsoft Publisher Brochure It is extremely easy to import or insert other files into a Microsoft Publisher brochure. If you have a picture you took with a digital camera that you would like to be put in your brochure, you can tell Publisher to "insert photo from file" and tell it which photo to open from your PC. You can easily adjust the picture size and you can do things like crop a photo or layer photos and graphics to make a unique picture. One important feature is the ease in which you can insert a chart or graph from Excel. Here you would tell Publisher to import a file from your PC and place it into the brochure. All of the software in the Microsoft Office suites are compatible together. Utilizing the "Puzzle Piece" Locking System in a Microsoft Publisher Brochure When a new Publisher document opens, it is a blank page. Everything, including text, that you want to insert on a page has to be created and will be one "block" or "puzzle piece" on the page. For example, to insert text, you need to insert a text box. Within the text box, you can type text, resize the box and format the text as usual. You can move the text box anywhere on the page you want. Anything you want to insert, like graphics, boarders, word art, text boxes, etc. are each a separate piece in your brochure design. The pieces remain separate so that you can move them freely around the page to precisely where you want them. However, Publisher also lets you "lock" pieces together so that if one piece gets moved, all the locked pieces move together. "Locking" is done by dragging the pointer with the left mouse button pressed, making a box on the screen. Make sure to include all pieces inside the box that you want locked together. Then release the mouse button and a puzzle piece will appear in the bottom right side of the box. Click it and the pieces that were inside the box are locked. This is especially useful if you are overlapping graphics or lining things up or if you get a portion of the brochure just how you want it and want to make sure those pieces don't come apart. It is also useful for deleting several pieces at once. You would lock the pieces you want to delete and push the delete key. |