When you open Publisher to create a new publication, you should find yourself right where you need
to be: on the File tab, under New. Here, you can start from scratch by opening a blank
file (available in several different sizes and orientations). Or you can take advantage
of one of Publisher's pre-designed templates.
A template is a file that contains placeholders for your content, both to help you save time,
and create a publication that looks professional. There's something for almost every occasion,
from business cards, to calendars - even personalized greeting cards. This time, we'll take a look
at flyers in the marketing category.
Your choices appear in this part of the pane, with a preview on the right. See how it works?
Generally, you have two kinds of templates to choose from: files that you download from
Office.com (that's this section here), and files that are installed on your computer.
These are simpler in design, but they do allow you to customize things like the color scheme,
and fonts.
I'm looking for something specific: a flyer with tear-away tabs for my contact information.
Let's take a look at some more templates from Office.com. One thing to keep in mind - some
of these were actually created by other users. You can tell which ones by the icon in the
corner. While Microsoft does review these templates, they're not guaranteed to be free
of viruses or other defects, so think carefully before you download.
This one looks exactly like what I had in mind. It's provided by Microsoft, so I know
I can trust the source. To continue, click the Download button, and the template will
open in a new window.
Now, before I fill in my content, I'd like to make some changes to the publication layout
to better suit my needs. (You can do this with any type of publication, be it a blank
file, or one that you created from a template.) Just go to the Page Design tab.
Here, you can easily customize the size, depending on the paper you're going to use to print
your publication. You can also adjust the margins. Remember, these determine the print area.
Finally, you can change the orientation from portrait to landscape (or visa-versa), but
this may have a negative affect depending on the template you chose.
Now I'd like to switch to another example - a pricing menu with multiple pages. It uses
one of the simpler templates that comes with Publisher, and I've already filled in most
of the content. We can still change the template to something else, however. All you have to
do is click Change Template on the Page Design tab.
Now pick a new one from the window - how about this one? - and click OK when you're done.
Here, you'll want to select the first option to apply the template to the current publication.
Click OK one more time, and the change takes place immediately. The great thing about this
feature is that it also works on publications that started out blank.
Before we finish up, I'd like to show you how to work with multi-page publications,
using the Page Navigation pane on the left. From here, it's easy to add, delete, and rearrange
pages to better suit your needs. To delete, for example, all you have to do is right-click,
choose Delete from the menu, then click Yes to confirm.
To add a page, right-click again - but this time, choose Insert Page. A pop-up window
will appear so you can specify what you need. I want just one new page after the page I
currently have selected, so I'm not going to change anything here - but you could always
add more. When you're ready, click OK, and the page appears in your file.
Finally, to move a page in your publication, click and hold it, then drag where you want
the page to go. See that horizontal line? That marks where it's going to be moved when
I release my mouse.
As you can see, creating publications is easy once you know the secret to using templates,
customizing the layout, and working with multiple pages to suit the needs of your project.