Creating a Publication in Publisher 2010

You can create just about any type of publication you can imagine using MS Publisher 2010. The templates make it easy because you don't have to have any design experience. The presentation you create can look like it came from a graphics designer. Best yet, it only takes you a little bit of time to do it.

You can also create several different types of publications that use the same options and information in Publisher 2010. We'll teach you how to do that too.

In this article, we're going to learn how to create a publication. We're going to use a template. Even though Publisher 2010 gives you the ability to create publications from a blank page, the reason that most people use this program, probably even including you, is for the templates and the ease of use.

That said, let's learn to create a three-fold brochure – or a tri-fold brochure.

Selecting a Template and Setting Up a Publication The first step in creating any publication is finding a template you want to use. As we said, you can start with a blank page if you want. However, MS Publisher 2010 gives you hundreds of templates to make your job easier.

To get started:

Click on the File tab in Publisher.

Click New on the left, then Brochures from the Template list, as shown in the snapshot below.

You'll then see the templates available:

Click once on the template you want to use to select it. To the right (shown below), you can now set some options for your brochure. Let's go over these.

At the top, you see the thumbnail of your template. Under customize, you can change the color or font scheme, or keep it set as default. We've changed ours to show you the exact changes that are made:

Now, below Font Scheme, you can add business information that will go in your brochure. If you already have business information entered, you'll be able to select it from the dropdown menu. Otherwise, select Create New.

You'll then see this dialogue box:

Enter in all the business information that you want to appear in your publication. In the Business Information Set Name, give this set of information a name to make inserting it into another publication quick and easy. Then, click Save.

Now, we can set Options. Under Page Size, select if you want a 3-page or 4-page panel. By default, we have a three page. If you want a four page, it will divide the page into fours instead of threes. We're going to keep it as a three page for this example.

In the Form section, you can click the downward arrow to select a form to insert into your publication, as shown below.

We're going to add an order form.

When you're finished, click Create. You'll then see the brochure in the work area:

This is a brochure, so it has a front and back side. The two sides are shown as two separate pages in Page Navigation. The first page is displayed in the work area.

If you look at the page displayed in the work area, you'll see placeholder text and images. Your business information also appears on that first page.
Replacing Placeholder Images in a Template Now, let's replace the images in the brochure with our own. We're going to use Microsoft Clipart to do this. However, make sure you read the copyright agreement when using Microsoft's clipart. It is not allowed to be used for commercial use. If you need images, you can search online for "public domain images" or buy rights to images through stock photography websites.

To replace the images on the page with your own:

Click on an image to select it, as shown below.

Go to the ribbon, click on the Insert tab.

Click on Picture to add an image from your computer.
Click Clip Art to access Microsoft's Clip Art Gallery.
Click Shapes in insert a shape.
Or you can add a placeholder for an image you'll insert later. This is what you might use if you're working with a blank page and just want to design the layout.

Let's learn the basics of replacing image in a template.

For now, let's click on Clip Art.

The Clip Art window will open to the right of your work space.

Enter a keyword in the Search For box. We're looking for pictures of computers.

In the Results Should Be box, you can put check marks by the type of media you want to find. For example, photographs and illustrations. You can also choose videos and audio, but those wouldn't be appropriate for a brochure.

Click Go and Publisher will show you thumbnails of the results.

Click on the thumbnail you want to use. Keep your left mouse button pressed down and drag to the place where you want to insert it (or where you've selected the placeholder image). You can also double click on the image (Publisher tells you to do this), but it doesn't resize it to the proper size for you. By dragging, it's quick and easy – and instant.

Now, as you can see in the snapshot above, the entire image isn't showing on our brochure.

Cropping an Inserted Image

To fix this, you'll have to crop the image so the parts that you want to show are showing. To do this, select the picture. Be careful to select the picture and not the entire area. You may have to click on the picture twice. You should see black boxes around the picture like this:

On the ribbon, click the Format tab and select Crop.

Want to learn more? Take an online course in MS Publisher 2010.

You can now see the hidden part of the image, but it's shaded.

Now move your mouse over the bottom right crop handle.

Now you can move your mouse and click on the right circles to "push" the image in or "drag" it out to make the whole image appear.

Edit Text You can also change the text that is on the template brochure. We're going to teach you the basics of editing text in a template.

In Publisher 2010, all the text that you add to a publication is added inside of text boxes. If you've ever used MS Word before, you know that you can just start typing anywhere in a document. In Publisher, it's different. You type inside text boxes. It seems like a hassle, but it's really not because you can easily drag and drop the text boxes anywhere in a publication.

To edit the text in a text box, click the chunk of text that you want to edit to select it.

Now you can just start typing. If you want, you can change the font, font size, color, etc. by clicking on the Text Box Tools Format tab in the ribbon.

Here you can format text in all different types of ways. Be creative and play around with it. It can be a lot of fun.

Backstage View The Backstage View in Publisher is what you see when you click on the File tab. This is where you manage your files and the data that relates to them. The Backstage View is where you do everything to a file that you don't do IN the file, such as saving, setting options, etc.

Now that we've replaced pictures and text in our template, it's time to go to the Backstage View and enter business information (if you didn't do it earlier in this article).

To see the Backstage View and enter this information after you've already created a file, click the File tab.

To edit the business information that goes on your brochure, click the Edit Business Information button, then fill out the information in the dialogue box (shown below). We already showed you how to do this earlier in the article.

You can see how really simple it is.

Save a Publication Once you're done creating your publication, it's time to save it. To save it, click on the File tab.

You can click Save on the left to save the publication under the same name that it already has, if it's an existing file.

If it's a new file, click Save As.

You'll see this window appear:

Enter a name for the publication, then choose a format to save it in. If you want to come back and work on it again later, you can save it as a Publisher file. That's the easiest way to pick up where you left off.

However, if you're finished and want to send it to the printers or email it as an attachment, you may want to save in another format. The dropdown menu for Save as Type is shown above. These are all the formats available to save your publication.

Print and Print Options

Printing a publication in MS Publisher 2010 is easy. Click on the File tab and click Print on the left.

Select your printer in the Printer Section, then specify if you want to print all pages. If you just want to print one page, enter the page numbers in the Pages: text box.

You can also decide the size of paper to print on, and if you want to print on one side or two.

Next, you can decide if you want to print Composite RGB or Composite Grayscale. This has to do with the colors you use to print. Choose RGB to print in color or Grayscale to print in black and white.

Click the Print button when you're ready to print.

Print Preview

To use Print Preview, you can have any page of your publication open in Publisher. Go to the Backstage View by clicking the File tab, then click Print. The Print Preview is shown on the right side of the page, as shown in the snapshot below.

If you want to preview a different page or zoom in to make the preview larger (or zoom out to make it smaller, you can do so at the bottom of the Print Preview:

Click to fit a page to a sheet of paper.

Click to view multiple sheets in the Print Preview window.

Above the preview of your publication, you'll see:

Use the slider to make the page numbers appear on the preview. The more you slide it to the left, the darker the numbers become.

Use to show or hide the ruler. We have the ruler displayed as you can see.

Click the Print button when you're ready to print.

Using Help There may be a time when you use Publisher that you forget how to do something that you need to do. Maybe you forget how to change your business information on a publication (going to the Backstage View.) Microsoft provides help to you at no charge. In fact, the help you need is right within the program.

To get help with Publisher 2010, click the blue circle with the question mark toward the top right side of the screen. It looks like this:

You'll then see this window:

Enter a keyword or what you need help with in the search box at the top of the window. We chose "print."

A list of help topics that relate to your search terms then appear:

Page Setup

Page Setup Options

If you start with a blank publication and want to create your own, learning to do things such as setting up your page will be very important. The Page Settings dialogue box allows you to get started designing your own publication and set options for it.

To set up your page options, click on the Page Design tab, then go to the Page Setup group. It looks like this:

As you can see, here you can set your margins, the orientation, and the size. Let's discuss what each of these mean.

Margins means the amount of white space that is along the top, bottom, left, and right edges of your publication. Margins are measured in inches.

Orientation refers to either Portrait or Landscape. Portrait means the longer edge of the publication makes up the height (it runs vertical). Landscape means the longer edge goes horizontally across.

Size refers to the size of the publication and directly corresponds to the size you want to print.

Click the arrow at the bottom right hand corner of the Page Setup group.

Let's learn how to set the options for your page.

Under the Page section, you're going to enter the height and width of the paper that you want to print on.

Under the Margin Guides section, you'll set the amount of white space that goes around the edges of your pages. You'll enter margins for the top, left, bottom, and right. Remember, this is measured in inches.

Next, under the Layout Type section, select the layout type:

One Page Per Sheet means that one page of your publication will be printed on one sheet of paper. You can use Print Preview to see how it fits on the page.

Booklet means your publication will be in a booklet design. You'll notice the margin guide labels will change. Left will be Outside. Right will be Inside. This lets you know where they appear in your booklet.

Email will enable you to create a design for email.

Envelope will set you up to create a standard 9.5"x4.125" envelope. If you want to change the measurements, you'll have to change the width and height in the Page section of the window.

Folded Card. Use this to create greeting cards. You'll print the sheet, then fold it to make the card. When you choose this layout, sheet fold options are displayed. You can decide how you'll fold your publication. On the right side of the window, Publisher 2010 will show you how your publication will be folded.

If you choose Multiple Pages Per Sheet you'll print more than one page of your publication on a sheet of paper. When you select this, target sheet options are displayed. Horizontal gap refers to the space between each column of page. Vertical gap refers to the space between rows. The Preview window to the right shows you how it will look.

Web Page allows you to design a web page.

Click OK when you're finished setting your options.

Using Layout Guides and Rulers When you're working with a blank publication and designing it yourself, you use layout guides and the rulers to organize and align your text and pictures, as well as other items, into columns and rows. Without the guides and rulers, it would be hard to create an organized publication. Your layout guides can serve as a grid on your pages and master pages.

Layout guides are there to help you align objects (pictures, text boxes, etc.). You can enable the layout guides and get visible guidance to easily align everything on your page.

Shapes, pictures, WordArt, tables, text boxes, and grouped objects (we'll learn about all these later) are aligned using their edges or their midlines – or the imaginary line that divides an object into two halves. Tables can be aligned by using their gridlines.

The layout guides in Publisher 2010 include four guides: margin, column, row, and baseline. As we said, this can make up a grid.

To structure a page using layout guides:

First, open a blank publication.

Click the Page Design tab, then click Margins. Select Custom Margins.

Under the Master Pages category, make sure the Two-Page Master box is checked.
Under Margin Guides, specify the amount of space you want for the Inside, Outside, Top, and Bottom boxes.
Now, click on the Grid Guides tab.
Under the Column Guides section, specify the number of columns in the Columns Box. Then specify the amount of space you want between the columns in the Spacing box.
Now, under the Row Guides, do the same thing you did for columns, expect this will be for rows.
Clicking Add Center Guide Between Columns and Rows will add an additional guide in the center of the space between your columns and rows.

Next, let's set up the Baseline Guides. Click the tab.

Baseline guides help align the text that is not linked between several text boxes in columns.

Specify the amount of space that you want between the baselines. Click OK when you're finished.

Create and Use a Page Background You can easily change the background of your page from the plain white that you see right now.

To add or change the page background, click the Page Design tab.

Now, click Background in the Page Background group on the far right.

Select the background you want or click on More Backgrounds.

You can adjust the gradient, texture, pattern, and tint to achieve the background you want, or you can click the Picture tab to add a picture as the background.

Create and Use Master Pages The ability to create and apply master pages is one of the best features of Publisher. If you've never used them before (and most people haven't--master pages aren't available in basic word processing programs like Microsoft Word) you're in for a treat. Master pages can save you tons of time and hard work, and help you keep your documents consistent.

So what exactly are master pages, you might ask. Master pages are like overlays that contain design elements that you may want to apply to several (or even all) the pages in your publication. For instance, if you were creating a book, you may want the author's name at the top of the left hand page, and the title of the book on the right hand page. But of course, you wouldn't want either the title or the author at the top of the pages where the text begins half way down the page, like at the beginning of new chapters.

Without master pages, you would have to manually enter all of these elements onto every page--a very time consuming, labor-intensive process. Even worse, you'd have to reformat each element and position it precisely.

With master pages, you can insert the element only once, and choose which pages you want that element to appear on. Some common elements used in master pages include page numbers, headers, and footers, but you can also add text boxes, artwork, and custom watermarks.

In the following examples, we see our header information as it's entered onto the master page, and then how it appears in our document. Don't worry if you don't know how to add headers. You'll learn that in just a bit.

By default, Publisher 2010 automatically includes one master page every time you create a new document, but you can easily add more.

To view and edit your master pages, click on the View tab. On the far left, you'll find the Views group, as illustrated in the following example.

Click the Master Page button. When you do this, the view will change, as in the next example.

Here you can see that a Master Page tab has been added to the Ribbon. Instead of the pages of your document, you will only see your master pages in the Page Navigation pane. You can add elements to a master page just like any ordinary page, except that everything you put on a master page will appear on every document page it is applied to.

To show you how this works, we're going to add a master page, edit it, then apply it to our document.

There are two ways to add a new master page. The first, and most obvious, is to click the Add Master Page button, which you can see in the upper left of the illustration above. The New Master Page dialog will open.

Publisher automatically assigns the new master page an ID. This is basically a numbering system, except instead of calling them page 1, page 2, page 3, etc., we call them page A, page B, go to the master page tab, select a master page, and click the Apply To button. You'll see a small menu, like this: