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Microsoft Word Create a Tri-Fold Brochure Using Word (adapted from an article by Jeff Davis of ZDNet)
Your word processing program can do much more than print documents in portrait or landscape orientation. Using a simple three-column page design, you can turn your word processor into a desktop publisher without spending a dime. It's simple to do and the results are great. In this lesson,
you will learn how to create an effective, low-cost, professional-looking
tri-fold pamphlet, using the do-it-yourself method. Decide what information to include, which pieces are the most important, and where you'll place them. You can also gather a few examples of different brochures that you find appealing and use them as a guideline. Next, determine how you want your pamphlet to look -- even draw a quick sketch before you actually get started. This will help you visualize where the pieces of information will fall when you actually fold the paper. The practical aspects aren't the only ones you need to concern yourself with. After you've decided what to include, you'll want to consider the brochure's visual appeal. You may want to glance at a design book to familiarize yourself with the different visual concepts for creating a pamphlet and also to learn the basic dos and don'ts when designing a tri-fold. Basically, don't get carried away with extreme borders, multiple fonts, shading, graphics, and so on. Less is more, but you can still have fun with it. Well, that takes care of the preliminaries. Let's move on to the mechanics of creating a tri-fold pamphlet. Since the key to building a tri-fold is Word's column feature, we'll start by splitting our page into three equal columns. To begin building our tri-fold pamphlet, we need to split our page into three columns. First, switch to Page Layout view and open a new document. Before you split the page into three columns, you'll need to modify the margins and the page orientation. To do so, choose File/Page Setup from the main menu and click the Margins tab in the Page Setup dialog box. Now, change all of the margin settings to 0.5, leaving the Gutter margin at 0.0. Next, click the Paper Size tab and change the Orientation option to Landscape. Then, click OK to commit both of your changes. After changing these page layout options, there's one more task to perform before splitting the page into columns. When working with columns, it's easier to visualize the page layout if you turn on the text boundary option. Simply choose Tools/Options and click the View tab. Then, select the Text Boundaries check box in the Show section of the dialog box and click OK. The boundary lines that appear represent the area in which you can enter text. Anything that passes beyond the boundary lines won't print. Finally, it's time to split the page into columns. We'll use the Format Columns command to design our page. To set up columns using this command, choose Format/Columns to open the Columns dialog box. Next, select the preset column setup, Three. Then, look at the Width And Spacing panel of the dialog box, and you'll notice that Word automatically inserts columns of equal width and spacing (the Equal Column Width check box is selected). For this example, we'll use the default settings. Now, just click OK to return to your document. You should see three columns of equal length. With the columns in place, you're ready to begin building your custom tri-fold brochure. Since most brochures have six panels of text, three per side, you'll need to duplicate the page layout we just created on a second page. This is simple to do. Just place the insertion point in the first column, choose Insert/Break, select the Column Break option in the Break dialog box, and click OK. Word automatically inserts the break and moves the insertion point to the top of the second column. Repeat this step again to move to the top of the third column. Then, choose Insert/Break and select the Page Break option. When you do, Word adds a second page to the document with the same layout as page 1. In order to see the column and page break markers, click the Show All button on the Standard toolbar. It's better to work in this mode when adding text and graphics to columns that contain breaks; this makes it easier for you to see how much space you have left before your text bumps to the next column or page.
At this point, you're ready to begin building your pamphlet. Before creating your masterpiece, remember that you're making a tri-fold pamphlet. Therefore, the position of the text on your screen is not where it will fall when you actually fold the paper. Follow the key below to help you place your text in the appropriate column for accurate placement in the final product: Side 1: Side 2: Whether you'll use a printer or a photocopier to create the final product, you need to conceptualize page 2 with its design side facing down and page 1 with its design slide facing up. The clean sides of each page are back to back. Now that you've had the opportunity to test your spatial relation skills, begin entering your text. You can begin in any column you prefer. Simply place your insertion point in the desired column and enter your information. You can add an organizational or a company logo, clip art, photographs, WordArt, drawing objects, graphics, or anything else you can think of. If Word can handle it, you can do it. Just remember to stay within the page boundaries and pay attention to where your column breaks are positioned. You don't want to push them too close to the page boundaries because they might bump when you print the page.
After you've completed all six columns, you're ready to produce the final product. At this stage, several options are available. If you have a printer, just send the document to the printer and fold it. You can even print the first page, flip it over, place it in the printer, and then print the second page. This option involves a bit of trial and error to determine the correct way to place page 1 in the printer to get the correct results. If you'll be relying on a photocopier, you have some work to do. First, print both pages of the pamphlet document. Then, use a copier to make the double-sided copies. The instructions for this method vary depending on the brand and model of the copier you use. Just be sure that when you make the copies, the appropriate panels fall into position when you fold them. At this point, you're ready to begin building your pamphlet. Before creating your masterpiece, remember that you're making a tri-fold pamphlet. Therefore, the position of the text on your screen is not where it will fall when you actually fold the paper.
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