Publisher and Ministry

Publisher is my go-to when producing paper products for ministry. Specifically, today, I’m going to talk about ways to produce a simple, one-sheet, four page foldable booklet.

• Use a template, or create your own. When creating a new Publisher document, scroll down to the “Programs” section of the templates. There, you’ll find some starters, but the majority of them have one thing in common: a pre-set spread that shows page one and four as standalones, and two/three in an open-book format.
• Choose Margins. I always use either .5 inch or .25 inch margins. Don’t go smaller than .25, or your printer won’t be happy with you.
• Add text boxes. If your template doesn’t have these already, pop in some text boxes. Make sure the fonts and spacing are the same throughout the document… doing this early on is helpful!
• Get with the Flow. If you have a large block of text ready to go (for example, a set of readings all prepared in 8.5×11 paper format), you would benefit from creating “flow” between text boxes.
  • Choose the first text box where you want the text to start, and under the “Text Box Tools” menu, click “Create Link.”
  • Your cursor turns into a sort of paint bucket, and then you click on the next text box you’d like your extra words to flow into.
  • When text is pasted into the first box, any extra will now spill over into the second box. Handy, right?(Note that this doesn’t apply to some fancy templates or formats… it just works with plain text boxes)
• Page numbers. You can add these under the “Insert” tab. If you need to edit the page numbers, just double-click them: they’ll open up the “Master Pages” tab. Make your edits, and then click “Close Master Page” at the top.
• Adding more pages. Easy! Under the “Insert” tab, click the dropdown arrow below “Page.” Add a multiple of 4 pages, so your document works out correctly.
• Printing tips. Print double-sided and flip on the short edge. Some copy machines will even fold and staple your document for you! Run a few test copies to figure out your particular printing parameters.

Thanks for stopping by! You can check out all my Technology in Ministry posts here.