Get to grips with desktop themes publishing

With a computer and a little creative flair there's no need to leave publishing to the professionals

Cliff Joseph, Computeract!ve 17 Jun 2005

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If you've got something to shout about, information to impart or tales to tell, your home computer can help get that message across.

While publishing was once the preserve of the professionals, your computer now puts a range of publishing possibilities at your fingertips, from creating newsletters, cards and invitations to putting together an album of digital snaps or a travel diary.

If you run a small business from home, or are self employed, your PC could be used to create a brochure to help drum up business.

There's no need to spend a fortune buying new software either. You can buy dedicated desktop-publishing (DTP) programs for less than £100, but it's worth remembering that most of us already own word-processor programs, such as Microsoft Word, that are capable of tackling many desktop-publishing projects.

The chances are you've already got everything you need to create high-quality page layouts.

A word in your ear
Most people think of Microsoft Word as a simple word processor but Word has many page-layout features that are useful for DTP work. To start a new project, select New from the File menu. In Word 2003, this will open up the New Document panel on the right-hand side of the screen.

This allows you to start work on a new blank document or to select one of the program's built-in templates. The basic templates provided with Word tend to have a business slant, concentrating on things like reports and brochures, but Microsoft provides additional templates, typefaces, clip art and stock photography on its website that can be downloaded for free. Just click on the Templates Online button in the New Document panel to see what's available.

These freebies are mainly designed to work with Microsoft's own products, but there are plenty of other free fonts and clip art on the internet that can be used with any word processor or DTP program.

You can do a quick search for 'free fonts' or 'free clip art' using a search engine such as Google, but we particularly like www.barrysclipart.com for a good selection of clip art and the themed fonts that can be found at www.acidfonts.com and www.coolarchive.com.

Once a new document has been created it's possible to modify it in all sorts of ways to create a more individual design. The best place to start is the Page Setup command in the
Themexp.org File menu.

Selecting this option opens up a dialogue box where basic EZskins.comsettings, such as page margins, can be adjusted. To alter the amount of white space around the edge of a page, click on the Margins tab and use the arrows next to the Top, Bottom, Left and Right boxes to change the margin settings. Click on the Paper size tab to choose between landscape or portrait document orientation.

If you are feeling adventurous, the Page Setup dialogue box also offers a number of useful tools. Click on the Layout tab in this dialogue box and then on the Borders button. This opens the Borders And Shading dialogue box (also accessible through the Format menu), where you can add borders either to an entire page or to individual items, such as photographs and headlines.

If you're adding a border to a text box or around a photo, you'll need to select it by clicking on it first. Experiment with the settings and options EZthemes.com here until you like what you see in the Preview section of this dialogue box, then click on OK.

Under the Shading tab are settings that allow you to add a coloured background to any part of the document. This is handy for highlighting a particular paragraph or printing coloured greeting cards. Just click on the colour you want in the Fill menu box (or on More Colours to create your own), then select a background style from the drop-down Style menu.

You can even import a digital photo and use that as the background for your document by selecting Background from the Format menu, then Fill Effects and clicking on the Picture tab and the Select Picture button. Locate the picture you want to use on the computer's hard disk here, then click on OK.

If all these different dialogue boxes and options seem a bit confusing you can simplify things by using the Theme command in the Format menu. This command displays a list of predefined themes, which include typefaces, borders and background graphics, that have been chosen for you.

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In the frame
Word will create most documents with a single column of text that fills the entire width of the page. Click on the Columns option in the Format menu to change this and choose between the options along the top of the dialogue box or use the arrows next to the box labelled Number of Columns to select the number of columns you want. Columns work well for documents such as newsletters and brochures.

Altering the number of text columns can completely change the appearance of a document, but you don't have to stop there. Text and images can also be presented in separate boxes within a document.