How to Make a Brochure on a MacBook

MacBooks are fast and handy, especially when you need to create some form of quick publication on the move. You can make a brochure with the latest software on a MacBook just as easily and well as you can on a desktop Mac. Here are some tips to get started making a brochure on a MacBook.

Things You'll Need

• Photo manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements
• Desktop publishing software such as QuarkXPress or Swift Publisher

Instructions

1. Think out the brochure to some extent before you begin. While most people couldn't tell you why they like or dislike any publication, you as the designer should know about points of entry, "cool" vs. "warm" and text vs. image balance. For example, points of entry is a term used to describe how many pieces of information----graphics, headlines, stories, pull boxes----are immediately visible to the reader to grab his attention. Brochures that are "warm" usually use colors such as red, orange and beige and have "friendly" fonts to entice the reader. Text may be the point of a brochure, but no one will read it if it doesn't have graphics or photos. The mind tends to see blocks of text as gray and dismal unless they are broken up by graphics.

2. Prepare your images using Photoshop or another photo manipulation software package. Tone them to your liking and size them bigger than you need with a resolution of at least 300 dots per inch. When you shrink them down to the appropriate size, they will have a sharpness that won't be there with a lesser dpi. Consider using cutout or unusually shaped images to later wrap text around. This will make the brochure more visually appealing and draw more people to read it thoroughly.

3. Create the text for the brochure in a word processing program such as Pages or Microsoft Word. You will have more control and feel more at ease writing in a program you are familiar with first. These programs generally have better spell checking than a DTP program, too. You can import the text or copy and paste it to the DTP program later.

4. Set up the the page in the DTP program. QuarkXPress is the professional's choice, but Swift Publisher is a less expensive alternative that does many of the same things. In QXP, go to "File" and then "New." In the pop-up window that appears, set the width to 11 inches and the height to 8.5 inches. Select three columns with a gutter width of 0.167. In the "Margins," select 0.25 inches. Don't use the Auto Text Box feature at the lower left because it will not give you the correct text boxes. This will set up a "landscape" page with the three sections for one side of a three-fold document. Then go to "Page" and then "Insert" and add one page "after." It's important to remember which section will be where when folded. Do this by taking a blank sheet of paper and folding it in equal threes. On the right front, mark "1." On the center front, mark "6," and on the left front, mark "5." Turn the sheet over and mark the sections from left, "2," "3" and "4." Pick up any brochure and you will see that is how it is designed. The reader tends to see things on the right first.

5. Design the "front" flap of the brochure as if it is the only chance you'll get to grab the reader--because it is. This should have graphics and few words designed to entice the reader to open the brochure. The first actual page of the innards of the brochure will be on the back of this front page. Here you can start adding the mix of graphics and text to fill out the other five pages. Aside from images, use pull boxes wherever possible. These are colored boxes with bullet points or important but brief information the reader can grab quickly.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember to add contact information on the back of the brochure or somewhere else if it is important for people to get more information. Put a hairline with the "Line" tool in the gaps between the columns. A hairline is 0.5 of a full point (the default) line on most DTP packages. This will give you a guide about where to fold the brochure when it's printed.