How to Compose a Newsletter
Companies, organizations and even hobbyists create newsletters to share information with employees, club members or the general public. The newsletter format is ideal for many purposes, and with desktop publishing software, anyone can design, compose and publish specialized newsletters on any topic.
Free full-featured desktop publishing software programs available make it easy for anyone to compose professional quality newsletters to share with family and friends, or even to publish professionally.
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Instructions
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Sketch your newspaper design elements on a piece of standard notebook paper. Experiment with columns by drawing lines on the paper to see how you might like to lay the columns out. Write down the title heading and any subheading. You can draw squiggly lines to represent the volume number and publication date of your newsletter and place big X marks where graphics will go. This is just a rough design. On another piece of paper, make a list of topics you want to cover in your newsletter as well as a list of regular columns.
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Select the desktop publishing software you want to use to compose your newsletter. Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing program aimed at the mid-level production market. It's reasonably priced and easy for beginners. Serif offers PagePlus desktop publishing software free of charge: Scribus is free open source desktop publishing for PC or Mac users. All of these programs work the same way, include helpful newsletter templates and have a small learning curve.
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Open your desktop publishing software, go to "File," choose "New" and select a newsletter template that most closely matches your design layout. If you can't find one, you can start a newsletter from scratch; with desktop publishing software, it's easy to select a column layout that meets your needs.
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Replace template text and images with your own. Do this by selecting and deleting the template text and typing in your own. Add your own images by going to the "Insert" menu and browsing to the location on your computer where the image is you want to use. Click the image, and it will be inserted into your newsletter.
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Format your logo by typing your newsletter name in place of the template text name, then select the text and go to the "Font" menu to choose the font you want to use. Avoid fancy fonts that are not readable. You can format your column text as well, by selecting it and using the font menu. For beginners, consider staying with the template font. Templates typically contain font combinations popular for newsletter layout; don't change them unless you have a good reason for changing a font, as template fonts are easily readable.
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