How to Make Digital Newsletters

For a newsletter, it can be a long path from concept to execution. After you have planned your newsletter by choosing its audience, publication frequency, and editorial content--and you have determined that a digital format best suits your needs--you can begin to actually create it. Although you can create a customized newsletter using desktop publishing software, it may be easier to use a product such as Microsoft Office Word 2003, which allows you to choose from numerous pre-designed newsletter templates. You can download a newsletter template from the Microsoft Office Online website and begin to make digital newsletters right away.

Instructions

1. Open Microsoft Word. Click "File" in the menu bar, then click "New" in the drop-down menu. This opens the New Document sidebar.

2. Click the "Templates on Office Online" link in the sidebar. This opens a Web browser to the Template Categories webpage on the Microsoft Office Online website.

3. Click the link for "Newsletters" to open the Newsletter templates page. Click the name of a newsletter template, such as the "Accessory design, 4-col" template. This opens the webpage for the template you selected.

4. Click the "Download" button on the template webpage. The template will download to your computer and will open automatically in Word. Begin replacing the content in the template with your own newsletter content.

5. Type the actual name of your newsletter to replace the text in the newsletter template that says "Type Title Here." Type the date, volume and issue number to replace the placeholder text in the template.

6. Type your company's name or your own name, followed by the appropriate phone number, to replace the placeholder text for company name and phone number in the template.

7. Type the headline and content for each article in your newsletter, replacing the placeholder headlines and content. You may choose to copy and paste the content of each article into the template to save time. After you complete each article, update the table of contents on the first page of the newsletter with the actual headline, replacing the placeholder text.

8. Continue typing in headlines and articles until you have filled the template. You may replace placeholder graphics with your own graphics in the spaces provided near each article.

9. Spell check the newsletter content. Click "Tools" in the Word menu bar, then click "Spelling and Grammar". This opens the spell check wizard. Follow the prompts in the wizard to spell check the newsletter.

10. Save the file when you have finished the spell check. Your digital newsletter is now complete.

References

• Microsoft Office Online Template Categories page

Resources

• Microsoft article on templates for multiple versions of Microsoft Word