Office 2010: The Missing Manual

Chapter 29. Publisher

When you need to lay out a document for publication, Publisher is the program for you. It helps create everything from simple greeting cards and postcards to complex multipage newsletters and catalogs. You can write directly in Publisher—using it as a kind of souped up word processor—or polish your prose in Word and then copy and paste your text into Publisher.

This chapter introduces this low-profile yet high-powered program and shows you how to lay out a publication, from creation straight through to adding text and storing your business information so you don’t have to enter it over and over again. It also includes design advice like unifying the look of your document with color and font schemes, using Publisher’s layout guides, and adding and formatting images. Finally, when you’re ready to send your baby off to the Land of Print, you can run Document Checker to look for (and fix) design problems, and then use a desktop printer or package it up for a commercial printer.

Creating a New Publication

To open Publisher, click the Windows Start button, and then select Microsoft Publisher 2010. (If you don’t see that option on the Start menu, look for it here: Start→All Programs→Microsoft Office→Microsoft Publisher 2010.)

To get started on a new publication, select File→New (Alt, F, N) to open the Available Templates page. You can build your publication based on one of Publisher’s built-in templates or start it from scratch.

Tip

If you’ve already got a publication open, ...