Got a weird thing to show you, so tell all the boys and girls

[venta]

Once upon a time, there was a dance team that wanted a flyer. A nice, A4, tri-fold flyer. Dr Fiona heroically tackled it. Then she said sod this, Word is a fair bugger, I cannot get the columns to line up nicely on both sides of the paper.

Haha, I thought, I am so very clever, I will use a downloadable tri-fold flyer template from Office Online. And lo, I did, and it was also a fair bugger because it is completely un-customisable. You want three folds? Well, some of it will be bright orange. No other colour is available. Just bright orange.

After an awful lot of fiddling about, I finally had something I was at least not-unhappy with. And then I printed out a trial run, and it turns out the US-centric world of Office Online makes its tri-fold flyer templates for Letter sized paper. Not A4. Which I had not checked. I am, in fact, not so very clever after all. I imagine the template can be tweaked, but then it's back to the original problem of getting columns to line up manually. I haven't even successfully worked out how to get three evenly-spaced columns yet :( I've never liked Word.

Does anyone have... a tri-fold A4 template, a better knowledge of Word than I have, a burning desire to show off their graphic-design skills, or a large bottle of gin[*]?

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Edit Or, of course, does anyone have a source of Letter paper, a colour/duplex printer that will handle it, and a generic willingness to assist in exchange for cake? (I have never owned a printer, I have no idea if they mostly do Letter...)

[*] Not strictly relevant, but I might stop caring about the flyer...

Comments

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty good with Word, I can have a go if you like?

[venta.livejournal.com]

If you have the time and/or inclination, that would be very lovely of you!

What would it be most helpful to throw at you? The completed .doc using the wrong-sized template, or something different?

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

If you are using Word 2007 I have just got a closer approximation to what you describe...

For template: go to Brochures & Booklets --> Brochures --> second line down on the left.

To make it A4 not letter: go to Page Layout tab at the top --> click on pictogram called "Size" --> select A4. Need to do this for every page in the document. Will create new blank pages but you can delete them.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I have nothing useful to offer, but I approve of your choice of subject header; very apposite!

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Whatever you have so far that gives me an idea of the layout and colours you'd like.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That was all going well, but then the template it downloaded seems to open in Publisher (which may be fine, I'm just even less familiar with it). When I tried to restrict it to Word 2007 templates, all the tri-fold brochure ones disappeared.

Thank you for the suggestion, but I don't seem to have done a good job of following it. How did you get to the templates? I've tried two different routes, each of which seems to show me different selections...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

email valkyriekaren@gmail.com

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it's Word Up. I'm embarrassed to have got that but will take a kudo in recompense.

[venta.livejournal.com]

It is Word Up. You may have your kudo, but you might have to let sushidog hold it for a bit as I think she got it first (but not very explicitly :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I went:
-click on the Windows-squares pictogram in the round button at the top left that brings up the New, Open, ... options.
-click on New. Window called "New Document" pops up.
-Under Templates on the left it reads like this:
Blank and recent
Installed Templates
My templates...
New from existing...
Microsoft Office Online
Featured
Access databases
Agendas
Books
Brochures and booklets
...

-Click on Brochures and booklets and in the middle pops up three categories: Brochures, Catalogs, Programs. Click on Brochures.
-Grid of pictures of leaflets pops up, click on that one, click on Download button on bottom right.
-Template opens as a new document in Word. It has [compatibility mode] in the bar at the top and I've never figured out what this means.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you very much for typing all that out. That is a different (third) way and appears to offer different options. I have faffed too much at work today already, so will have to postpone trying that template out til later but it does look more promising. The other one went all wonky and lopsided if you tried to change the paper size.

I think the [compatibility mode] thing is a reference to it being a .doc document. Word 2007 went all .docx, but maintained support for .doc to keep compatibility with older versions of Word. So I think it's just telling that it's doing that, and that older versions of Word will be able to open the resulting document.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I was being dead subtle. If it helps, I was thinking of the cover by Gun, not the original. :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure I even know the Cameo version!

I noted your subtlety, but feel it's a bad precedent to set. People might just start making vague gnomic observations in the hope of gaining great kudos!

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Hm, true; you can't go giving out kudos to people who just say "Ah, your subject; clever, yes. Good. *nose tap*"
I shall try to be more blatant in the future! :-)

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

Did you know it was World Gin Day on 9 June?
http://worldginday.com/

[uitlander]

Could you use a colour photocopier to enlarge your flyer to the required size?

Or print as PDF and ask the printers to adjust the scale.

Just a thought...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Damn! Busted.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Could you use a colour photocopier to enlarge your flyer to the required size?

Possibly one could :) I have neither a colour photocopier nor the requisite ability to use it, unfortunately.

I suspect both the scaling options would still need the original document to make some sensible choices about where its "fold" lines were going to be - maybe it'd all just work from the existing dodgy doc, and maybe not. I'm afraid once things get off a screen and onto paper I'm operating way outside of my sphere of knowledge!

So it is probably a useful thought, to someone who isn't me, and thank you.

ask the printers

Printers? Dance teams clearly aren't as rich as you think! Or you know some much cheaper printers than we do... Last time we did some flyers we got a quote from a printer, then we giggled a lot and all decided to print out as many as we thought we could get away with on our employers' printers...

[uitlander]

I see. In this paradigm I suppose words like Quark Express, FrameMaker and InDesign as more appropriate tools also don't figure :-(

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

Ditch [expletive deleted] Word and use something fit for the purpose, i.e. a DTP program. Without necessarily spending money on it, either - the learning curve for Scribus is probably a bit steep, but there are free versions of Serif PagePlus available which should be able to do the job.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'm embarrassed to have got that

You could always pretend you encountered it via Lego Rock Band, which is the COOLEST THING EVER!

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that Word is probably not the best tool for the job. The Microsoft Office tool is Publisher, which is included with Office Professional.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Sorry I didn't see this yesterday, hope you got it sorted thanks to these helpful people!

Even using an official template, the columns might not line up quite right on front and back if you're manually duplexing using an ordinary printer. Very wide gutters are your friend :-)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Am I just being a skinflint? Does any private individual who has to do very, very occasional bits of designwork have these tools?

[venta.livejournal.com]

The thing about steep learning curves is that last-minute jobs that you've forgotten about is not the time to take them on :)

I also made the mistake of thinking that - since there was an official Office template for what I wanted to do - it would be quick and easy in Word.

What format does one normally get out of a DTP package? Do they all have their own proprietary ones? Bear in mind I'll always have to send the output to a selection of quite not-computer-literate people (though I guess I can probably always print-to-PDF and send them that...)

[uitlander]

No, at £500ish a seat you're not being a skinflint. It's just a shame you don't have access to any of the above via work. Word isn't the nicest of things to tame for this sort of task.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I imagine the people who do this kind of thing at work anyway would have a very different approach. I really am a rank amateur in the design/DTP/Office-use stakes, having never had to do anything of the sort professionally :)

[shui-long.livejournal.com]

I certainly wouldn't tackle the learning curve for Scribus with a last-minute job - but I think PagePlus is a lot more novice-friendly (even if less powerful). I'm fairly sure there's an A4 tri-fold leaflet template in the PagePlus starter version.

Pdf is the de facto standard for commercial printers, and any reasonable DTP program will be able to produce pdf output - though, as you'd expect, each commercial DTP program uses its own proprietary file format to store documents.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure I even know the Cameo version!
What?! It's a classic - although not sure that his dress sense was such a trendsetter, fortunately.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

Very wide gutters are your friend :-)
We're all in the gutter, but some of us are looking for our copy ...

(Gutters are the white bits around the copy - especially next to folds.)

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Quark? (Puts up crossed forefingers to ward off evil). Come on, you must have learned most of the arrangements of curses you know from me when we went off hot metal