Hey Paul,
You wrote asking advice on page layout for your newsletter.
I am not sure I followed what you were saying but I think you want to
produce your newsletter as a booklet... Pages printed in landscape
(either 11" X 17" or 8.5" X 11") then folded in the middle and saddle
stapled. Right?
How, then, to do this in some relatively efficient manner?
You did not say what version of MS Word you are using. I use MS Word
6.01 on a Macintosh Performa with 80 megs. Yadda, yadda, yadda...
While it is a very powerful program and allows for automatic columns,
graphic insertion, and so forth, my Word version will not do page layout
as I think you want to do as it will not (for example) "flow" text from
column 1, page 2 to column 2, page 6. So, to do what you want to do JUST
with Word I, too, would have to perform endless cut and paste
operations.
I know you said you are broke but I really recommend that you buy more
software... Specifically, pick up a copy of Adobe Home Publisher (or its
equivalent for your platform) which is a low-end page layout program
that will do everything you want to do and more. It has text flow
capabilities, graphics, 99 page limit, etc., etc. And costs only about
50 USD, maybe less nowadays.
The program is super easy to run and gives really slick results.
To use a page layout program you would continue to draft text in Word,
then copy it to the layout program and presto-chango (almost) the job is
done. Forgot to insert a couple of pages of photos? No problem, add
pages (in the middle even) and the program automatically shifts all the
story text for you. Toooo easy!
The program automatically adjusts the margins, left to right, to allow room
for binding. It will, of course, number pages automatically but you may need
to do it manually if I understand what you are trying to do.
I do note that MS Word 6.01 has a lot of templates including a
Newsletter template that simplifies a full page layout for you. But it
does not do folded (booklet style) pages. Still, it should give a pretty
fair result if you can change to a full page format.
I do NOT recommend that you go to a full fledged page layout system such
as Pagemaker as that would be overkill and it is a lot harder to work
with.
The key, I think, is that your layout program MUST be able to flow text from
any column to any other column.
Sorry, I am not familiar with Framemaker.
If the budget will absolutely not stretch to a good low-end page layout
program or if your newsletter is only a quarterly then you may want to keep
doing what you are doing. I think the key to laying out a booklet by hand is
to make up a "dummy" with page numbers early on and use it as a guide for the
paste-up which, I take it, you want to do electronically to get the smoothest
possible result. By using a paste-up dummy you can determine exactly what goes
where, use Word's cut and paste to move stuff around, then print out camera
ready copy.
I hope I understood your question and that this has been of some help.
If not, buzz me back and I'll try again.
Cheers!
--Colin Cobb, Las Cruces, NM, USA
'65 Sunbeam Tiger, '66 Morgan Plus 4, '67 Sunbeam Alpine
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