Using MS Publisher

In the Classroom

Janetta Garton
Technology Curriculum Director
Willard R-II Schools
[Link]

7/18/2007 Page 1
What will I learn today? You will…
• Use MS Publisher, a desktop publishing program, to create a newsletter,
poster, chart, and certificate.
• Create a document that can be used in a practical way in your classroom.
• Explore how your students can use MS Publisher.

How will this help me in the classroom?

• You will be able to publish newsletters to effectively communicate with
parents and patrons.
• You will be able to create other documents such as banners, posters,
business cards, and charts for use in your classroom.
• Your can use MS Publisher with your students to produce various
publications.

The Basics
Toolbars

Click View and select Toolbars to select the toolbars you

want to view.

Move your mouse over any of the toolbar buttons and a

label will be displayed for that button.

In Publisher 2000 there minimal differences in the

toolbars.

The Standard Toolbar has shortcuts to create a new document, open, save,
email, print, preview documents and many other icons.

The Formatting toolbar contains buttons for formatting thee text: style, font,
size, bold, italic, underline, justification, etc. Each button acts on the text you
select.

7/18/2007 Page 2
 The Objects Toolbar
• The Pointer Tool - When you click on the arrow your mouse acts
like a selector. When you click on something it will be highlighted so
you can work on it. Since everything, including text, is considered an
object in Publisher this tool is very important. When you click on a
picture or text object you can drag it to a new spot, resize it or
delete the picture or text in the space.
• The Text Frame Tool - Publisher documents are made up of
textboxes, graphic boxes and table boxes. When you choose a
template all of these types of boxes are already placed for you. You
just need to replace the content. If you start with your own
document, you cannot simply paste a picture or text into the
document without first creating a textbox or picture box.
• The Table Frame Tool - The table box creates a table in the
Publisher document that you can fill in with information (like a table
of contents).
• WordArt Frame Tool - WordArt is another kind of object that can
be placed in a Publisher document. You can drag and drop Word Art.
• Picture Frame Tool - With this tool you can insert a picture from
Clip Art, insert a picture from a file, insert a picture from a digital
camera or scanner, or draw an empty picture frame.
• The next five are drawing tools. If you choose them you will be
able to draw lines, arrows, ellipses, squares or predefined shapes.
• Design Gallery Objects – With these tools you can insert ready-
made design elements such as a logo, calendar, reply form, or
quote.

7/18/2007 Page 3
The Task Pane
The Task Pane appears to the left. When you first start Publisher, in the Task Pane you have
options for using a wizard to create your new publication, start with a new blank publication, or
open an existing publication to edit. You can click the drop down area next to the "New
Publications" title to change the contents. You can close the Task Pane by clicking the X in its
top right corner. Publisher 2000 has a Wizard window in place of the Task Pane.

7/18/2007 Page 4
Publishing a Newsletter
You can use a newsletter to communicate information and ideas to students or to
the community. Your students can use a newsletter to develop skills in acquiring
information, organizing it, and communicating it to others. Once you have learned
how to use the Newsletter Wizard, you can use the same skills to create
publications using any of the other wizards.

1. Open Publisher
• by double clicking on the Publisher Icon on your desktop
• going to Start>Programs>Microsoft Office and clicking on Publisher
• clicking on Start>Programs>Microsoft Publisher
3. In the Task Pane, under New From a Design, we will select Publications for
Print with one click. After the list expands, click once on Newsletters. In
Publisher 2000, select Newsletters from the Wizard's pane.

1. Scroll through the newsletters until you find one you like then click on it. If
using Publisher 2000 then click Start Wizard.

7/18/2007 Page 5
2. In the Task Pane you will see the Newsletter Options.
3. You can access this Task Pane window and make changes at any time: click
the drop down arrow next to the Task Pane's title and make your choice.

For Publisher 2000, the Newsletter Wizard on the left side of the screen will
walk you through setting up a document. After you look at each screen and
choose what you want, press Next then Finish.

Newsletter Options
Newsletter Options has choices for one- two-sided printing and customer address.

Page Content
This choice allows you to change the number of columns on each page.
When you select an option with one click you can access the drop down menu for
"apply to this page" or "apply to all pages." At the bottom of your window you will
see how many pages your template already has.

Publication Designs
Even after you have changed some of the text and pictures you can change to a
different design for your publication. Click on this link to see your choices.

Color Schemes
If you like the Design that you chose, but would like to have different colors,
choose Color Schemes

Font Schemes
You can select a new font scheme for your entire document.

Once you have chosen all of the design features you want, make sure you save
the document on your H: Drive.
1. Choose File>Save As.
2. Click the Arrow for the Save in: drop down menu and choose your H: drive.
3. Since this is your first
time saving this file you
must give it a name.
Click in the File Name
box and type in your
file name.
4. Click Save.

7/18/2007 Page 6
Designing a Newsletter

1. To give yourself more space to work you can close the Task Pane.
2. Next change the size that you are viewing by pulling down the arrow next to
the window on the standard toolbar. A good size to work in is 75% or 100%,
but while you are working you will be switching back and forth so you can see
what the whole page looks like.

Title
1. Starting at the top of the page, click the placeholder text “Newsletter Title” and
type in your own title. AutoFit is activated, so the text gets smaller as you type
to fit in the text box.
2. Click the placeholder text “Newsletter Date” and type in your own date. You
can delete the words and leave a box empty or delete the box altogether by
right clicking on the box and choosing Delete Object.
3. It is important to remember that all of the pieces in the title are separate
objects. If you have chosen a newsletter that has outlining or a graphic at the
top those are objects. Any object can be moved or deleted by clicking on the
object so that it has handles at each corner. When you press Delete on the
keyboard whatever you have chosen will disappear. You can restore it if you
choose Edit>Undo right away!

Body
Filling in the rest of the newsletter is just a matter of replacing text and pictures
in the boxes that have been provided for you. The newsletter has been designed
so that the columns are joined to each other and text will flow between the
columns. If you want text to go a different way than the document has
predetermined, you can change the column from a linked column to an unlinked
column.

7/18/2007 Page 7
 Here is a summary of how that works:
At the end of the
column you see an
indicator showing
that there is more
text and pointing to
the next column.
Columns can be
joined or separate. If
they are joined, the
text from one will
run into the column to which it is attached. You have to click in the text box for this
indicator to show.

If a column is separate
and you try to put more
words into it than will
fit, a different symbol
shows up at the bottom
of the column. The A...
tells you that there is
more text and you need
to indicate which
column you want to put
the text in.

The text frames are linked to each other by clicking

on a picture of a chain on the toolbar
at the top of the page. Once you click on
the chain and put the mouse over a new
column it will turn into a cup spilling letters.

When you click, the letters that were overflowing will appear in the new column.
The columns are now linked and will flow into each other.

7/18/2007 Page 8
To unlink a column, click to highlight the text then click on the broken link at the
top of the page. If there is more text in the box than fits the symbol at the bottom
will turn into an A… If the box is not full there will be no symbol at the bottom of
the column.

You can put text into your newsletter in two different ways:
• delete the demo text and type in your own
• copy from a Word document and paste it into the Publisher document

If students have written a story or poem in Word, or some other program, you
can copy and paste it into your Publisher newsletter. You can put several
students’ work into one newsletter easily by copying and pasting.

Replacing the Pictures

Double click on the graphic. The Task Pane opens with the Clip
Art options displayed.

1. Type in what you are looking for in the "Search for:" box.
2. Use the drop down area for the "Search in" box to select where to
look.
3. Use the drop down area for the "Results should be" box to select the
type.
4. Then click the Go button.
5. When you locate a picture you want to insert, click on it. It will insert
the image into your document where your cursor is. You can resize
the image by clicking and dragging the corner handles.
5. You can click the X in the Clip Art task pane to close if when you are
finished.

Publisher 2000: You enter a word in the "Search for clips:" box and press

enter. When you find the one you want, click on it and choose
from the pop-up menu to insert it.

To use a picture you have saved on your computer instead of the clipart
installed by Publisher:
1. Delete the clipart by clicking on it and pressing the delete key.
2. Then choose the Picture Frame Tool from the toolbar on the left and
choose Picture from File.
3. Click and drag to draw the picture frame where you want it. When you
finish a dialogue box appears.
4. Navigate to the picture file and click Insert.

7/18/2007 Page 9
It is a good idea to save your publication at various times as you are working on
it. Then if your computer locks up or has a general protection fault error you don’t

lose your work. You can click the save button on the menu bar at the top. It
will automatically save it in the place with the same name.

Inserting a Drop Cap

Sometimes fancy first letters (called a drop cap) in a paragraph catches the
reader’s attention. The drop cap can also help fill a page that does not have a lot
of text. In order to perform this task, you must already have a story in the text
frame.
Go to the lead
story on page 1.
Drop cap
Click in the lead
story text frame, Article
or story
on the first
paragraph. On the
Format menu,
click Drop Cap. Click the Drop Cap tab, if necessary, and then click one of the
drop-cap options in the Available drop cap box. You can scroll in the Available
drop cap box to see additional drop-cap options. Click OK.

7/18/2007 Page 10
Second Page and Beyond
When the first page is done you can go to the second page by clicking on the
page icon at the bottom of the screen.
1. Click View and choose Task Pane, if the Task Pane isn’t showing. (For
Publisher 2000 Click the Show Wizard button at the bottom.)
2. Use the drop down arrow in the Task Pane title bar and choose Page
Content.
3. Click the Calendar button.
4. Use the drop down box to select the right page.
5. Click the Response form button.

Delete a Page
If you do not want more pages you can click on the page you want to delete and
choose Edit>Delete Page.

Add More Pages

If you need more pages than were
provided by the template, choose
Insert>Page. A window opens asking
what type of page you would like to add.
There are several choices of preformatted
pages in the pull-down menu. If you do not
see what you want here you can click on the
button at the bottom of the screen for
More Options.

This window opens. Choose the number of pages

you want to insert and if you want them before or
after the current page.

You can choose

• A blank page or
• One text frame on each page
• A copy of the page you are on.

When you click on OK you will see the page(s) you

added.

7/18/2007 Page 11
 Checking Spelling
• If you misspell a word, or Publisher does not recognize it, a red wavy line
appears directly beneath the word on the screen. Right-click the underlined
text to see suggested options. You can select a correction, add the word to
the dictionary, or tell Publisher to ignore all instances of the word.
• Publisher also has the spelling option on the Tools menu. On the Tools
menu, point to Spelling and then click Spelling. The spell checker checks
one story at a time. A dialog box appears at the end of the firs story asking
if you want to check the rest of the publication. Click OK to continue. The
Check Spelling dialog box appears when a misspelled word is found.

Making a Poster
1. Click File>New>Blank Print Publications For Publisher 2000:
File>New>Blank Publications Tab>Poster>Create.
2. File>Page Setup. Click the Layout Tab and choose Poster in the
Publication type box. You can choose from 2 poster sizes or enter your own
width and height measurements. Click OK.

3. Make a title using WordArt: Click the WordArt

button on the left. Choose a style from the
popup window and click OK.
4. A dialogue box displays for you to type in your
text. Choose the font, size, bold or italic. Click
OK.
5. You can resize your WordArt with a click and
drag of the handles. You can also click and
drag the WordArt to position it.
6. The WordArt toolbar appears whenever you
have your WordArt item selected. This
provides with options for making additional
changes to your WordArt.

7. Add a text box: Click on the text box button on the left and click and drag
to create a box on your poster. Your font size will need to be much larger
than 10 or 12, more like 78. Type in your text.
8. You can add can continue to add images, tables, and shapes.
9. Save this poster if you want.

7/18/2007 Page 12
Making a Chart
1. Click File>New>Blank Print Publications. For Publisher 2000:
File>New>Blank Publications Tab>Full Page>Create

2. Click the Table Tool Frame button on the left hand side of your
screen.
3. Click and hold where you want the top left corner of your table, drag out
and release. You can move and resize a table later if needed.
4. Type in 15 rows and 6 columns.
5. Scan the various table formats by clicking on them.
6. Select Checkbook Register. OK.

7. Type in the days of a school week across the top (M-F), skipping the first
column.
8. If you can’t read your text because it is too small use the magnifying
glass button to zoom in.
9. Highlight that first row. Change the font to Arial Black, size 14. Now
center the text by clicking the Center Text Button.
10. You can adjust the size of the table by first clicking on the table to select
it. Then moving the cursor to a corner edge on top of a handle. The cursor
will change to a two headed arrow. Click and drag.
11. You can change the size of a column by first
clicking on the table to select it. Then place
the cursor over the boundary until you see the
adjustment pointer. Click and drag the
boundary to its new position. A row can be
resized in the same way.
12. To make all your rows/columns the same size, highlight the whole table,
then resize one row or column to your preference and all the others will
be made to match.

7/18/2007 Page 13
 13. To merge cells: Highlight two or more cells that you want to combine. The
cells must be in adjacent rows or columns. To combine two or more
columns or rows into one, highlight the entire columns or rows. On the
Table menu, click Merge Cells. If the cells contain text, the content of
each cell appears in the merged cell.
14. To split merged cells, highlight the cell you want to split, and then on the
Table menu, click Split Cells. You can only split cells that have been
merged.
15. You can control the colors of each cell in your table. Select a cell by

clicking in it. Click the fill color tool , and pick a color.

16. Use the line/border tool to change a row’s appearance. Highlight one
row in your table. Click the line/border tool. Choose More Lines. Make
some changes and click OK. Now click outside the table to see your
changes.
17. You can delete rows or columns by clicking in the row or columns you
want to delete, click Table, click Delete Rows or Columns, and choose
row or column.
18. You also add rows or columns by clicking in the row or column near where
you want to add, click Table>Insert> and choose from: Rows Below or
Rows Above, or Column to the Left or Column to the Right.
19. You may save this chart if you want.

Making a Certificate
1. Click on File>New>Publications for Print>Award Certificates. For Publisher
2000, Click on File>New>Award Certificates under the Publications by Wizards
tab>Plain Paper>Certificate of Achievement> Start Wizard.
2. Scroll through your choices and click one you like.
3. Just like the newsletter templates, click in the text boxes to change the
text.
4. Right click and from the pop up menu choose delete object to remove any
unwanted items.
5. You could continue to add and change other items in the certificate, such as
inserting an image, adding a border, changing the font, adding WordArt.
6. You may save this certificate if you want.

Help
Don’t forget to try using the Help menu when you have questions or want to try
something new.

7/18/2007 Page 14