Learn Publisher 2013 - Bitly

Learn Publisher 2013

Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Getting Started Introduction ..............................................................................................................6 Create a New Publication.........................................................................................7 Interface Overview: Backstage View ......................................................................8 Interface Overview: The Publisher Application ....................................................11 Insert, Move, Rename and Delete Pages ...............................................................14 Viewing and Navigating Pages ..............................................................................16 Rulers, Measurements, and Guidelines ..................................................................18 Establishing Business Information ........................................................................20 Setting Preferences.................................................................................................22 Saving your Publication .........................................................................................25 Chapter 2 – Working with Text Inserting a Text Box...............................................................................................26 Formatting a Text Box ...........................................................................................28 Character Formatting Options................................................................................29 Working with Font Schemes ..................................................................................32 Importing Text from Word ....................................................................................33 Working with Columns ..........................................................................................35

Setting Paragraph and Line Spacing Options ........................................................36 Inserting Hyperlink Text ........................................................................................38 Inserting Special and Break Characters .................................................................39 Performing a Spell Check ......................................................................................42 Using Find and Replace Feature ............................................................................44 Paragraph Formatting Options ...............................................................................45 Working with Tab Stops ........................................................................................47 Working with Styles ..............................................................................................49 Chapter 3 – Working with Images and Graphics Bitmap vs. Vector Images ......................................................................................52 Digital Image File Formats ....................................................................................54 Inserting Images and Image Placeholders ..............................................................56 Move, Resize and Crop Images .............................................................................58 Utilizing the Adjustment Settings ..........................................................................60 Adding Captions and Alternate Text to Images .....................................................62 Inserting Page Parts, Borders, and Accents ...........................................................63 Chapter 4 – Creating and Working with Shapes Inserting a Basic Shape ..........................................................................................64 Formatting a Shape ................................................................................................66

Drawing Lines with Line Tools .............................................................................68 Editing a Shape using Anchor Points.....................................................................70 Chapter 5 – Working with Colors, Tints, Gradients, Textures and Patterns Comparing Color Models ......................................................................................72 Exploring RGB, CMYK, and Pantone Colors .......................................................74 Using Adobe’s Kuler Tool .....................................................................................76 Creating and Applying Color Schemes..................................................................78 Tints, Gradients, Textures, and Patterns ................................................................80 Applying Custom Colors .......................................................................................82 Chapter 6 – Managing Objects Utilizing the Scratch Area ......................................................................................84 Arranging, Grouping and Ungrouping Objects .....................................................86 Rotating, Flipping, Nudging and Aligning Objects ...............................................88 Wrapping Text around Objects ..............................................................................90 Utilizing the Format Painter...................................................................................91 Saving an Object as a Building Block ...................................................................92 Chapter 7 – Working with Tables Inserting a Table ....................................................................................................93 Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns ...........................................................95

Formatting a Table .................................................................................................96 Chapter 8 – Managing Pages Working with Master Pages ...................................................................................98 Applying a Page Background ..............................................................................100 Managing Page Setup Options .............................................................................101 Chapter 9 – Create a Mail Merge Publication Starting a Mail Merge .........................................................................................102 Selecting Mail Merge Recipients .........................................................................104 Inserting Merge Fields .........................................................................................107 Previewing and Completing a Mail Merge ..........................................................109 Chapter 10 – Finishing the Publication Working with Skydrive ........................................................................................111 Running the Design Checker and Managing Embedded Fonts ...........................113 Printing a Publication ...........................................................................................115 Additional Saving and Print Options ...................................................................116 Chapter 11 – Conclusion Course Summary..................................................................................................118


Chapter 1 – Getting Started Video: Introduction Microsoft Publisher is an easy-to-use desktop publishing software created by Microsoft as part of the higher-end editions of the Microsoft Office suite such as Microsoft Office Professional. It’s important to know that MS Publisher does not come with every edition of the suite such as Home and Student. If you’re looking to use Microsoft Publisher, then it’s important to buy the correct version! Publisher is an entry-level desktop publishing software - meaning you’ll find that the processes used to insert many objects such as shapes, clipart, and images are the same as inserting these objects into a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. This interface and process consistency makes Publisher perfect for entry-level users not familiar with graphic design and illustration to create business cards, flyers, posters, calendars, and numerous other marketing and graphic materials. Microsoft Publisher uses what is called a proprietary file format (.pub). This means that files created in Microsoft Publisher cannot be opened in other applications unless you were to save the publication file as a PDF or portable document format. In this video series, we will start with a blank publication and build upon our new knowledge and skills in order to create a completed publication that is ready for printing or posting on the web. Throughout this series, we will explore the application interface, create, format, and manage text, graphics, shapes, and tables. Throughout this journey, you will obtain tips, tricks, and techniques that will allow you to not only create a great looking publication, but also work efficiently in order to reduce overhead costs and decrease frustration and hassle. Since we will be creating a new document from scratch, feel free to not only watch the tutorial’s many demonstrations but also participate by creating a new document of your own and completing the steps shown in each tutorial. This application of the skills demonstrated throughout the series will help you to comprehend and retain the information more easily. The beauty of this video series is that not only can you learn how to use the application from start to finish, but you can also choose to watch individual videos for a specific topic as needed. It’s important to keep in mind that Microsoft Publisher 2013 is available only on the PC platform and not available for MAC. If you’re interested in desktop publishing software for a MAC, be sure to check out the Adobe InDesign CS5 or CS6 tutorials on this site. So when you’re ready, select the first video of Chapter 1, to learn how it all begins with the creation of a new Microsoft Publisher publication. Good luck and thanks for watching!

© Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Video: Create a New Publication To get started, we first must open Microsoft Publisher 2013. If you have a desktop shortcut for the software, double-click with your left mouse button to open. If you do not have a desktop shortcut, click the Windows start button or Windows Orb and in the search box, then start typing Publisher 2013. Click Microsoft Publisher 2013 under the Programs heading when it pops up within the list. When the application opens, you will be greeted with the Publisher start screen that allows you to choose what type of publication you would like to create. You have the option of choosing a new blank publication, or looking through the gallery on the front page to open an existing template to base your publication off of. If you don’t see a template that you like, you can always conduct an online template search in the search box at the top of the screen. For example, if you’re interested in using a template to create an invitation to a New Year’s Eve party, you could type “new year’s invitation” into the search box and hit enter on your keyboard. If you liked any of the available options, simply click on the invitation that you’d like to use. That template would then be opened within Publisher. Let’s move back to the start screen. Notice that suggested searches (which are the most popular types of publications) are displayed below the search box as well. So if you’re looking for something like a Brochure, Label, Card, Certificate, or Flyer, you would simply want to click on the search term underneath the search box. In this case, a gallery of available certificate templates has been displayed. To return to the previous screen, click the Home button next to the search box. One important thing to keep in mind is that in order to search for any of these online templates, you must be connected to the internet before searching. In this example, we’re going to create a new blank publication. Two options are available by default and both options are blank publications with a normal page size of 8.5 x 11 inches – which is a great size for creating a flyer; however, one is in a portrait orientation and the other is in a landscape orientation. If you’re creating a new blank publication with paper of a different size such as business cards or post cards, click on the More Blank Page Size button. Notice that a gallery of different page sizes is available to you. If none of these page sizes meets your needs, you can click on the Create new page size thumbnail underneath the Custom heading and specify the dimensions of your custom page. In this example, we’re going to select the Letter (Portrait) size. Click the Create button after selecting your desire page size. The new publication should be displayed with a single blank page. Now we’re ready to start creating a new publication!



Video: Interface Overview: Backstage View Before you get started with using any new software application, it’s important to understand the elements of the application’s interface. In this video, we will complete a brief overview of the “Backstage View” portion of the Publisher 2013 interface. If you’re a user of other Microsoft Office 2013 software applications, chances are the interface looks familiar to you. The graphic user interface of Publisher 2013 utilizes the ribbon that has been present in most office products since the 2007 release. Let’s click on the File tab in order to take a look at what Microsoft calls the “Backstage View” of Publisher. The Backstage view is where you manage your files and the data about them such as creating, saving, inspecting, and setting personal or business information. If you’re familiar with using Microsoft Office 2007 products, you’ll want to note that the File tab or Backstage View has replaced the Office Button. We’re going to work through the options on the left hand menu. First, you’ll notice the Info area. The info area is where you can set your business information, run the design checker, and manage embedded fonts – all of which we’ll talk about in later videos. Clicking on the New heading will take you to a screen that should look familiar. When you’d like to create a new publication, this screen will allow you to choose from a new blank publication, search for a template, or choose a popular template that is featured in the gallery displayed. This screen is much like the Publisher start screen that was discussed in the previous video. Clicking on the Open heading will take you to the Open section where you have the option of opening an existing publication. The left hand side of this screen is a new look for Publisher 2013. Clicking on the Recent Publications option will display a list of shortcuts to recently opened publications. You can do a few things from here. First, you can select one of the publications in the list and open it quickly. Second, you can simply make note of the file path that is displayed below the publication’s name. Finally, you also have the option to “Pin” recent publications that to this list. Why would you want to do that? As you open more and more publications, the list is going to change. If you haven’t opened one of these publications for awhile or you open many different publications over time, some of the publications that you frequently use will be pushed off of the recent publications list. If one of these publications, such as the GCC Membership Cards publication, is a file that I’d like to remain on this list, I can “pin” it to the top so that it will always remain at the top. To do so, I would simply hover my mouse over the publication’s name and click the small pin icon that appears to the right. Now notice that the membership card publication displays above a line that sits above all the other recently opened publications. If I wanted to unpin this publication from the list, I would simply click on the pin icon again. Within the Open area, we also have a few other options. The next option is to open a publication within someone’s SkyDrive folder. SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud system, which we’ll discuss in more detail later in this chapter. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


If you select Computer from the left hand menu, you will see the current and most recently access folders on your computer where you can search for a publication to open. If the folder you want is not listed, you could click the Browse button to search through your computer or network folders for the publication you want. Within the Recent Folders area, you have the ability to “pin” a folder location, much like we pinned recent publications a few moments ago. Clicking on the Add a Place option will allow you to configure your SkyDrive or Office 365 SharePoint server as a location to access your publications. From the left hand menu, clicking on the “Save” option will save changes made to your publication since that last time you saved. The “Save As” option will allow you to save this publication with a different name. The original publication will remain intact, but a copy of the changes you’ve made to your publication since the last save will be represented in the newly named version. Save As also gives you the option to save the publication as a file type that is not a regular Microsoft Publisher format such as a .jpeg image, plain text document, or PDF to name a few. Clicking on Print will allow you to set your printing options for this publication. We’ll discuss the printing options in detail in a later chapter. Clicking on Share will give you options for sending the current publication through email as an attached publication file, an attached PDF, or an attached XPS attachment. If we click on “Email Preview”, you’ll have the opportunity to see what your publication would look like in an HTML format that can be sent via email. Marketing messages to current or prospective clients or customers are the biggest reason why you might want to send your publication as an HTML message via email. Clicking on Export will provide you will numerous exporting options such as creating a PDF, publishing the publication as HTML, changing the file type, saving for photo printing, saving for a commercial printer, or saving for another computer. These options will be discussed in more detail in a later chapter when our publication is completed. Clicking on the Close option will allow you to close the publication that you currently have open while keeping the Microsoft Publisher 2013 application running. Clicking on Account will allow you to configure different accounts, change background and theme preferences, and change your update options. We’ll discuss these options a bit more in detail in a later video as well. Finally, clicking on Options will allow you to view preferences or “options” for Microsoft Publisher, the application, rather than just preferences and options for the publication that is currently open. We’ll discuss the most popular options in this area in a later video in this chapter.


Learn Publisher 2013 Once you’re finished in the Publisher backstage view area, click the Left Arrow in the upper left hand corner of the screen to return to the publication.



Video: Interface Overview: The Publisher Application Once you have created a new publication and generally understand the components of the “backstage view”, it’s important to become comfortable with the rest of the Publisher application’s interface. Let’s start from the top of the screen and work our way down to better understand the components of the interface. First, in the upper left hand corner of the screen, you will see the Quick Access Toolbar which is present in the other Microsoft Office products. The Quick Access Toolbar contains icons for frequent performed commands within the application. By default, the Save, Undo, Redo, and Print Preview icons are available within Publisher. If you’d like to add additional icons to this toolbar in order to save you time in the future, click the arrow icon to the right of the icons. A drop down list of popular commands will be displayed. If you’d like to add any of these icons such as New or Open, simply select them from the list and they will appear on the Quick Access Toolbar. If you’re looking for a command that is notice displayed in the list, select “More Commands” to open the Publisher Options dialog box. Within this area, you can search through the commands listed on the left hand side. By default, Publisher will display a long list of popular commands; however, if you still aren’t able to find the command or commands that you are looking for, select All Commands from the Choose Commands From: drop down menu. From this alphabetical list, find the command that you’d like to add. In this example, I’m going to add the “Group” icon to the list. Select the command and click the Add button to move this command’s icon to the list on the right hand side. You can reorder your commands by selecting the commands and using the up and down arrows to reposition your command icons to your preference. Then, you would want to repeat these steps until all of your desired icons are added. When finished, click the OK button. Just below the Quick Access Toolbar you’ll see the ribbon. The ribbon is made up of tabs such as Home, Insert, Page Design, Mailings, Review, and View. Then, within each tab you’ll notice that your command icons are grouped and those groups are labeled such as Clipboard, Font, Paragraph, Styles, Objects, Arrange, and Editing. As you move through the tabs in the Ribbon, the available commands will change. Within the Home tab, you’ll find a lot of formatting options for your text, the ability to insert objects such as text boxes, pictures, tables, and shapes, and ability to manage these objects within your publication using commands within the Arrange group. The editing group allows you to find certain text or formatting within the document and the replace option will allow you to find specific text or formatting and replace it with something else. The Insert tab provides you with commands for inserting objects within your publication. In addition to inserting objects, you also have the option to insert pages or catalog pages as well. The Page Design tab allows you to change properties of the page such as its margins, orientation, and size. In addition to these options, this tab contains commands related to color schemes, font schemes, and the page’s background.


Learn Publisher 2013 The Mailings tab allows users to complete a mail merge with their publication. This can be helpful for creating publication that will contain a mailing address or catalog containing product descriptions. We’ll definitely dive into this topic in more detail in a later chapter. The Review tab had commands available for a spell check, researching dictionaries or the web, a thesaurus, and text translation. Finally, the View tab allows you to view Master pages, show or hide elements such as guides, rulers, the scratch area, or baselines – all of which we’ll discuss in details later. You have options for changing how you view your document with zoom, as well as how to handle multiple publication windows that are open at the same time. Below the Ribbon on the left hand side of the screen, you’ll notice the Pages pane. This pane can be hidden by select the left arrow, or displayed again by selecting the right arrow. If you’d like to resize this page, you can hover your mouse over the right edge until you see a double left and right arrow, left click, hold, and drag your mouse to the left or right. Within this pane, notice that you’ll see a list of all the pages within the publication. These pages are displayed as thumbnails that you can easily click to navigate around the publication. In this case, we only have one page, but you’ll notice later that as we add more, they will be displayed in this left hand pane. In the middle of the screen, you’ll be able to see the workspace where your blank page is displayed. The extra space around the blank page is called the “Scratch Area” which is where you can store objects such as images until you are ready to place them in their appropriate place within the publication. When the “Scratch Area” setting is turned on, these objects will be displayed in this blank area around the page, despite which page you’re viewing within the publication. If you turn off the “Scratch Area”, this blank space will still be visible; however, your objects will not be visible in this area. On the right hand side of the screen and just below the publication area, you’ll see your scroll bars which allow you to move up and down or left to right within your publication. Finally, let’s takes a look at the Status Bar that is displayed at the bottom of the screen. On the left hand side, you’ll notice Page 1 of 1 displayed. As you add more pages to your publication and begin navigating through each one, this is a good reminder of where you are at within the publication. Notice though that if I click on Page 1 of 1, the Page pane we discussed earlier will disappear. If we click Page 1 of 1 again, the Page pane will reappear, so as you can see, this is just another quick way to open and close that pane, if needed. As your mouse moves around the document, the precise location of the mouse will be displayed in the status bar as well in the “Object Position” area of the status bar. Since we have no objects in position yet, it’s simply displaying the precise location of the mouse as we move it around. Clicking on the small XY or objective size icon in the status bar will bring up the measurements box. This box is helpful in displaying the measurements and precise location of a select object


Learn Publisher 2013 within the publication. Since we don’t have any objects displayed yet, notice that the box is empty. On the right hand side, there are two icons for viewing the document, the Single Page view (which is the default) and the two page spread view. To the right of these icons, you’ll notice what is called the Zoom Slider. The Zoom slider allows you to move the zoom slider bar to the left or right in order to zoom in and out of your publication. The percentage of your zoom is displayed to the right. Finally, the last icon in this status bar is displayed is the Show Whole Page icon. This allows you to automatically display the entire page within the screen. If at any time, you’d like to remove the options from the status bar, right-click your mouse in the status bar and select which item you’d like to remove. Now that you have a better understanding of the interface, let’s move on to learn how we can insert, delete, move, rename, and reorder pages within our publication.



Video: Insert, Move, Rename and Delete Pages There is a good chance that when you’re working with a new publication, you will need to insert, move, rename, reorder, or delete some of your pages. In this video, we’ll explore how to accomplish these tasks within Publisher 2013. In this video series, we will be creating a multi-page marketing flyer or brochure for the Gatesburg Country Club. This publication will have a front page, will open to a two page spread, and contain a back page. Currently, we only have one page in the publication, so we’ll need to add more. To insert additional pages, click on the Insert tab within the Ribbon. In the pages group, notice that there is a Page icon displayed with an arrow below it. If you were to click the top portion of this Page icon, a new blank page will be inserted after the current page. Clicking on the arrow below this icon will give you a few options. First, you can simply insert a new blank page like we just did. The second option is for you to insert a new page that is an exact duplicate as the page that is currently selected within the publication. In this case, since there isn’t anything displayed on our current page, the duplicate page will also be blank. Clicking on the last option, Insert Page…, will display the Insert Page dialog box. Within this dialog box, we can choose insert multiple new pages at the same time by specifying the amount in the Number of new pages box. Then, we can choose whether or not these new pages will be insert before the currently selected page or after. In this case, it doesn’t really matter since all of our pages are blank, so we’ll leave the default radio button selected. Under the Options heading, you can choose to have the new pages be blank, choose to insert them with on text box on each page, or insert the new pages will all objects on a specified page duplicated and displayed on the new pages. In this example, we’re going to stick with inserting new blank pages. Click OK when finished. Now that we have several pages within our publication, we may decide at some point that we’d like to change the order in which they appear in the publication. You can reorder your pages by left-clicking the page within the Page pane, holding your mouse button, and dragging the page to its new position. You’ll be able to notice where the page will be repositioned by noticing the thin bluish colored bar or line that displays underneath the other pages. Once that thin bar is position between the pages where you’d like to move the selected page, simply let go of the left mouse button. You can also choose to move or reorder the page by right-clicking on the page you’d like to move, select Move from the drop down list. Within the Move Page dialog box, good whether or not you’re moving the selected page before or after the page that you choose in the list provided. When finished, click the OK button. It’s important to keep in mind that you can select multiple pages to move at the same time using either the drag and drop method or by opening the Move Pages dialog box. Simply select all the pages you want to move before performing the drag and drop or opening the Move Pages dialog box. To select multiple pages, left click the first page, hold the CTRL key on your keyboard, and left click the next page. Continue this process until you have selected all pages to be moved.


Learn Publisher 2013 Each page within your publication can be given a name. In this case, we might want to name our pages things like GCC cover, GCC Inside Left, GCC Inside Right, and GCC Back. To rename a page, right click on that page and select Rename. In the Page title: box, type GCC Cover and click OK. Repeat this process until all of the pages have been renamed. Finally, you may find yourself needing to delete a page or multiple pages within your publication. To delete a single page, then you’ll only need to select a single page. Using the technique for selecting multiple pages that we discussed moments ago, you can choose to select multiple pages before right clicking on a selected page and choosing delete. Before we conclude this tutorial, it’s important to know that in any Microsoft Office product, there are usually several ways to accomplish the same task. Which method you use, is really a matter of your personal preference. With that being said, if you’d like to delete, move, or rename a page by selecting the corresponding button on the ribbon, you can do so by selecting the Page Design tab, and then selecting either Delete, Move, or Rename from the Pages group. Now that we have all four pages that we need in order to create our publication, let’s move on to learn techniques for viewing and navigating through our multi-page publication.



Video: Viewing and Navigating Pages In this video, we will explore the View tab in a bit more detail as well as other ways to navigate through your publication’s pages. When you’re working with your publication, it is likely that you’ll want to view it in many different ways, as one particular view doesn’t necessarily fit all of your needs. First, we will work with the Zoom feature. By default, you’ll be able to see your entire publication on your screen, but there may come a time, especially when you’re working with text, that you’ll want to view the elements of your publication a little bit closer. As mentioned previously, you can zoom in and out on your publication using the Zoom slider located in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. As you move the vertical bar on the zoom slider to the left or right, you will zoom out and in on your publication respectively. Rather than moving the vertical zoom bar within the slider, you can also click on the plus and minus signs to zoom your publication in or out in 10% increments. If at any point you’d like to view your entire page within the publication window, click the Show Whole Page icon to the right of the zoom slider to automatically take your zoom to 68%. You can also zoom in and out within your document by using the keyboard and a mouse with a scroll wheel. To zoom in on your publication, hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard while you move the scroll wheel on the mouse up. To zoom out, hold CTRL on your keyboard while you move the scroll wheel on the mouse down. The in and out zooming with this method will move in 20% increments. Additional zooming options can be found within the View tab on the ribbon. Click on the View tab and notice there is a Zoom group displayed. If you’d like to quickly move to a 100% zoom, you can click on the 100% button to do so quickly. If you’d like to view the whole page on the screen at 68% zoom, click the Whole page button. You can also choose a zoom percentage from the drop down list displayed in the Zoom group. The Page Width button will allow you to automatically zoom in on the publication far enough so that the width of the publication takes up the entire screen. For a letter sized document in a portrait orientation, that puts you at about a 122% zoom. For our publication, we’re going to stick to a whole page view for now; however, one thing that I’d like us to change is viewing our middle two pages of our publication as a two page spread. Right now, each page within the publication is displayed in a single page format within the workspace and the Page pane. Within the View tab, click the Two-Page Spread button within the Layout group. Within the Pages pane, you’ll notice that the middle two pages of the publication are now displayed as more of a two page spread. This is exactly what we want for our example. You can also view a two page spread by clicking on the shortcut button to the left of the zoom slider as well as right-clicking on a page within the Page pane and selecting the View Two Page Spread option from the drop down list. Now that we’ve taken a look at different ways to view our publication, let’s talk about navigating through a publication with multiple pages. As we discussed previous, the Pages pane can be used to jump from one page to another. In this example, if we wanted to look at the page cover of © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 our publication, we’d simply select the 4th page within the Pages pane. Navigating through the pages is as easy as clicking on the page within the pane. However, you may remember from a previous video that it is possible to hide the Pages pane so that you don’t have to see on the screen taking up space. It’s important to know that if you don’t like working within Publisher with the Pages pane always displayed, you do not need to open and close this pane every time you want to switch to another page. If you’d like to navigate to another page within the Publication without opening and close the pages pane repeatedly, you can use a keyboard shortcut. On your keyboard, press the CTRL and G (as in Go) key in order to open the Go To Page dialog box. Within this page, simply type the number of the page that you’d like to navigate to and click the Enter key on your keyboard or click the OK button with your mouse. The advantage of using this method of navigating to another page is that you can keep the Pages pane hidden and navigate to another page without ever requiring your hands to leave the keyboard. Now that we have a better understanding of how to view and navigate through our document, let’s take a look at how we can work with rulers, measurements, and guidelines within our publication.



Video: Rulers, Measurements, and Guidelines In this video, we will explore the use of the Publisher ruler and work with guidelines in our publication. When you open a new document, horizontal and vertical rulers should be displayed by default. If you do not see these rulers, you can turn them on by selecting the View tab in the ribbon and checking the box next to Rulers within the Show group. You could also right click within the scratch area or blank area outside of the publication and choose Rulers from the drop down list. The rulers are used to measure the placement of elements, such as shapes, text, and images, in your publication. Notice that the top left hand corner of the document is placed at the 0/0 intersection of the two rulers. If for any reason you wanted to change this setting, click and hold your left mouse button on the small square where the rulers come together and drag the ruler intersection into the document. The location where you let go of the left mouse button will be the new 0/0 intersection. To return these settings to their original state, simply click and drag the 0/0 intersection to the upper left hand corner of the page. If you’d like to move only one of the rulers closer to the page, hover your mouse over the ruler you’d like to move, hold the SHIFT key on your keyboard, and then drag and drop the ruler into its new position. You can do this with both the horizontal or vertical rulers independently, or as we talked about moments ago, you can move them both at the same time. You may still be wondering why rulers are so important. One answer to that question is that without the rulers showing you cannot draw guidelines, which will help you as your create your publication. Guidelines are temporary horizontal and vertical lines that display on your publication within Publisher, but are not displayed when the document is printed. Guidelines allow you to place elements in your document in an exact location. To insert a guideline, place your cursor on the vertical ruler, left-click your mouse button, and start to drag your cursor onto the document. Notice that as you move your mouse onto the document, a thin green line is displayed. Move this thin green line until you reach the 4 inch mark on the left facing page and then let go of the left mouse button. If you’re worried about putting the guideline in the precise location, don’t worry because as you can see in the status bar, the precise location of your mouse will be displayed. Should you want to move this guideline in the future, simply left-click on the line, and move your mouse to the left or right to place the guideline in a new location. You can duplicate a guideline by holding the CTRL key on your keyboard while you left click hold and drag your new guideline to a new location within the publication. If you’d like to place a guideline in a precise location, you can right click on the guideline and select Ruler Guides to display the Ruler Guides dialog box. In this box, you could type a precise location for the ruler guide, and then click the Set button. If you’d like to remove any existing guide, you could simply select it within the list and then click the Clear button. Click OK when finished.


Learn Publisher 2013 To delete a guideline, simply right-click on the guideline and select Delete Guideline from the drop down menu. Another advantage of using these guidelines is that when you add elements to your document, they will “snap” to the guideline and perfectly line up with it and we’ll talk more about that feature in a later video. This concludes our tutorial on rulers and guidelines. In subsequent videos, the practical use of these features will become clearer as we start to add elements to our page, so be sure to stay tuned!



Video: Establishing Business Information In this video, we will configure our business information with Microsoft Publisher 2013. Business information sets are customized groups of information about an individual or an organization that can be used to quickly fill in placeholders within publications – like business cards and flyers. This business information set might include information such as a name, address, phone, email address, tagline, or logo. When using Publisher 2013, it’s important to keep in mind that you are not stuck with a single set of business information, as you can create as many sets as needed. It’s important to keep in mind those that when you create a new publication, the business information that you used most recently is used to populate the new publication, so you may need to change which set is currently being used. We can establish our business information with Publisher’s Backstage view by clicking on the File tab on the Ribbon. Then, select the Info option from the left hand menu, if necessary. The default business information set will be displayed. In this case, generic information is being used as a placeholder. Let’s click the Edit Business Information button to get started. The Create New Business Information Set dialog box will be displayed. At this time, you can include as much or as little information about the individual or organization as possible. In this example, I’m going to include the information for the Gatesburg Country Club. When I’m finished including all of this information, I can also choose to upload the GCC logo by clicking on the Add logo button and then searching my computer for the appropriate log. Before saving this information, it’s a good idea to give the Business Information set a unique and concise (yet descriptive) name. This is especially important if you plan to have multiple sets of business information. When finished, click the Save button. Then, click Update Publication. Now, if you’d like to edit or delete this business set, simply click the Edit Business Information button again. Within the dialog box, choose either the edit or delete button. At this point, since a business set already exists, if you wanted to establish a different set, you could click the New button within the dialog box and follow the steps discussed earlier in this tutorial. When finished, click the Update Publication or Close buttons. Click the Left Arrow to return to the publication. The business information set will now be used when you create a publication based off of a template that automatically includes business information. You can also choose to include the business set manually within a new blank publication. In our example, let’s navigate to Page 4. Click on the Insert table and click the Business Information button within the Text group. A drop down gallery of business information will be displayed. You have the option of choose any single field or address block to be included in the publication or you can choose a preformatted block from the bottom of the gallery. Let’s choose to include the Convention business information set from the gallery. We’ll adjust this block as we move through the series, but let’s leave it as is for now. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Now that we’ve established and inserted our business information, let’s take a look at some of Publisher’s most popular options and preferences.



Video: Setting Preferences In this video, we will explore some of the popular options and preferences available when using Publisher 2013. To access the Publisher Options area, you must access the Backstage View by clicking on the File tab within the ribbon. The, from the left-hand menu, select Options at the bottom of the list. The Publisher Options dialog box will be displayed. These options or preferences generally change the way in which Publisher, the application, behaves rather than options for the current publication that is open. We’re going to review some of the most popular options by working out way through the menu on the left hand side. In the General area, you have the option to disable the screen tips that are displayed when you hover over a button within the ribbon. Once you become familiar with Publisher, you can certainly disable these screen tips so that they aren’t always popping up on you; however, I would say that it’s a best practice to leave them active so that you can find out more information about a command. In the general area, you can also change the username and initials for this copy of Microsoft Publisher. In our example, if we’d like to change the username and initials to John Smith and JSS, we can do so fairly easily by typing that information into the boxes provided. Office 2013 products allow users to change the office background and also to apply a theme. The theme will essentially add a design element to the background of the application such as circle and stripes, doodles, clouds and so on. Next, let’s take a look at our proofing options. Within the proofing section, let’s click the AutoCorrect Options button to take a look at how Publisher corrects and formats text as we type. Notice within the new dialog box under the AutoCorrect tab, there are a few options available. When these boxes are selected, the setting is enabled. For instance, when you accidentally type two capital letters together in the same word within a text box, Publisher will automatically correct this instance between it is most likely unintentional. Publisher will also capitalize the first letter of sentences, the first letter of table cells, and the names of days. If you start typing and the CAPS LOCK key has been activated, Publisher will correct your text if it recognizes the first letter as being lowercase and the rest as being uppercase. As you can see the setting “Replace text as you type” is also displayed. Let’s explore what this means. In the list below, you can see two columns, Replace and With. In the replace column, you’ll notice that there is a long list of words that have been misspelled. In the With column for each of those words, the correct spelling of the word is displayed. This means that as you type a word incorrectly in the way that is displayed in the Replace column, Publisher will recognize the error and replace the word as you type. For example, I happen to be a very fast typist; however, sometimes when I get on a roll I can make a few common mistakes. I often times can type “teh” instead of “the” for the word “the”. If I scroll down this list, I bet that we’ll find “teh”. Notice that “teh” is in fact displayed in the list. That’s because, I’m not alone in this common mistake. People will often accidentally type “teh” instead of “the”, so Publisher makes this change for us as we type. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


It’s important to recognize that the AutoCorrect feature can be used for more than just correcting spelling; it can be used as a shortcut as well. If I’d like Publisher to automatically take every instance of GCC and fully spell out Gatesburgh Country Club, then I can type GCC in the replace box and then Gatesburg Country Club in the With box, and click the Add button. GCC has been added to the list. So, let’s take a moment to see what this actually did for us. I’m going to click OK a few times to move out of the dialog boxes for a moment. I’m going to zoom in on the document and insert a text box so I can begin typing GCC so that you can see what happens. So notice that when I’ve typed GCC, nothing has happened… but watch the change that occurs when I click a space bar to continue typing additional text. Voila! The text GCC has been replaced with the full text of Gatesburg Country Club. If you find yourself wanting to save yourself time by using this feature, it’s definitely worth exploring. Now it is important to mention that EVERY time you type GCC in Publisher 2013, the text will be changed automatically to Gatesburg Country Club. If that’s what you want to happen 99% of the time, that’s great… but what about that 1% of the time that you actually want to display GCC? Well, once text has been AutoCorrected within a publication, a small blue line will be displayed under the G. Click on this blue line and choose the option, “Change back to GCC” from the drop down list. Let’s go back to the Publisher Option area to continue our tour. Now, I’m going to click on the Save option from the left hand menu. In this area, you can change the AutoRecovery save option. In most Microsoft Office products, an automatic “save” is happening in the background every 10 minutes so that if you lose power to your computer or your computer freezes, the next time you open the application, a saved copy of the document can be retrieved. If you do not want the save to happen every 10 minutes, you can adjust this time to whatever you’d like. Now, let’s explore the Advanced section. Within this section, let’s scroll down to the Display heading. Within this heading, note that you can change the amount of publication that will display in the Recent Publications area that was discussed in a previous video. If you’d like to make the list smaller or larger, you can change the number displayed. You can also choose how many unpinned recent folders that are displayed as well. By default, Publisher will display measurements in inches, if you’d like to change this setting, you can choose a different options from the drop down list provided. In this example, we’ll leave the default of “inches” as our selection. In the Customize Ribbon section, we can customize the ribbon with additional tabs, groups, and commands. If there are commands that I often use, I can choose to create a new Tab called “Nikke” by clicking New Tab. Then, I’ll select the new tab and click the Rename button. Then, I can rename the group as well. I’m going to rename this group “My Favorites”. Now, I can add any commands that I’d like from the list on the left hand side to the custom tab and group that I just created. I’m going to add a few random commands just for demonstration purposes. Finally, if I’d like to add additional groups into this tab, I can do so using the same steps from before. In © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 this case, I’d just like to move the new tab to the end of the ribbon, so I’ll select it in the last and click the down arrow until the new tab is positioned where I want it. Since we’ve taken a look at everything we’re going to explore in the options area, as we’ve already talked about the Quick Access Toolbar during the interface overview, I’m going to click OK so that we can see the new tab within the Ribbon. Notice now that a tab called Nikke displays within the ribbon. When I click on this tab, notice that there is a group called My Favorites that contains the icons for all of the commands that I added in the Options area. Now that you’ve had a chance to explore some of the popular options and preferences for Microsoft Publisher, let’s explore how to save our publication in the next video so that we don’t lose any of the work that we’ve done so far.



Video: Saving Your Publication In this video, we’ll explore a few methods for saving a publication. As mentioned previously, there are usually several ways to accomplish the same task when using Microsoft Publisher or any Microsoft Office product for that matter. You can save your publication by either selecting the Save button within the Quick Access Toolbar, by pressing CTRL + S on your keyboard, or by selecting the File tab, and selecting Save. Now, because we have not saved our publication at this point, we will be asked to choose a location in which to save this file as well as name to assign to it. In this case, we’re going to name the new publication GCC_LaborDayEvent_Flyer-03302013 and save it to the desktop of the computer. So, I’m going to choose Computer from the list provided and then select Desktop. If Desktop is not available in my Recent Folders area, I would have clicked on the browse button. As a best practice, it is a good idea to omit spaces when naming files and it’s also important to follow some kind of naming convention so that your files are easily to differentiate and find. For me, I’ve chosen to put the company name first, then a concise description of the publication, and then I chose to put the date last. When working with any kind of file, I often place the date at the end so that I know when the file was last updated. However, this is a matter of personal preference and part of my workflow, so don’t worry if you choose to do something different. When finished, the publication has been saved. Now when we save the document in the future using one of the methods described earlier in the video, we will not have to choose a location and name for the file. If you would like to save a copy of the publication with a new location and file name, you would want to click the File tab and choose the Save As option. Then, repeat the steps of picking a file location and name like we did earlier. If you’ve noticed the SkyDrive option as we’ve worked through the videos of this chapter, you may have become curious as to what this feature is all about. As the last video of this series, we’ll take a look at how to configure a SkyDrive account and explore what it is and why we would want to use it.



Chapter 2 – Working with Text Video: Inserting a Text Box Although publications tend to be highly visual, it is important to include some text elements in your flyers, postcards, business cards, or any other type of publication. All text within a publication must be placed inside of a frame or textbox. One of the easiest ways to get started with adding text to your publication is to just begin typing. For example, I’m going to select page 1, scroll in on the top of the page, and begin typing some placeholder text. Notice that as I began typing my placeholder text, a text box that takes up the entire size of the page is inserted into the publication. I didn’t have to add this text box in order for it to appear, I simply began typing my text. For our example, I’m going to remove the text that I just typed into the default, full size text box because it’s quite possible that because you aren’t going to fill most pages within a publication with pure text which means that a text box that takes up the entire page might not be what you’re looking for. When you insert a text box yourself, you can determine how large that text box will be. To get started, click on the Insert tab. Within the Text group, click on the Draw Text Box button. Notice that your cursor changes to a cross. This is an indication that you are ready to draw the text box within the publication’s page. To draw the text box, I’m going to left click within the page, hold down the mouse button, and drag my mouse until the outline of the new text box is approximately the size that I’d like it to be. The size doesn’t have to be perfect when you’re drawing it because we can easily adjust it at a later time. When you let go of the mouse button, you’ll notice that a text box, much like the text box we saw earlier (but a bit smaller) is displayed. If you’d like to add text to the box, simply ensure your insertion point is inside of it and begin typing. In this example, we’re going to put the text “1st Annual Gatesburg Country Club Golf Scramble” Then, we’d like to put the date for this event underneath the text we just included, so we’ll go ahead and insert a hard return by pressing enter on our keyboard and typing Labor Day Weekend 2013. When you’re finished typing within the text box, you’d simply click outside of the box somewhere in the publication. Now, chances are this text does not look exactly the way that you want it to within the text box. We’re going to explore character formatting options a bit later, but for now, let’s take a look at the text fit and text direction options. In order to take a look at these options, we’ll have to select the Format contextual tab that displays on the ribbon when a text box is selected. Select the text box, if necessary and select the Format tab. Within the Text group all the way to the left of the Ribbon, click on the Text Fit button to take a look at several options. By default, the option is set to Do Not Autofit for this textbox, but let’s take a look at what happens if we click on the BestFit option. As soon as we click on that option, the font within our textbox is resized so that it fits perfectly within our textbox. This means that if we were to change the size of the textbox to be either bigger or smaller, then that font size would


Learn Publisher 2013 automatically change as well – this is not a typical occurrence – only when the Best Fit option is selected, will this change happened. The next option is called “Shrink Text on Overflow” – What this means is that if we keep the size of the text box unchanged; however, we decide to add so much text to the textbox that we run out of room, then the text within the text box will change to a smaller font. Again, this is not a typical behavior of a textbox and only occurs when this setting is active. The next option is “Grow Text Box to Fit” – this means that if we decide to add so much text to the textbox that we run out of room, then the text box will grow in size in order to accommodate the text. For our example, we’re simply going to select the Do Not AutoFit option. Now let’s take a look at the Text Direction button. If we select a text box and click the Text Direction button within the Text group, notice that the text will change its direction by 90 degree to the right. If we click it again, the text will change back to the way it was. Since publications are often highly designed and visually appealing, changing the text direction can add to the visual appeal of your publication. Keep in mind that editing and deleting text within a text box in publication is much like editing text within any other Microsoft Office product or even an email application. If we’d like to edit the text, we would simply left click inside the textbox and make our changes. If we need to delete text within the box, we would select the text to be deleted and hit backspace on our keyboard. If you’d like to delete a textbox altogether, simply click the outside border for the textbox and click delete on the keyboard. Now that we have a better understanding of how to get started with using text boxes, let’s dive in a bit further into our so we can format the text box and the font within it.



Video: Formatting the Text Box Once you have inserted a textbox within Publisher, you can choose to format that text box by changing the fill and outline color and type for the box as well as apply effects to the text box shape such as a bevel, a glow, or shadow. Although you might not apply all of these formatting changes to every single text box within your publication, we’ll review how to go about making these formatting changes. Let’s start by selecting the text box on the first page of the Gatesburg Country Club four page brochure. Once you have selected any object within publisher, you’ll notice that object’s contextual tabs will display. These tabs are only relevant to a text box; therefore, there is no use displaying them unless you have a textbox selected – hence the name contextual tabs. With the text box selected let’s click on the Drawing Tools Format tab within the Ribbon. Within this tab, you may notice a group called Shape Styles. If you click on the “More” button where the Shape Style gallery is displayed, you’ll notice that there are many different pre-formatted “Shape Styles” available that you can apply quickly to your text box, which is essentially a shape. Notice that as you hover over a shape style within the gallery, you get a live preview of what that style will look like on the selected text box within the publication. Chances are that there are plenty of times that you’ll find that none of the gallery options are what you need for your publication. So, you do have the option of changing the fill color and type of the shape as well as the color and type of the outline of the shape. So, in this case if we’d like the text box to be filled with a green color, then we can click on the Shape Fill button and select a color option from the color gallery provided. Now, there are a lot of different things that you can do with colors; however, we’ll discuss that more in a later video. In this instance, we just want to get an idea of how a fill color can be quickly applied to your text box. If you’d like a different color to be placed around the outline of the shape, click the Shape Outline button and select your desired color. In this case, I’m going to pick a medium grayish color. The last formatting option that we’re going to briefly explore is the Shape Effects button. Let’s click that button to see what our options are here. Notice that a gallery of options are displayed including a shadow, reflection, glow, soft edges, bevel, and 3D rotation effects. I’m going to move through each of these options, so that you can see the difference that they make to the text box. > Now that we have a basic understanding of the different ways in which we can format our text box, let’s take a look at how we can format the text within the box so that it is attractive and easy to read.



Video: Character Formatting Options Formatting text within your publication is very important. You’ll want to make sure that you use a font that works well in the design of your publication and that it is a color that you can read. There are other considerations to take into account such as font alignment, text box margins, and other font effects. Let’s get started by changing the font type and size within our text box. Since the text box that we created in a previous video contains the title and purpose of the publication, it would be a good idea to make sure that this font is attractive, readable, and prominent on the text box. To change the font type, select the text within the text box, and then choose a new font from the Font drop down menu, located within the font group within the Format contextual tab. You’ll notice that as you scroll through the font type drop down menu and hover your mouse over the different types of fonts, you’ll see a live preview within the document of what your text will look like with this new font. Once you’ve decided on the font that you like, click on it within the list in order to apply it to your text. In this example, I’m going to select Myriad Pro Light from the drop down list. In addition to changing the font type, you can also change the font size by selecting a size from the font size drop down menu. You also have the option of changing the font size to a specific number by typing it into the font size box. Click the big A button to the right of this box will increase the font size and clicking the small A button to the right will decrease the font size. Just below the font type and size formatting options, you’ll not additional font effects as well. Clicking the B, I, or U buttons will change your font to Bold, Italics, or Underline the text. Next, you’ll notice that there are two X buttons – one with a 2 at the bottom of the x and one with a 2 at the top of the x. The x with a 2 at the bottom is for creating a “subscript” which creates small text that appears below the font line. Just as an example, I’ll change the 2013 in the second line within our text box to subscript and notice how it appears. TO return the text box to its original state, I would simply select the subscript button again. The x with the a 2 at the top is for creating a “superscript” which creates small text that appears above the font line. In this example, I would actually want to select the “st” after the 1 in the top line of the text box and change that to superscript. The next button that we’ll explore is the Change Case button which is to the right of the sub and super script buttons with a big A and little a. When you click on this button, notice that you have three options. First, you can choose to apply the “normal” case to your text. By selecting some of your text and choose the second option, Small Caps, you will be changing your selected text to all capital letters; however, the first letter in the word will be slightly larger and the rest of the word slightly smaller. Let’s change the second line in the textbox to Small Caps in this example. The second option, All Caps, will change all of your selected text to capital letters. Of course, selecting the first option will change your text back to a normal case. The next character formatting option is the character spacing button which is the AV button with a left and right arrow displayed below the text. Clicking on this button allows you to choose how far apart the text that you have selected will be spaced. In this example, I’m going to select the © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 Labor Day Weekend 2013 text on the second line of the text box. With this text selected, I’m going to select the character spacing button and show you how each option looks in the live preview. If you find that the character spacing that is available by default in the drop down menu is not what you need, you can select the More Spacing option from the drop down menu. Within the Character Spacing dialog box, you can choose a scaling percentage in order to shrink to stretch the selected text. For demonstration purposes, I will increase the scaling and click Apply so that the results can be viewed within the publication’s page. Tracking will adjust the spacing between all text characters. Keep in mind that tracking is available only if you are working on a print publication. Let’s increase the tracking percentage for our example and click apply when we’re finished. Kerning will fine tune the spacing between two characters. You can choose whether you would like to expand or condense the text from the drop down menu and then choose the amount by which you would like to condense or expand in the text box provided. Publisher will automatically kern text pairs sized at 14 points or higher as text below 12 points usually doesn’t need to be kerned. You can change this setting however by changing the 14pt in the text box provided to another number and then clicking Apply. In this example, we’re going to leave the all settings except for the tracking settings at the default settings and click OK when we’re finished. Now that we have made some changes to our text, it would be a good idea to align the text within our textbox. Within the Textbox Tools Format tab, there is alignment group that allows you to choose the horizontal and vertical alignment of text within a text box. Notice that there are nine options for alignment. Text can be aligned in the top, bottom, center, left, right, or center of the textbox with any combination of horizontal or vertical alignment. In our example, let’s take a look at some of our alignment options by selecting the text within the textbox and then clicking on a few different alignment options. Let’s settle on the option that is smack dab in the middle called “Align Center” which causes the text within the textbox to be aligned in the center of the textbox vertically and horizontally. Now that the text is center aligned within the text box, it looks a lot more visually appealing so that the empty space of the box is evenly distributed around the text. The last thing we’ll take a look at in this tutorial is a change in the font color of our text. To change the color of our font, simply select the text and then select the arrow to the right of the A button within the Font group, which is the Font Color button. When you click on this button, you will see a gallery of available colors. Within this gallery, you can hover your mouse over the colors to see a live preview of what the text will look like within the textbox. In this example, we’re going to choose a gray color that is similar to the outline color that way we’ll have color


Learn Publisher 2013 consistency. Keep in mind that once we learned more about colors in depth in another chapter, we may decide to change these colors later on. Now that you have a better understanding of how to format the characters or text within your textbox, let’s explore how we can create, apply, and manage font schemes within our publication.



Video: Working with Font Schemes When you apply a font scheme, Publisher will change the styles in your publication to use one of the two fonts in the font scheme instead of the default or applied fonts in the publication. You can select options to control which text attributes, such as font and font size, will change when you apply a font scheme. To get started, let’s select the text within the textbox. Then, select the Page Design tab within the Ribbon. Notice that within the Schemes group, there is a Fonts button. By clicking on the Fonts button, you’ll notice that a list of predefined font schemes that are available for this publication. As you hover your mouse over the list, you’ll notice in the Live Preview that the fonts are applied to the text within the textbox. These font schemes are designed to use different fonts that complement each other. Applying these font schemes can help us to quickly apply different, complimentary fonts to our publication. If you right-click your mouse on one of the available schemes, you will be presented with two options. If you’d like to duplicate the scheme with a new name, you do have that option. If you’re interested in using this scheme often and applying it to many different instances of text within your publication, you may want to choose the option that allows you to add the scheme to the Quick Access toolbar. If you’re interested in saving your own font scheme, you can do so by selecting that option within the Font Scheme gallery menu. Before we go that far, let’s change the font of the second line of the text box to Trajan Pro so that we are working with two different fonts within our publication. Be sure to adjust the font size of the text as you’ll notice that the displayed size of one font at 12 points can be larger or smaller than the displayed size of another font at 12 points. Next, let’s select the options to Create a New Font Scheme from the Font Scheme gallery drop down list within the Page Design tab in the Schemes group on the Ribbon. The Create new font scheme dialog box will display. In this dialog box, we can choose to change the Heading font to match our text box font which is Myriad Pro Light. Then, we can change the body font to Trajan Pro. Before clicking save, it’s important to give the new scheme a name, such as GCC. When finished, click the Save button to continue. Now, the font scheme will display in the gallery and can be applied to text in the future. Applying a font scheme can be a real time saver, so it’s worth the time up front to create the scheme if you think you’ll use it a decent amount in the future.



Video: Importing Text from Word In this video, we will explore ways to import text from a Word file into Microsoft Publisher. It’s quite possible that part of your workflow is to create the content for your publication in a Word document. One of the reasons that this might be the case is that you may need to share the content of the publication with other individuals that do not have Microsoft Publisher on their computer. Whatever the reason may be, getting that content into Microsoft Publisher from Microsoft Word is a pretty easy process. We’re going to take a look at two different approaches. First, there is the option of doing a straightforward copy and paste from Word into Publisher. In this case, you have to make sure that you have both Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft Word open. Notice that I have a Word document containing placeholder text, which is what I’m going to use for our example flyer. The main advantage of simply copying and pasting your content from Word into Publisher is that you can decide how much text to bring in from the Word document. If you have a situation where you only want to bring in a subset of the text within the document, you can choose what to select and what to copy. IN the Word document, I’m going to select all of the text which I can do quickly by typing CTRL A on my keyboard. Then, I’m going to press CTRL C to copy the text. Then, I’ll either close or minimize the Word window so that I can maximize the Publisher window. Within the Publisher window, simply click inside of the publication and press CTRL V on the keyboard. Notice that the text has been pasted into the publication. Another option for importing text into Publication from Word is to conduct an import using the Insert File button. Let’s take a look at this option by selecting the Insert tab and then clicking on the Insert File button within the Text group. Then, locate the file that is stored on your local computer and double-click on it. Depending on the size of the Word document, it might take a moment before the text is inserted. Notice now that text has been imported. I prefer this method for importing text into my publication from Word, especially when I’m importing all of the text and not just a subset. I like this method because there is no need for me to go through the steps of opening another application, such as Word, and then selecting the text, copying it, then closing Word, then opening Publisher. This method, in my opinion, is pretty straightforward. However, the good news is that you can accomplish the same task in different ways and which method you use it completely up to you and your personal preference! Before we move on to the next tutorial, I do want to point out that there is an additional way to complete the process of importing text from Word that we just demonstrated – that you might find even faster. I’m going to delete the text that is in the publication now so that I can demonstrate.


Learn Publisher 2013 If you’d like to import your text from Word, instead of using the Insert File option from the Ribbon, you can right click on the text box and choose Change Text from the drop down menu. Then, from the submenu, select Text File and then double click on the file once you’ve located it on your computer. Notice that all of the text within the Word document has been imported much like the process we demonstrated moments ago. Now that we have more text within our document, let’s move on to the next video and take a look at how this text can be formatted into columns!



Video: Working with Columns In this video, we will create columns within our document in order to organize our text. Let’s take a look at the text box that is located on Page 2 of our publication. Notice that this text box is filled with placeholder text from the exercises performed in a previous video. So, at this point let’s say that we’d like to break our text up into columns so that it is a bit easier to read. First, select the text box within page 2. The, select Format tab, and in the Alignment group, select the Columns button. When you select the Columns button, you’ll notice that you have a couple of options. The default option is for your text to be placed within a text box with only one column and as you can see, the one column option is selected. Notice that you can also quickly apply two or three columns to the text box of your publication as well. For our example, I’m going to select the Three Column option from the drop down menu. Notice that three uniform columns have been created within our publication. At this point, we can see that our text does not completely fill three columns. That’s ok, because we actually want to change the font type and font size of this text anyway. Let’s change the font type to Arial and the font size to 12. Keep in mind that you can quickly select all of the text within a text frame by clicking CTRL A on your keyboard. Then, we’re going to change the font and its size by working within the Font group in the Home tab. It’s important to note that since we selected the three column option, no matter how big or small we make the text frame, the three column format will NOT change. As I resize the text box, notice that the column format stays intact. If there are things that you’d like to change about your column setup, such as changing the space between the columns which can sometimes be called a “gutter”, we must access the column options dialog box. Let’s do so by clicking on the Text Box Tools Format tab, select the Columns button in the Alignment group, and then selecting More Columns from the drop down list. Within this box, notice that we have two options. If we wanted to change the number of columns, we can do so by increasing or decreasing the number shown. It’s important to note that since the options in the Columns drop down menu only go up to 3, that if you wanted to include additional columns, then you would have to use this box. Finally, the other option is for spacing. If you wanted to increase the space between columns in the text box or frame, then click the up arrow in order to increase the space. If you wanted to decrease the space, simply click the down arrow. Of course, if you have a very specific spacing size that you’d like to use, you could always click inside of the Spacing box and type your desired spacing. When finished, click the OK button. This concludes our look into creating columns within our publication. Keep in mind that creating columns could make the text in your document easier to read, so think about whether or not they would be useful to use in your publication. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Video: Setting Paragraphs and Line Spacing Options In this video, we will explore the paragraph settings and line spacing options that are available within Publisher 2013. When you adjust the paragraph spacing within your publication, you are increasing or decreasing the space that exists between paragraphs when you create a hard return by pressing the Enter key on your keyboard. It’s important to find a paragraph spacing setting that works for your publication. If you don’t have enough paragraph spacing between your paragraphs, then your text could be hard to read and it could be difficult to differentiate between the paragraphs altogether. If you have too much spacing between your paragraphs, then you may create a lot of extra white space that the viewers of your publication may find strange. Also, you’d be taking up an awful lot of room that you could be using for providing useful information! If you’d like to change the line spacing for one particular paragraph, you first need to select the paragraph. The fastest way to select a paragraph within Publisher 2013, is to triple click your left mouse button within the paragraph. You may be familiar with a “double-click” of the mouse, so in this case we want to be sure that we’re clicking three times quickly. Once you have the paragraph selected, select the Home tab, and in the Paragraph group, select the Paragraph spacing button in the bottom right hand corner of the group. The drop down menu provides several options for quickly applying preset spacing to your paragraph. Notice how the text in the publication changes as I hover over the options. In this case, if we’d like to make specific paragraph spacing changes, we may need to access the Paragraph dialog box. To do so, select that option from the drop down menu. Within the dialog box, under the Line Spacing heading, notice that you can not only set the spacing that occurs after a paragraph (like we were seeing in the preview a few moments ago) but you can also set the spacing before a paragraph as well. If you’d like to increase the spacing, use the up arrows or type the value within the box. If you’d like to decrease, you can choose to use the down arrows or type the value within the box. When finished, click OK. Another paragraph setting that can be changed is the Paragraph indentation. Whether or not you want to use indentation within your publication is up to you. In our example, we’re going to apply paragraph indentation to all paragraphs within this text box. So we’re going to select the text using the CTRL A shortcut, then within the Paragraph group, we’re going to click the Increase Indent Position button. Notice that all paragraphs have been indented within out text frame. If we wanted to decrease the indent and return our paragraphs back to normal, then we would click on the Decrease Indent Position button. You may have notice that the indentation happened at a half an inch increment. Publisher by default will increase or decrease the indent at this setting; however, you can change the indent if you’d like. To do so, we have to go back to the Paragraph dialog box that we took a look at earlier. Let’s click on the More button that is located in the bottom right corner of the Paragraph group.


Learn Publisher 2013 In this box, we have a few options. First, we can determine that paragraphs will be set at by default in the preset dialog box. By default, paragraphs are flush with the left side. If we select the drop down menu, notice that you have a few options. 1st line indent will indent the first line of each paragraph and then leave the remaining lines flush left. This is a fairly common setting – one that you see often in books, magazines, and other publications. The hanging indent option will leave the first line in Flush Left and the rest of the lines indented by half an inch. This is the format this is most often used when creating a reference for a bibliography, although I’m sure there are other uses for it as well. The next option is for a quotation, which will indent the left and right sides of all of the lines within the paragraph in order for it to stand out. Of course, you can choose custom and adjust you the left, right, and first line indent options as you’d like. When you’re finished, click the OK button. Line spacing determines the amount of space between lines of a paragraph. If you’d like to change the line spacing of your text, first select the text, then select the Home tab, and in the Paragraph group, select the Line Spacing button. Much like the paragraph spacing button, when you click on the Line Spacing button, you’ll see a few options for line spacing such as 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, and 3. If you’d like to apply one of those to your selected lines, then you would simply select it from the drop down menu. If you’d like to look at the line spacing options, you would select the Line Spacing Options. Under the Line Spacing heading that we discussed a few minutes ago, notice that there is an option that says “between lines” – this is the option that we would want to change if we were interested in changing the line spacing for our publication. Once you’ve made your changes, you can select OK. The last settings that we’ll take a look at are the two other options that were displayed when we clicked on the Line Spacing button. Those options were Align to Baselines and Baseline Guides. Let’s go ahead and select Baseline Guides. Baseline guides are guides to which lines of text can be aligned to provide a uniform appearance between columns of text. You can set text to align to the baseline guides for a selected paragraph or in the paragraph settings for a style – which we’ll talk about in a future tutorial. When you choose to align text to the baseline (which is an invisible line on which a line of type rests), line spacing equal to the spacing of the baseline guides is added and the text is aligned along the baseline of the guide. We can set the baseline in the Layout Guides box that is provided. Notice that by default, my baseline guides are sit to 11 point and you can see a preview on the right hand side. Notice that the preview changes as I increase the spacing and of course, it decreases when I decrease the number. Once you’ve got the baseline set to where you want it to be, click the OK button. Next, you can choose to align text with the baseline by selecting the text, clicking on the Line Spacing button, and then clicking on Align to Baselines. Now that we have a better idea of the paragraph settings and line spacing options available within Publisher, let’s move on to the next tutorial where we discuss the insertion of hyperlink text.



Video: Inserting Hyperlink Text In this video, we will explore how to include a text hyperlink within Publisher 2013. Hyperlinks allow users to click on text within a publication that will take them to another place in the document, create a new email message, or direct them to a website. It’s important to note that when you’re using Microsoft Publisher, because utilizing text hyperlink requires a use to click on the hyperlink, then it really only makes sense to create hyperlinks in publications that will be shared electronically. Creating a hyperlink is easy. If you’d like to create a hyperlink, first select the text that you would like to be clickable within the publication, if you have it typed already. Then, click the Insert table and within the Links group, select the Hyperlink button. The Insert Hyperlink dialog box will be displayed. On the left hand side, by default the hyperlink option “Existing File or Web Page” will be selected. If you’d like the link to open up a file on your computer, then you could navigate through the folders displayed until you found the file. It’s important to note though that it’s unlikely you would hyperlink to a file that is on your computer since you’ll be sharing a publication with people that don’t have access to this file. In this case, we want to place our insertion point in the Address box and type the URL of where we’d like to send our users to when they click on the hyperlink text. In this case, we’ll send them to www.gatesburgcountryclub.com. If we were finished, we would click OK. Before we do that; however, we’re going to take a look at a few other hyperlink options. I’m going to select the Place in This Document button on the left hand side. Notice in this area, we could choose to select an option of taking the user to the first, last, next, or previous page within the publication. You could also choose an existing page within the publication from the list as well. Next, let’s click on the Create New Document option. When you choose this option, when a hyperlink is clicked, Publisher will open a new blank document with a name that you specify in the text box provided on this page. You can also choose where this file will be saved by clicking on the Change button and choosing a location. You also have the option of whether or not the new document will be edited at a later time, or when it is initially created. The last option is Email Address. When you fill out the email address and subject in this area, then your user’s default email program will be opened when they click on the hyperlink text and the To: and Subject: fields will be automatically populated. Often times, people will create hyperlink text for an email address that is part of the contact information of a business card, flyer, brochure, or other types of similar publications that will be viewed electronically. Now that’s we’re finished, go ahead and click the OK button. Now that we have a better understanding of how to insert hyperlink text within Publisher, let’s take a look at the next tutorial where we’ll discuss inserting special and break characters into our publication.



Video: Inserting Special and Break Characters In this video, we will explore the steps necessary to insert special characters and break characters into our publication. Because Publisher is often used by businesses and organizations for their publications, there may come a time when you need to insert text that falls into the category of a special character. Examples of special characters include the copyright, registered, and trademark symbols. In our example, we’re going to activate our text frame on Page 1 that contains the Gatesburg Country Club name and place a registered symbol after it. Place your insertion point after the “b” in Club. Select the Insert tab and within the Text group, select the Symbol button. In the drop down menu, commonly used symbols or special characters will be displayed. Since we can see the R for the registered symbol, go ahead and select from the drop down menu. Notice that it has been inserted within our publication. It’s important to note that a lot of these symbols has a keyboard shortcut, so if you think you’ll insert this special character often, it would be a good idea to memorize the keyboard shortcut in order to avoid the lengthy process of inserting a special character using the menu. The keyboard shortcut for the registered symbol is ( R ). If you come across a situation where you need to insert a special character or symbol that is not displayed in the drop down list we just explored, select the Symbol button again, and then click More Symbols. I list of symbols will be displayed. You can scroll through the list until you find the symbol that should be used in your publication. Also, you can click on the Special Characters tab within the dialog box to take a look at an easier to read list of popular special characters. When finished, click the Insert or Cancel button. Next, we’ll take a look at Break characters. Break characters allow you organize text by forcing breaks in locations of your choosing. First, let’s talk about the hyphenation settings within your publication. By default, each story or text frame within your publication is going to allow for words to be hyphenated if they cannot fit completely within a line. If you’d like to change this option, select the text box and then select the Text Box Tools Format contextual tab and within the Text group, click the Hyphenation button. Within this text box, you can choose to unselect the box that says Automatically Hyphenate this story. Publisher is automatically hyphenating the story within the text box based on grammatical rules and the distance of the hyphenation zone which is the amount of space to leave between the end of the last word in a line and the right margin. You can also choose to increase or decrease the hyphenation zone using the box provided. If you’d like to reduce the number of hyphens, then make the hyphenation zone wider. To reduce the raggedness of the right margin, make the hyphenation zone narrower. If you’d like to manually insert a hyphen into a selected word, regardless of where it appears within the textbox, you can select the manual button. In order to demonstrate a couple of other features, I’m going to unselect the box the automatically hyphenate this story box and then click the OK button. Next, we’ll talk about insert nonbreaking spaces and nonbreaking hyphens. There are times when you’re working within your publication and you’ll want to control how text wraps at the end of a © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 line. For example, if you’d like to ensure that Gatesburg Country Club is always on the same line, the last think you want to do is insert a hard return or break into the text box by clicking the Enter button on your keyboard. If you do this and you later shift your text and Gatesburg Country Club could have appeared on the same line, then it will still be on a lower line because of the hard return. To prevent words from being broken up between lines within Publisher, you’ll want to first turn on the Paragraph marks within the publication by clicking on the Paragraph button located within the Home tab, in the Paragraph group. You’ll want to delete the space that currently exists between the words Gatesburg and Country. Then, press CTRL+SHIFT+SPACEBAR and you’ll notice that a small circle is placed between the two words. This is the paragraph mark that indicates a nonbreaking space. I’m going to repeat this process for the space between Country and Club. Now, when I adjust my text box so that Gatesburg Country Club cannot fit on its current line, you’ll notice that all three words remain unbroken and moved to the lower line. The same concept occurs when you use a nonbreaking hyphen. If you have a hyphenated word or number that cannot be separated by a line break, insert a nonbreaking hyphen between the words. The column break flows text to the next column in the current text frame. If a frame has only one column, the text goes to the next linked frame which is a feature we will discuss in a future video. To demonstrate, I’m going to navigate to page two and we’ll put a column break into our document to separate the text. Place your insertion point where the break should be and then press CTRL SHIFT ENTER on your keyboard. Inserting a page break will cause the text after the page break to be placed into a linked text box. To demonstrate, if I come into an existing text box and I pressed CTRL + ENTER on my keyboard, I notice that an icon with three periods in it will be displayed on my text box. This indicates that I have text within this box that isn’t being displayed. Click on that icon with the three periods and notice that your cursor changes to what looks like a paint bucket. Then, click inside the publication where you would like a text box to be inserted so that the text can continue. The last feature we’ll take a look at is the Drop Cap feature. A Drop Cap will change a selected character to be larger than the paragraph that follows. This is often used in publications and draw attention to the text. To demonstrate, I’m going to select the first letter of the first paragraph on Page 2. Then, I’m going to select the Text Box Tools Format tab, and then in the Typography group, select the Drop Cap button. Notice a gallery of preset drop cap options has been displayed. As I hover my mouse over the options within the gallery, you can see the live preview within the publication that will give you an idea of what the drop cap will look like. In this example, I’m going to click the Custom Drop Cap option to take a look at additional options. Within the dialog box, I can choose between a dropped, up, and specific line drop cap style. For the Lines drop cap style, I can decide how many lines the drop cap character is dropped within the paragraph. Notice the preview that is displayed on the right hand side of the box. You can also change how many lines high the letters are, the number of letters to be used in the drop cap as well. By default, the drop cap will be created using the current font, font style, and color; however, you can unselect the boxes in the bottom right corner and then from the provided drop © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 down menus make new selection. When finished, click the OK button. This concludes our tutorial for inserting special and break characters. Organizing your text is important, so hopefully this video has armed you with the skills necessary to create a great looking document.



Video: Performing a Spell Check In this video, we will perform a spell check on the text within our publication in order to avoid embarrassing spelling and grammar mistakes. As you may know, spelling and grammar mistakes can be embarrassing and distract readers from the content of your publication. You’ve put a lot of time into making your publication look great, so you definitely don’t want people to become focused on a mistake. The Spell Check feature can help you reduce errors within your publication. If you find yourself misspelling words in the same way every time you type them, you may want to consider setting up an “AutoCorrect” for that particular word. If you’re interested in learning more about the AutoCorrect feature, refer to the Setting Preferences and Options tutorial from the first chapter. One of the first forms of spell checking that you’ll notice within your publication is the existence of the red wavy lines that appear below words that Microsoft Publisher believes you have spelled incorrectly. For example, on the first page of our publication, the word Gatesburg is underlined in red. Well, I happen to know that the spelling in this case is correct; however, you can check to see if Publisher has any suggested for how the word SHOULD be spelled. To do so, right click on the word that has the red wavy line. Notice at the very top of the drop down menu, there will be several suggestions on how to spell this word. As I mentioned, I happen to know that Gatesburg is spelled correctly in this instance, so we can choose the option that says “Ignore All” which will remove the red wavy line from underneath the Gatesburg text here as well as any new occurrence of the word throughout the rest of the publication. We also have the option to add this word to the dictionary so that it is recognized as a correct word and will not be displayed in any form of spell check in the future. Next, let’s talk about how we can perform a spell check on the entire publication. To get started with the Spell Check, click the Review tab within the ribbon. Then, select the Spelling button within the Proofing group. Let’s review the options that are displayed in the dialog box. Clicking “Ignore” will ignore the word for now and will be flagged as misspelled again the next time that the spellcheck feature is used. Change allows you select a suggested spelling of the word or change the original text to the correct spelling manually and click change so that it is changed within your document. Add allows you to add this word to your dictionary so that it will not be recognized as misspelled in the future. Ignore All allows you to ignore all instances of this word during any spellcheck within this document. Change All allows you to change all instances of the word to its correct spelling within the document. It’s important to note that the Ignore All and Change All buttons save you a lot time – if they didn’t exist you would be required to ignore or change all of the occurrences of the word manually. If you’d like to ensure that the spell check is being applied to all stories within the publication such as all text boxes, table frames, and autoshaped, then be sure to select the box that says © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 “check all stories.” When finished, click the Close button. This concludes our tutorial on using the spellcheck features of Publisher 2013. Remember, it’s important to ensure your document is free of errors before distributing, so be sure to become familiar with the features before finalizing any document you create.



Video: Using the Find and Replace Feature In this video, we will explore the Find/Replace feature of Publisher 2013 in order to search for and replace specific text in a fast and efficient way. To use the Find/Replace feature, select the Home tab, and then click the Replace button within the Editing group. This feature allows you to easily search for a specific word or character within your document. You also have the option to change a single instance of the word or change all instances of the word. First, we will type our word in the Search for: field. If you wanted to change the word to something else during this search, type the new word in the Replace With field. In this example, we will search for all occurrences of 2014 and replace it with 2013. Before we click the Find Next button to find the next occurrence of 2013, you can choose to select the boxes, as necessary, in order to match whole words only during our search or to match the case of the text perfectly. Let’s click the Find Next button. Notice that an instance of 2014 was found and the publication is displaying that instance in our workspace. At this point, if we wanted to replace the occurrence of 2014 with 2013, then we would click the Replace button. Then, we would continue to click the Find Next button and replace the text as needed. Now, if you decide that you don’t want to go through each occurrence of 2013 and change it every time, you can choose to click on the Replace All button, which will replace all occurrences of 2014 with 2013 in one click. This can be a big time saver. Finally, we’ll discuss the use of the question mark wildcard characters while performing a find/replace search. Using a question mark in your text search will act as a placeholder for any letter, digit, or white space. So, for example, I’m going to insert a text box within our publication with the words sing, sang, song, and sung in it. Normally, if you want these results to be displayed in a Find/Replace search, then you would have to search for them in their entirety. Using a question mark, you can type s?ng into the box provided and then click “Find Next” and notice that sing has been highlighted. When you click the Find Next button again, notice that it moves to the next occurrence, and then the next, and the next. That question mark told Publisher that anything can go in that position in order to show up in the search results. It’s important to keep in mind that you can use multiple question marks when performing a search and those question marks can be placed at the beginning, within a word, or at the end of a word. This concludes our tutorial regarding the find/replace feature. These tips, tricks, and techniques can save you a lot of time when you need to quickly change text or simply conduct a search. Luckily, you will not have to feel the stress of completing this task manually and can focus on creating a professional looking document instead.



Video: Paragraph Formatting Options In this video, we will explore how to format entire paragraphs, rather than just single characters, lines, or words within our text frames. Also we have discussed some paragraph formatting in previous tutorials, in this video we’re going to focus on how to create bulleted and numbered lists and using the Keep with Next and Keep Lines Together options. Let’s start with the creation of bulleted and numbered lists. Bulleted and numbered lists can be helpful in organizing your information within the publication that might be best viewed within a list format. For example, the text that was imported earlier from the word document contains information about how the money generated from the Gatesburg Country Club golf scramble will be used to support the animal shelter. To make this information stand out, we can choose to break it up into a bulleted list. First, let’s get the list separated from the rest of the text. Then, select the text and within the Home tab and in the Paragraph group, we can decide whether or not the list should be numbered or bulleted. In this case, the list will be in no particular order, so a numbered list wouldn’t be necessary. Let’s click the arrow to the right of the bulleted list. Notice that a gallery of available options for the style of bullets to be used in the list. If you would like to change some of the settings for the options that were available, you could select Bullets and Numbering from the bottom of the list. Notice that in this box, you can change the size of the bullets and also how far the bulleted list should be indented. You could also choose the Numbering tab in order to change the format of the numbers, the separator used, which number the list should start at and how far the list should be indented. In this example, I’m going to select the circle bullet and click the OK button. Next, we’ll explore how we can link text box together so that when one text box becomes full, the overriding text will be automatically placed within the next box. To demonstrate, I’m going to draw two text boxes on the page. Then, I’m going to select the first text box and within the Text Box Tools Format tab, I’m going to select the Create Link button. Notice that the cursor changes to what looks like a paint bucket. When you hover the paint bucket cursor over the second text box, it tilts a bit and makes it look as though the bucket is going to spill. When you see that change, left click your mouse. A link has not been made between the two text boxes. Now, if I were to copy text from the publication and paste it into the first text box, notice that the text that does not fit within the first box will automatically be placed into the second text box. This is must better than just copying and pasting text from one text frame to another because notice that as I change the first text box to be larger so that it can accommodate more text, the second text box becomes less populated. Finally, let’s shift gears and discuss the Keep with Next and Keep Lines Together options.


Learn Publisher 2013 Keep With Next will allow you to select the heading of a column or paragraph as well as the first paragraph and apply this option which will always keep these two items together. This means that they will not be broken across columns, page, or other text boxes. Keep Lines Together option is a commonly used feature that is similar to Keep With Next. While Keep With Next will keep a heading and its first paragraph together, turning on the Keep Lines Together checkbox prevents the lines of a paragraph from breaking across pages or columns. This concludes our tutorial. Hopefully this video has provided you with the skills necessary to apply paragraph formatting that looks good and can reduce frustration, like with the Keep Options. Let’s move to the next tutorial where we’ll explore working with Tab stops within Publisher.



Video: Working with Tab Stops In this video, we will be working with tab stops within our publication. Tab stops are stops that are placed on the ruler that allow the user to click the tab button on the keyboard and it will move the insertion point to that tab stop. Now, there are different kinds of tab stops and depending on which tab stop you use, you start typing text and that information will type from the left, center, or right. So, what does that look like? I’m going to go ahead and switch to page 4 of our publication and I‘m going to move our business information set that we created in a previous tutorial down towards the bottom of the page. I’m going to move in here to the top of our publication and insert a textbox. Now, on this page, if we wanted to include contact information, I’m going to go ahead and type a heading that says Contact Information and then I’m going to type a few names. I’m going to apply a little bit of formatting to our text here, and let’s say that I want to be able to hit tab on my keyboard and have my insertion point across the text box so that I can type the person’s phone number. What I can do is I can go ahead and come over to the ruler just about the workspace and I can click where I want that tab stop to go. Notice that a very small looking “L” is placed at the six inch mark. That indicates that a left tab stop has been inserted. So, if I were to click the TAB button my keyboard, my insertion point jumps all the way over to the tab stop. If I start typing the phone number, notice that all of that text is aligned at the left point of that tab stop. That’s because I’ve inserted what’s called a left tab stop. If I wanted to change the tab stop that is displayed here, you can come up into the ruler and double-click on the tab stop and it brings up the Paragraph dialog box. Now, it will show us where the tab stop’s position is, but we can also change the alignment. Notice that we can click center, right, or decimal. As previously mentioned, if we choose center, then the text will fill in from the center of the tab stop and if it’s from the right, the text will fill in from the right, and of course if you choose decimal, the text will fill in from a decimal place. Another thing that we might want to consider is using leader characters. If you’ve ever looked at a phone book or another contact sheet where you have someone’s name and then a bunch of periods, or dots, or dashes, or lines that lead out to their phone number, chances are that they didn’t accomplish that by typing a bunch of periods on your keyboard, because that can be hard to lineup. That’s what the leader characters are down at the bottom. For example, if I select dot, and click set, then click OK, notice now that all of those periods are placed here within this line. If I wanted to pull the phone number out a bit more, then I can left click and hold on the tab stop in the ruler and I can pull it to the right and let go when I’m satisfied with its location. I can do the same thing with the remaining two contacts in the list. So, as a review… if I want to insert a left tab stop I want to make sure that the tab stop listed up here looks like an “L”, if I want to change it I can change it here, that’s center, that’s right, and that’s decimal. I’m going to leave it at left and I’m going to come over and click, so that I’m © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 lined up to where the phone number starts on the first line. I’m going to do the same thing for the third line. Then I’m going to go ahead and select both lines, double-click on the tab stop, choose my leader character. Click Set and then click OK. When I hit TAB from John Smith’s name, notice that the leader characters are present. And finally, when I come down to Jerry Brown’s name, I can go ahead and hit TAB, the leader characters are there as well (because I had both lines selected when I applied them) and notice that I have a nice looking contact information sheet. Now, I can continue to add people’s names here, but hopefully you get the idea of how you can utilize tab stops in order to line up your information exactly the way you want it. Don’t forget that you can apply the leader characters that allow us to easily be able to tell which person belongs to which phone number. Now that we’ve taken a look at tab stops, let’s finish up the tutorials of this chapter by checking out what it’s like working with styles within our Microsoft Publisher publication.



Video: Working with Styles In this video, we will be exploring the use of styles within Microsoft Publisher 2013. A style is defined as the type, paragraph, tab, and hyphenation settings for text within your publication. Styles are helpful for documents that have several formatting changes like titles, text, lists, and section headings. They are also helpful in ensuring that everyone that will be creating similar publication or collaborating on the same publication remain consistent with the design. Applying styles in order to keep the publications consistent can save a lot of time, especially when you need to make global changes to your publication. There are two different aspects when it comes to working with styles in Publisher. First, you have to create the style by defining its characteristics such as font type, font size, paragraph settings and so on. The next step after creating the style is to actually apply it to text within the publication. It’s important to plan ahead as to what you’d like to incorporate into your style before creating; however, you’ll be happy to know that it’s easy to modify a style in the future. There are a couple of different ways that you can create a style. You can define a new style based on an already existing one. Let’s take a look at how to do that now. Within your publication, select the Home tab and then click on the Styles button within the Styles group. Then, select New Style. Within the New Style dialog box, enter the new name for the style. In this example, I will call the style GCC Heading. Notice that the second drop down menu says “Style based on”. This is where you can select an existing style from the drop down menu as a base for your new style. In this example, I’m going to select Organization Name. Notice in the preview box within the dialog box, that this style appears to be text of the Cambria font with a font size of 11. If we’d like to make this a heading, it may be a good idea to make the font a little bit bigger and make it bold. So, in this case, we’re going to select the Font button. The Font dialog box will appear. Notice that we have all kinds of font formatting options within this box. In this case, I’m going to change the font size to 16 and make it bold. If I wanted to, I could change the font color, as well as fill effects. Notice that I have my options for underlining the text, superscript, subscript, small and all caps as well as strikethrough – all of which we discussed in a previous tutorial. I’m going to click OK to save these changes. Let’s say that for this particular style, I am finished with my changes. When you’re finished, simply click the OK button. As I mentioned earlier, there are a couple of ways to make new styles. In the last example, we based our new style off of an existing style. Well, it’s important to know that you can create a new style based of formatted text within your document as well. For demonstration purposes, I’m going to select the second line of the text within the text box on the cover. Once I select that text, I’m going to click on the Styles button within the Styles group. Then, I’m going to click the New Style button. Notice when the dialog box opens, my preview displays the font type and size for the font that was selected prior to creating the new style. Although I may still want to make changes to my © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 style, if I were satisfied with the way it appears now, simply give the new style a name and then click the OK button when finished. The last way to create a new style is to create a new style from scratch – not basing the style off of an existing style or text within the document. To get started, I’m going to select the Styles button within the Styles group and then click on the New Style button. When the New Style dialog box appears, I’m going to give this style a name. In this case, I’m going to call the new style GCC Body Text. I’m going to click on the Font button in order to change the font size and type. Since this text will be used for the body of the flyer, I’m going to choose Arial 12. Arial is what is considered a Sans Serif font and may be easier for our readers to read. I’m going to go ahead and click OK since we’ve already discussed these options. Next, I’m going to click the Text Effects button. Text effects have essentially replaced the WordArt feature from previous versions of Publisher. Although you can still achieve the same look as WordArt by using Text Effects (and you might even see the WordArt styles group within the Ribbon), Microsoft is really putting that familiar WordArt label on the Text Effects tools that we see here. When the Format Text Effects box opens, I have two different sets of options. If I select the A on the left hand side, notice that I have the options to change the text fill color and type of as well as the text outline. If I wanted to apply any of these changes to my text, I would make my selections before moving forward. In this example, we’re going to leave the text fill and outline as is. Next, I’m going to select the A on the right hand side. Notice in this area, we can choose to change the shadow of our style including its color, transparency, size, blur, angle, and distance. In addition to changing these settings for the shadow, we could also apply a Reflection to our style. A reflection has several settings including the transparency size, blur, and distance. Each of these settings can be increased or decreased by moving the slider bar or changing the percentages or points for each setting. Next, you have the option of applying a Glow to your style. Much like the other text effects, the glow has several settings that can be changed including the color, size, and transparency. Finally, let’s take a look at the 3D format effect. Within this area, we can choose to apply top and bottom bevel effects. Bevel effects come in different options, but you’ll notice that with each of them, the bevel effect gives an object a more 3D shape and almost lifts it off the page. In addition to applying the Bevel effect itself you can also change the depth and contour colors and sizes below. The last two settings of the Text Effects might be new terminology to you. First, let’s click on the Material button to take a look at the gallery. When we talk about material for our bevel, you’re asking the question of “would I like my object to look like it has a Matte finish, a plastic finish, or a metal finish? Think about the kind of material you want it to look like if this computer 3D object actually existed. In this case, there are also options for dark edge, soft edge, and wireframe to name a few. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


Next, let’s click on the Lighting button to take a look at the gallery. Changing the lighting color and angle of a 3D beveled object can make the object look more realistic by making it appear as though light hits the object at different angles. In this example, we’re going to leave the text effects alone. Although these kinds of effects can be really helpful, they are most often used when working with shapes or very large text that will look a lot more like WordArt. Since we’re creating a style for the body text of our flyer, it’s probably not a good idea to make it look fancy and hard to read when it’s only 12 points large. Next, let’s take a look at the Character Spacing options. These options were discussed in length in a previous video, but keep in mind that character spacing options will allow you to display your text in a more condensed or loose way. Be sure to check out the character formatting options tutorial if you’d like to hear more about these options.



Chapter 3 – Working with Images and Graphics Video: Bitmap vs. Vector Images In this video, we will discuss the difference between bitmap and vector images. Then, in the next video we’ll take a look at a few different image file formats in order to better understand the proper use of each type of file. This understanding of bitmap vs. vector images and the different file formats that can be inserted into Publisher 2013, help to ensure you are creating a great looking document. You may or may not know that digital images can be saved in many different file formats on your computer. Up until this point, it may not have made a difference to you which type of file you inserting or imported into your documents, which were most likely created in a Word processing program. First, in this video we’ll discuss the difference between vector drawings and bitmap images. We’ll take a look at an example of these two types of graphics in order to gain a better understanding between the two. Then, in the next video, we’ll review a list of the most popular file formats that may be imported into your document and discuss when the best time is to use them. A bitmap is defined as a type of image file format used to store digital images. This term comes from computer programming terminology meaning a map of bits. When you use a bitmap image in your document, you are working with a graphic that is composed of many tiny pixels within a grid. Each one of those tiny pixels within the grid contains information related to its color – and when you put them altogether, you get see a colorful image. Most computers users never really notice their image is made up of many tiny bits and pixels until they try to resize the image and notice that it becomes distorted or the edges appear “jagged”. For this reason, BITMAP images usually look the best when they are used at the size in which they were created. Common bitmap formats include JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and PNG. Vector images are made up of many individual scalable objects which are defined by mathematical equations, rather than pixels in bitmap images. Because of this, vector images always render at a higher quality and are highly scalable – meaning you can resize them without losing any quality, you won’t see the same jagged edges that you would with a bitmap image. Objects may consist of lines, curves, shapes, and they can contain color. Vector images can also exist outside the rectangular shape that bitmap images are constrained to. Because of the high quality of vector images, they are often used for the creation of logos, publications, and professional printing. Although using vector images have many advantages, a disadvantage of using a vector image is that you cannot produce photos as vector images because vector images can’t achieve the continuous subtle tones of a photograph – vector images come out looking more like a cartoon.


Learn Publisher 2013 Before we move on, it’s important to understand that Microsoft Publisher 2013 is a beginner to intermediate level user desktop publishing program. You’ll often find that very advanced tasks and advanced techniques cannot be accomplished using this software application. With that being said, it’s important to know that although you can insert vector images such as the EPS file format into your publication, you aren’t going to be viewing the EPS quality of this image within Publisher. We’ll discuss why when we discuss the EPS file format in depth; however, I wanted to mention that this was the case. So, in order to demonstrate to you the differences between bitmap and vector images so that you can clearly tell a difference, I’m going to open another software application, Adobe InDesign, in order to demonstrate the differences. When we discuss the individual file formats, we’ll move back within Publisher. So, now that we’ve discussed the differences between bitmap and vector images, why don’t we take a look at two images – one bitmap and one vector so we can see it with our own two eyes. Notice on my screen I have two images. At a distance, they might look identical, but upon further inspection we will see they actually differ. Notice as I zoom in on the bitmap image on the left, you can see that the pixels within the image are quite apparent. Notice that the quality of the image has been compromised. I’m going to move to another document that I have open within InDesign to show you what this image would look like if I were to resize it large enough to fill an entire page. Again, notice that the quality of the image is compromised because this image has been saved in a bitmap format. Notice that no matter how far I zoom in on the vector image, the edges never appear to be jagged. Note that the lines remain clear, and the image appears to be of high quality. We do not see any pixels, jagged edges, blurriness, or anything else. I’m going to move to another document I have open and take a look at the image. Notice what this image looks like when I resize it to take up the entire page. Notice that the quality of the image has not been compromised because it has been saved as a vector drawing. Hopefully you now have an understanding of the differences between a bitmap and vector image as this concludes our tutorial on comparing the two. In the next video, we’ll discuss the digital file formats that you can work with when using Publisher 2013.



Video: Digital Image File Formats In the last video, we discussed the difference between bitmap and vector images. Now that we have a better understanding of the two different types of images, let’s explore the different types of digital image file formats that you may want to use in the future. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group and is a very common bitmap image file format because most digital cameras can save images in the JPEG format which supports 8 bits per each color – red, green, and blue which is 24 bits total. Generally, the JPEG format produces fairly small files because of compression, which is handy when you want to keep your document’s overall size at a minimum. The down side to using this common format is that the most times you edit and save the file, the more the quality of the image suffers. Although you can often change compression settings for a higher quality, you run the risk of creating a much larger file size which is measured in bytes. In addition to using this file format when capturing digital images with a camera, it is also often used through transmission on the World Wide Web. TIFF or TIF stands for Tagged Image File Format which is a format used for storing digital bitmap images. TIFF format saves 8 or 16 bits per color of (red, green, and blue) for 24 or 48 bit totals. TIFF originally began as a file format for computers to saved scanned images. When the TIFF format was first created, the vision was for this format to be a standard across all scanning machines so that consistency would be maintained. TIFF is a useful image archive, because unlike the JPEG which we previously discussed, TIFF uses what is called a “lossless compression” meaning the image can be edited and re-saved and you don’t have to worry about losing image quality. Disadvantages to using this type of file format is that it is not widely supported by web browsers and not all readers can read every type of TIFF file. With that being said, you would not use TIFF files on the web for any reason. However, the TIFF is a format widely used by designers that create printed publications and has become a photographic file standard in the business. GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format and is limited to an 8-bit palette or 256 colors. Because of the GIF format’s limitation for color, it is unsuitable for reproducing color photographs and other images with continuous color. GIF is a suitable bitmap format or storing graphics with few colors such as diagrams, shapes, logos, cartoons, etc. This format also supports animation and is widely used for animation effects. Much like the TIFF file, GIF files use a lossless compression which allows you to compress the file size without degrading the quality. PNG stands for Portable Network Graphic which is a bitmap image file format that supports 48bit, true color depth. It also supports lossless compression, and a better compression than a GIF resulting in file sizes approximately 10-30 percent smaller. One of the most important features of the PNG file format is the ability to have a transparent background. What does this mean? Well let’s find out! I’m going to open a publication that has a background color that is blue. As you can see, I have our two images displayed again. The top is a PNG and the bottom is a JPEG. The JPEG puts a white rectangular border around an image – which most of the time might not be a problem, but © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 as you work with Publisher more and more, you’ll find yourself putting images on more than just a white background, so eventually it may become a problem! The top image is a PNG file. Because this copy of the image was saved as a PNG file, notice that the white background does not exist because the background of the image is transparent. PNG files are useful when you want to lay images over color backgrounds. Next we’ll discuss a commonly used vector format, which is an EPS file. EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript. This file format can contain a combination of text, graphics, and images. These types of file formats cannot be opened in every program, but are able to be generated by all drawing applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign – though Adobe Illustrator is the most commonly used software application for creating EPS files. Microsoft Publisher ships with a filter for EPS graphics. What is means is that when an EPS graphic is imported into Publisher, a TIFF preview image is displayed on the screen. So, notice that I have an EPS graphic on the screen and it doesn’t have the same kind of quality and clean lines as the EPS graphic did using Adobe InDesign in the previous video. If your EPS graphic does not have an included .TIFF preview image, then a graphic box will be displayed in the publication and the name of the file will be in the top left corner. So you may be wondering what this means for your publication. It’s important to know that if you want to an EPS file in your publication, then you must output the file to a PostScript printer so that the EPS file with print properly. If your file is output to a non-postscript printer, then a blank graphic box with the EPS location header information will be printed. So, it’s important to know what kind of printer that you have so that you actually can get the quality that you want in your publication. If you are sending your file to a commercial printer, then you shouldn’t have any problems. This concludes our tutorial on exploring a few digital image options. Hopefully this general explanation of digital image formats provides you with the basic knowledge needed to make smart decisions about your future publications.



Video: Insert Images and Image Placeholders In this video, we will explore several ways that you can insert an image within Publisher 2013. First, we’re going to upload an image from a local computer. There are a couple of ways to do this, and the easiest is pretty straightforward. If you located the image on your local computer, you can drag and drop that image into Publisher. To demonstrate, I’m going to open both a folder and Publisher. This is something that easiest to do if you have a dual monitor setup at your work station, which I do; however, since we can’t see both screens, I’m going to demonstrate it on one. So, I’m going to dock the folder to the left side of the screen. Then, I’m going to locate the image that I’d like to insert into Publisher. Finally, I’m going to click and hold my left mouse button, then drag my mouse into the publication and then let go. Notice now that the image is displayed within the publication. Now, there may be some adjustments that need to be made as the image may not be the size that you’d like. We’ll talk more about that in the next tutorial. I’m going to delete the image within the publication so that we can look at another way to insert. In this example, we’re going to use the insert image command within the ribbon. First, you’ll want to select the insert tab within the ribbon, then within the illustrations group, click on the Pictures button. The Insert Picture dialog box will be displayed. Locate the image that you’d like to insert. Then, when you’ve found it, double click on the image to insert it into the publication. Notice that the image is insert just like it was a few moments ago. Again, I’m going to delete the image within publication. Next, let’s take a look at a feature that is new to Publisher 2013 which is the insert Online Picture option. Within the Illustrations group in the Insert tab, you may have notice that there was a button called Online Pictures. We’re going to go ahead and click on this button. Notice that within the dialog box that is displayed, we have a couple of options. First, you can choose to insert online images from Microsoft’s Clip Art gallery. These images are provided by Microsoft and free for you to use; however, you cannot sell the images themselves as a product. If you’d like to search using Microsoft’s Bing search engine, simply type your search keyword into the text box provided and hit Enter. In this example, we’re going to search for golf. Notice that many different images are displayed when Bing conducted this online search. It’s important to know that search for images on the internet can be tricky due to copyright issues. Unfortunately you can’t just find any image that you want online and use it for your own purposes. The person that took the picture or purchased the rights to it owns it and it would be a copyright infringement for you to use it. However, when you conduct a search for an online image within Publisher using the Bing Image Search, the results that will be displayed are images licensed under Creative Commons, which is a good thing. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of royalty free media. Creative Commons license provide a simple standardized way to give public permission to share and use creative work. The owner of the media can choose which license should be used. These license range from the ability of other users to download, distribute, tweak, and build upon the work (even © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 commercially) as long as they give credit for the original creation to the ability for individuals to only down the work with no changes or commercial use. You’ll want to make sure that you are aware of the kind of license that an image has before you choose to use it. If you have configured a SkyDrive account within Publisher 2013, then you can search that account for images as well. If you’re interested in learning how to work with SkyDrive, check out that tutorial in another chapter. Finally, you also have the ability to include images from social media sites like Facebook and Flickr. If you click on one of those icons, you will be asked for the credentials that you use to log-in to those accounts and Microsoft will ask you for permission to link your account. I’m going to go ahead and close the Insert Pictures dialog box so that we can take a look at Image Placeholders. There are times when you may know that you want to include an image within your publication and you know where you want to put it; however, you aren’t quite sure which image that you want to use. If this is the case, you can insert an image placeholder within the publication so that you can set the layout of your publication and add the image at a later time. Let’s say that we’d like to add a few image placeholders into the blank page 3. We’ll move to page three and then in the ribbon, click the Insert tab and within the Illustrations group, click the Picture Placeholder button. Notice that the placeholder has been inserted into the Publication. It’s important to know that your placeholder is going to be hard to see if it’s in a place where there is no text. If I were to move this placeholder over to page 2 where there is text, you would be able to see that the text wraps around the placeholder; therefore, you’ll always know where it is. However, if the placeholder is within page 3, it’s going to be a little bit more difficult to tall. I would suggest that if you’re going to insert an image placeholder within a page that has nothing else in it, you should select the image, and apply an outline to it so that you’ll always know where it is. Then, later if you want to remove that outline when you actually insert the image, you can do so fairly easily. When it comes time to include an image in the picture placeholder, you can click on the Insert Image icon that is displayed within the placeholder box. That brings up a dialog box that is similar to what we were taking a look at when we discussed Online Pictures. However, in this dialog box… you also have the option to insert an image from your local computer. This concludes our tutorial on how to insert an image within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to move, resize and crop your images so that you can make them work perfectly within your publication.



Video: Move, Resize and Crop Images In this video, we will take a look at how you can resize, move, or crop an image within Publisher 2013. Images and illustrations are important to any publication as they provide visuals for your readers. The last thing you want to do when you make most publications is to fill it with nothing but text. Because images allow you to make your publication more attractive, it’s important that these images are the correct size, in the correct location, and cropped, if necessary. Moving an image to its desired location is fairly easy. If you are familiar with moving an image within Word or PowerPoint, then you can do the same thing to move an image within Publisher. To move an image, simply select the image and drag and drop it to a new location. One thing that you might notice as you are moving your images around are the guidelines that are displayed when you are close to lining up the image with either the border of the page (such as what I’m doing now) or to the left, center, or right alignment of another image. These guidelines are available to help you line up objects on your page in a way that make sense and looks good to the user. If you’d like to resize an image, there are a couple of ways that you can achieve that task. First, you can select and drag any one of the sizing handles that appear when you have an image selected. You can also resize an image to a specific height and width when you select the image and within the Format tab, change the height and width measurement that are displayed in the size group all the way to the right of the Ribbon. For demonstration purposes, I’m going to select an image and resize the height to 5 inches. Notice that when I resize this image to be 5 inches in height, you’ll notice that the width changes as well. The reason that this happens is that by default all images are going to have a setting enable called Lock Aspect Ratio. This setting ensures that you will not make your image disproportionate because doing so causes the image to look stretched or too compressed. However, it’s important to know that if you DO NOT want to constrain the proportions of your image, you can turn of this setting. Within the Format tab, in the Size group, click the More button in the button right hand corner of the group. Notice the small checkbox that says Lock Aspect Ratio. I’m going to unselect this box and then click OK so that I can demonstrate what it looks like if you were to change the height of the image now. Notice that the width of the image didn’t change and the image now looks like it’s very stretched out – which is definitely not a good thing! There are also two options that are available to you, should you be using picture placeholders within your publication. To demonstrate, I’m going to insert an image placeholder within the document. Then, I’m going to add an image of a golf ball. When the image is inserted into the placeholder, click on the Format tab and within the Crop group, there are two icons that will allow us to resize our image. The first button is the Fit button. This button allows you to quickly resize the pictures so that the entire picture displays within the image placeholder and maintains its aspect ratio. The second icon is the Fill button. This option allows you to resize the image so that the entire image placeholder is filled while maintaining the aspect ratio. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


The last thing we’ll talk about in this tutorial is the ability to crop and image within Publisher 2013. Cropping allows you remove unwanted parts of an image so that they do not display in your publication. It’s important to remember that when you crop an image within Publisher, you are not actually cropping the original image that is stored on your computer. To crop an image, select the image and click the Crop button located within the Crop group. Then, move the sizing handles so that you have selected only the part of the image that you want to keep. When you’re satisfied, click somewhere outside of the image to crop the picture. Keep in mind that if you’d like to crop an image to match a shape, you can select an image and click the arrow below the Crop button within the ribbon. Then, you could select the shape from the gallery. In this case, I’m going to choose a rounded rectangle shape. Once the image is cropped to the shape, you can then crop the image normally and the rounded rectangle shape will stay intact. If you’d like to clear the cropping from an image, simply select the image and click the Clear Cropping button within the Crop group. This concludes our tutorial on how to move, resize, and crop an image within Publisher 2013. In the next video, we’re going to take a look at how to work with the adjust settings when working with images.



Video: Utilizing the Adjustment Settings In this video, we will explore the adjustment settings when working with images within Publisher 2013. The adjustment settings allow you to apply brightness and contract changes to your image. The Recolor adjustment allows you to recolor the image by adjusting the colors used in the image in order to give it a stylized appearance, and compressing pictures will allow you to reduce the size of images within your publications. The first setting we’ll take a look at is the Corrections adjustment. Let’s select an image within the publication and then click the Format tab in the ribbon. Within the Adjust group, click on the Corrections button which looks like a sun. Within the gallery that is displayed, you can choose any of the preset adjustments to the brightness and contrast of the image. Brightness refers to the amount of lightness or darkness used in the image and contrast refers to the separation between the darkest and brightest areas of the image – increasing the contrast will increase the separation between the dark and bright. If you hover over each of the preset within the gallery, notice how the photo changes. You may find that one of the settings increases the attractiveness and clarity of the image. If that is the case, select the preset from the gallery to apply it to your photo. If you are not satisfied with any of the preset options, you can adjust the brightness and contrast on your own by Picture Correction Options from the drop down menu. Then, under the Brightness and Contrast heading, you can choose to increase or decrease these settings as necessary. As mentioned previously, you can use the Recolor tool to recolor your image to give it a stylized appearance. Often times, people use the Recolor option in order to make their image appear to be grayscale. To recolor, select the image and then click the Recolor button from the adjust group. Hover your mouse over the preset options within the gallery to choose one that works best for you. Notice that you can also select another color to use by accessing the More Variations sub menu. The transparent color option will allow you to select a color within the picture that you would like to be transparent. So, for example, if I were to click inside the select photo after choosing this option, then whatever color I selected within that image would be removed everywhere that it exists within the image. It’s important to note that at any point, if you would like to remove the brightness, contrast, and recoloring from your image, you can simply select the Rest Picture button within the Adjust group. The Adjustment setting we’ll take a look at is the Compress Pictures button. With an image selected, within the Format tab and in the adjust group, I’m going to go ahead and click on this button. When I do, notice that a dialog box is displayed that requires us to specify a few options.


Learn Publisher 2013 The purpose of compressing images within your publication is to reduce the size of the file. Within this dialog box, the current combined image size will be displayed as well as the estimated size after compression. If you think that you can be benefitted by going through with the compression, then you’ll want to take a look at the options provided. First, you can choose to delete the cropped areas of pictures. It’s important to note that while you can “clear” the cropped portions of images as discussed in the previous video, after going through a compression with this option selected, you will no longer be able to clear the cropping. The Remove OLE data is a more advanced setting that we won’t get into; however, you should leave selected. Selecting the Resample pictures option will make a resize picture smaller by deleting the residual data from the picture’s original size. Finally, Convert to JPEG where appropriate will do just that – convert your image to a JPEG format. For more information on JPEG file format, be sure to check out the digital image file format tutorial from earlier in this chapter. Next, you’ll want to choose your target output for the publication – will it be printed by a commercial printer, a desktop printer that you own, or on the web? Finally, you have the option to apply the compression to all pictures within the publication which is recommended or apply to the selected pictures only. When finished, click the Compress button to start the process. Depending on the size of your publication and the amount of pictures that have been inserted, this process could take a minute to complete. This concludes out tutorial on exploring the adjustment settings for your images. In the next video, we’ll take a look at how to add captions and alternate text to the images within your publication.



Video: Adding Captions and Alternate Text to Images In this video, we’ll take a look at how to add captions and alternate text the images within your publication. Captions are used to explain and provide context around a published photograph. They can be added to other objects within a publication; however, captions are most often added to images. In our example, if we wanted to explain an image used in the Gatesburg Country Club golf scramble flyer, we could do so with a caption. First, you’ll want to select the image that you would like to provide a caption for within the publication. Then, click the Caption button within the Picture Styles group within the Format tab. You’ll notice that you have a gallery of options for how to format and/or position the caption within the publication. In this example, I’m going to select a simple caption to be displayed below the image. Then, within the next text box provided, you would simply want to provide the explanation or context for the image. In this example, we may say “Club member Tim Johnson attempting a birdie during an 18 hole round in 2012.” When you’re finished, you could choose to format the text of the caption, just as you would any other text within your publication. Alternate text (or alt text) is a bit different than captions and should only be used when your intended output for the publication is the web. Alternate text is a literal description of what is displayed in the image. This alternate text is not viewable when printed and not viewable by the reader when published to the web. Instead, alternate text is used by screen readers to give a literal description of what is happening in the picture to viewers with disabilities. Visually impaired readers rely on the alternate text of any image to describe to them what is displayed in the image. Without this valuable alt text, the image will not be accessible to these individuals. It’s a good best practice that you are taking steps like this to ensure that your publication is optimized for accessibility of all users. To add alternate text to your image, right click on the Image and choose Format Picture from the drop down menu. Within the Format Picture dialog box, select the Alt Text tab. Then in the boxes provided, type the alternate text to be used in the publication. In this case, you may want to use the alt text of “Man using club on golf course” which is a literal description of what is displayed within the image. When finished, click the OK button. This concludes our tutorial on how to add captions and alternate text to your images. In the next video, we’ll take a look at how to insert page parts, borders, and accents to your publication.



Video: Inserting Page Parts, Borders, and Accents In this video, we will explore how to insert page parts, borders, and accents into your publication. Page Parts are pieces of preformatted content that can be quickly inserted into a publication. These preformatted pieces of content include things like pull quotes, headings, stories, forms, and a table of contents. In order to insert a page part within your publication, first navigate to the page that you’d like to insert the page part onto within the publication. Then, select the insert tab and within the Building Blocks group, click the Page Parts button to display the gallery. Within the galley, you can hover your mouse over the available options to see what they would look like within your publication. In this example, let’s say that we want to insert a registration or sign up form for the Gatesburg Country Club golf scramble event. This way, members are able to view the brochure or flyer as a marketing piece, decide they want to sign up and do so by filling out the form. In this example, we’re going to insert the form onto Page 3 within the publication. To insert the form, we’re going to select More Page Parts from the drop down menu. Then, within the Building Block Library, we’re going to select “Narrow Sign Up Form” within the gallery. Then, we’ll click the Insert button and notice that the sign up form has been inserted within the publication. Now there is a possibility that this sign up form will need to be changed a bit to suit your needs; however, the process for doing that is the same as if you wanted to add, edit, or delete text within any other text box within your publication. We’re going to switch gears and take a look at the Borders and Accents button within the Building Blocks group on the Ribbon. When you click on this button, notice that you have the options to bars, frames, and other accents within the publication. If you aren’t satisfied with the options, you can select the More Borders and Accents button within the drop down menu to take a look at the library provided. If you find something that you’d like to incorporate into your publication, simply select the border or accent and then click the Insert button. This concludes our tutorial on inserting page parts, borders, and accents within your publication. In the next chapter, we’re going to take a look at how to insert shapes within your publication to continue adding visual interest and style to your publication.



Chapter 4 – Creating and Working with Shapes Video: Inserting a Basic Shape In this video, we will insert a basic shape into our Publisher 2013 publication. Including shapes in a publication can be a way to add design elements and visual interest. Often times, shapes are used within Publisher 2013 to create illustrations as well. Let’s say that in our example, we’ve decided that the filled text box on the cover of our flyer looks a little too boring to us. Instead, we’ll discover how utilizing a shape and then formatting that shape with different outlines and fills can change the look of our publication. Before we get started, let’s move the current text box displayed on Page 1 into the scratch area outside of the page. Then, we’ll being by drawing our first shape. To draw a shape, select the Insert tab in the Ribbon. Notice that a gallery of shapes is displayed. Within this gallery, shapes are grouped into different areas categories such as your Most Recently Used shapes, lines, basic shapes, block arrows, flowchart elements, callouts, and stars and banners. In this example, we’re going to draw an oval shape, which I can select from the most recently used group or the basic shapes group. When you move your cursor into the workspace, you’ll notice that your cursor has changed to a cross. This means that you are ready to draw the shape within your publication. To do so, click and hold your left mouse button within the page and drag your mouse. As you do so, you’ll notice an outline of your new shape being drawn. In this case, I’m going to create a large oval shape in the area that the title used to be displayed in the green text box. You’ll notice that the shape is larger than the page, but that’s ok because we’d like the shape to bleed on our page. Bleed is a printing term that refers to printing that goes beyond the edge of a sheet before trimming. You may also notice that the fill and outline colors that are applied to the shape are generic. That’s ok, because this is just the setting that is applied to the shape by default. In the coming tutorials, we’ll take a look at how to change the fill and outline settings. For now, we’re just going to make some other adjustments with the text on the screen. I’m going to move the Labor Day Weekend 2013 text to the top of the screen, and then move the rest of the text below the image. Then, I’m going to change the text to say 1st Annual Golf Scramble with Informational Flyer on the second line. If at any point you need to add text to the inside of a shape, you can do so by selecting the Format tab within the Ribbon and then selecting the Edit Text button within the Insert Shapes group. Notice that the insertion point will be placed within the shape and you can begin typing. This text can be formatted in the same ways that text was formatted in previous tutorials. For more information on working with text, be sure to watch the tutorials in the working with text chapter.


Learn Publisher 2013 Finally, before we move on, it’s important to know that if at any time you need to resize the shape, you can simply grab one of the sizing handles surrounding a selected shape and drag your mouse – just like you did with images in a previous chapter. It’s important to also note that shapes can be set to a specific width and height by using the height and width boxes within the Size group in the Format tab on the Ribbon. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to format a shape within Publisher so that it looks more attractive and consistent with the design of the publication than what we have now.



Video: Formatting a Shape In this video, we will explore how to format the shape that was added to our publication in the previous video. As I mentioned previously, including shapes in a publication can be a way to add design elements and visual interest. Often times, shapes are used within Publisher 2013 to create illustrations as well. In this case, we’re going to change some of the formatting of this shape in order to fill the shape with an image, rather than a color, and to change the outline settings of the shape as well. To get started, let’s change the fill of the shape with an image. While you can change the fill of a shape with another color, a texture, or a gradient, you can also fill the shape with an image. First, select the image and when the Drawing Tools Format tab, we’ll click the Shape Fill button. Again notice that you can add an image, a gradient, texture, and pattern. I’m going to go ahead and select Picture. In this example, we’re going to fill our image with an Office.com Clip Art image. Let’s type golfing in the search box and hit Enter. Then, we’re going to select the second image on the first line. Then, click the Insert button. Notice that the center of the shape has been filled with the image. This adds a visual element to our publication. Now, let’s change the color of the outline and as well as the outline’s weight or thickness. TO change the Shape Outline color, select the shape and within the Format tab, click the Shape Outline button. Then, select a green color from the drop down menu. Then, you can change the weight or thickness of the outline by selecting Weight from the drop down menu. You can choose a weight from a gallery that is displayed. In this case, we’d like to make the weight 15 points; however, it’s not an option on this list. In order to apply a weight of this size, select More Lines from the drop down menu. Then, within the Format AutoShape dialog box, we can change the width to 15 points. Notice that within this dialog box, you have a lot more options for how to format your shape. First, you can change the fill of the shape under the fill heading at the top. Right now, we’re seeing just a portion of the image that we’re using to fill the shape. If you’d like to make a change to the Fill, you can select the Fill Effects button to view your options. When the new dialog box appears, notice that you can see a list of the same options that we saw in the menu provided earlier when we clicked on the Shape Fill button. In this area, we can choose to fill the shape with a solid color as well as change that color’s transparency. The next option is to fill the shape with a gradient fill. When you choose the gradient fill option, notice that you can change the Type of the gradient fill from Linear to a Path gradient. You can also change the direction of the color gradient within the shape as well as the angle. Finally, you can determine the colors, positions, and transparency of the gradients as well. More information about gradients will be discussed in the Working with Colors chapter. The next option is to fill your shape with a picture or text which is what we’ve done in our publication. When you click on this option, notice that you can choose to insert the picture from © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 a file or online. If you’re interested in filling your shape with a texture, select the Texture button and make a selection from the drop down menu. You can set the transparency of the photo as well as choose to tile the image as a texture. The last Fill option is to fill the shape with a Pattern. When you choose the Pattern fill option, you’ll notice that you have a gallery of available patterns to work within your publication. Although the colors used by default for the patterns displayed are black and blue, notice that you can choose to change the Foreground and Background colors in the drop down menus provided. When finished, click the OK button. Within the rest of the AutoShape dialog box, notice that you can change the color and transparency of the outline color. In this case, let’s change the transparency of the outline to 50% in order to add an additional effect. By selecting the Compound Type drop down menu, you can select an option that has multiple lines rather than a single line. In the Dash type drop down menu, you can choose to create a dashed or dotted line as your outline, rather than a single solid line. Finally, you can choose the Cap type which is how the cap or end of the outline will be appeared. This is most commonly used with a line shape as my oval (as you may notice) does not have a beginning or end to cap. Finally, you can choose an option for a Join Type. This join type setting is often used with shapes that have corner points. You can choose how the lines of the shape appear at the join. A miter join creates pointed corners that extend beyond the endpoint when the miter’s length is within the miter limit. A round join creates rounded corners that extend half the stroke width beyond the endpoints. Finally, a bevel join creates squared corners. When finished in the dialog box, click the OK button. Notice that the outline of the shape has changed to a 15 pt weight and 50% transparency. Although we talked about a lot of options that are available when formatting a shape’s fill and outline settings, there are a few more ways that you can format a shape within Publisher. First, keep in mind that you do have the option of using a predefined shape style that is available within the Shape Styles gallery if you didn’t want to take the time to apply your own formatting to the shape like we’ve done so far. Also, you have the option of applying effects to your shape as well. When you select a shape and click on the Shape Effects button within the Format tab within the Ribbon, you’ll notice a drop down menu with several shape effects that we discussed in a previous tutorial. Let’s review those options now. Now that we’ve taken a look at all of the ways that you can format a shape within Publisher, let’s move on to the next tutorial where we discuss how to draw lines within Publisher.



Video: Drawing Lines with Line Tools In this video, we will explore how to draw shapes and lines using the Lines tool provided within Publisher 2013. Earlier in this chapter, we explored the tools that are available for inserting and formatting your basic shapes – things like circle, squares, rectangles, triangles and more. We’ve found that the process for inserting or drawing a basic shape were not too difficult. However, you may be wondering what happens if you want to create a shape or an illustration that requires you to draw lines. First, we’ll get started with drawing a straight line within Publisher. To do so, let’s select the Insert tab and click the Shapes button. Then, notice that there are a lot of options for lines within the Lines section of the gallery that is displayed. We’ll start by creating a simple straight line. Notice that we have the option of choosing a straight line with no arrows, or choose a single or double arrow option from the list. I’m going to select the straight line and then begin drawing the line within the publication. When drawing the line, notice that I can move the cursor in all directions. If you’d like to keep the line perfectly straight, then hold the SHIFT key on the keyboard while you draw the line. Once you’re finished drawing the line, you have the ability to change the shape style, shape outline, and apply a shape effect. Notice that you are not able to change the fill of the line, since lines do not have a fill. Next, let’s take a look at how to draw a line using the Elbow Connector tool. Within the Insert tab, click the Shapes button and then choose one of the three Elbow connect options. Then, draw the line within the publication. Notice that a line is displayed that looks like it’s almost a stair as part of a staircase. If you’d like to adjust the size and the position of the “elbow” of the shape, you can do so using the sizing handles. The regular sizing handles will allow you to extend the ends of the shape while selecting the Yellow handle allows you to adjust the “elbow” portion. If you were to use the curve connector line tool, you would create a similar line; however, you’ll notice that your elbow connector has been replaced with a subtle curve. The next line tool that we’ll take a look at is the curve tool. The curve tool can be used to create curved lines that can eventually be shaped into illustrations. In this tutorial, I’ll create a really rough looking illustration with the curve tool and then use that drawing in the next video to demonstrate how a shape can be edited. I’m going to select the curve tool from the shapes galley and begin drawing a funky looking shape. It’s important to keep in mind that while my Publisher 2013 knowledge may be extensive, my artistic abilities are severely lacking! So we’ll set aside the curved line for now and switch gears to using the scribble tool. This scribble tool is like the Pencil tool in other desktop publishing software applications. Basically, it allows us to draw or write anything we want within the publication. So, if I wanted to draw © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 something like say a four leaf clover, I can do so by using this scribble tool. This is a great tool to use if you’d like to create an illustration that has a hand drawn look; however, if you’re like me and your hand drawn illustration look is pretty bad, then it would be a best practice to sticking to pre-made illustrations, shapes, and graphics. The last line tool we’ll take a look at is the freeform tool. This tool allows you to create both hand drawn illustrations as well as straight lines with the same tool. So, if I select the freeform tool, notice that as I left click my mouse button repeatedly, I can see that straight lines are drawn within the publication. If I would like to switch from using straight lines to drawing with my cursor like we did with the scribble tool, you can left click and house the mouse button before dragging the mouse in the shape that you’d like to create. Notice that you have that flexibility in moving between straight lines and drawing by hand. This concludes our tutorial on drawing lines with the line tools that are available within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll wrap up the chapter by discussing how shapes can be edited.



Video: Editing a Shape using Anchor Points In this video, we will explore how to edit a shape within Publisher 2013. You can edit a shape within Publisher by editing what are called “points” and are called by other software applications as “anchor points” Let’s turn our attention to the shape that I created using the curve line tool in a previous tutorial. This is a pretty rough looking shape, but let’s say that we wanted to create a shape that looked a little bit more like a flower. That might seem like a far stretch from what we have now, but it is possible with a little bit of editing! First, select the Shape that you’d like to edit. Then, click on the Format tab and within the Insert Shapes group, select the Edit Shape button. From the drop down menu, select Edit Points. Notice now that anchor points are displayed on the outline of the shape. We can left click and drag these points around in order to change what the shape looks like. If you find yourself not being able to quite achieve the look that you’d like with the anchor points that currently exist, you can right click on the shape’s outline and choose Add Point from the drop down menu in order to add additional points to the shape. Once you have the anchor points adjusted to where you’d like them to be, we’ll want to create curves within the shape so that we achieve the look of a petal for our flower. Right now, our shape looks like a crudely drawn star, but if we were to curve the lines at the point in which they come together, we could start to edit our shape into looking more like a flower. In order to edit our shape in this way, we have to change the kind of anchor points that are used in the shape. Paths can have three kinds of anchor points—straight points, corner points and smooth points. At a corner point, a path abruptly changes direction, as you would see in a rectangle and triangle shape. At a smooth point, path segments are connected as a continuous curve. At a straight point, path segments are connected as a continuous line. I’m going to convert an anchor point to a smooth point so that we can achieve the look of the flower within the publication page. To convert the anchor point, I will right click on the anchor point and select Smooth Point from the drop down menu. Now that I’ve converted the anchor point, notice I can curve the paths. Even though the anchor point stays in the same position, I’ve created yet another more complex shape by converting the anchor point to a smooth point. You can continue to convert the rest of the anchor points positioned on the ends of our shape in order to create the look of petals for a flower. Then, you could add a small circle in the middle of the petals as well as a curved line to represent the stem. In a future tutorial, you will learn how to group objects together so that they can be moved and resized as a single object – which is what you would want to consider doing with this flower, should you want to save it as a picture or group it to use it later. This concludes our tutorial on editing a shape using anchor points. Although working with anchor points to create more than just a basic shape within Publisher can seem frustrating, the


Learn Publisher 2013 more you practice the more comfortable you will become. Hopefully you will find yourself able to create more complex shapes in no time.



Chapter 5 – Working with Colors, Tints, Gradients, Textures and Patterns Video: Comparing Color Models In this video, we will explore the available color models that can be used within Publisher 2013. Before we dive in to working with colors in Publisher in this chapter, it is important to understand certain color concepts, so this video focuses more on the explanation of various concepts, rather than demonstration; however, I will provide a few examples. First, we’ll discuss spot color. A spot color is done on a printing press that uses special premixed ink that is usually black for text and one other color for highlights. Spot color printing is usually a less expensive often because there is less work involved for the printer in printing spot colors. When spot color printing happens, text and photographs are printed with black ink and photographs are limited to grey-scale halftones. Then, color highlights are printed using the spot color ink. For best results, you should minimize the number of spot colors you use. Each spot color you create within your document will generate an additional spot color printing plate for a printing press, increasing your printing costs. If you think you might require more than four colors, consider printing your document using process colors. Next, we’ll discuss process color. A process color is printed using a combination of the four standard process inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black which is collectively called CMYK. You’ll want to use process colors when a job requires many colors that using individual spot inks would be expensive or impractical. For example, process color would be a good choice when printing color photographs. Now that we’ve discussed these different types of color models within Publisher 2013, it’s important to note that a major change in working with commercial printing and color models that has happened in Publisher 2013. In previous versions of the tool, designers had the ability to choose which color model they wanted to use when preparing their publication for commercial printing. To visually demonstrate, I’m going to temporarily open the Gatesburg Country Club flyer within Publisher 2010. Notice that within the File tab and in the Info section, there used to be a commercial print settings option that allowed the user to define all colors used in a publication as a single color, spot colors, process colors, or a combination of process colors plus spot colors. Notice that within the 2013 version of Publisher, Microsoft has decided to eliminate the ability to specify the color model and this is something that has been met with some push back by designers. Microsoft’s reasoning for making this change is to simplify the process for both you and your commercial printer by using the RGB color mode, which we’ll discuss in more detail, for all cases, and have enhanced the tool to export any additional color information when saving the publication as a PDF. Their logic is that commercial printers will want a PDF version of your publication and that PDF will hold information about text or objects that you have formatted using CMYK or PANTONE colors. They feel that printers today have sophisticated conversion © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 tools to take colors in PDFs and convert them to the color model that they require to print the job. As mentioned previously, this concept has been met with criticism from advanced designers that often require commercial printers to print their publications. They feel as though removing this functionality could cost them more money and time in the long run as the design departments at a commercial printer will have to make color conversions themselves if they do not have the sophisticated equipment that can do these conversions on their own. The idea of removing functionality from a new version of a software application frustrates some users. It’s important to keep in mind that you can manually choose to format text or an object with the CMYK color model or use PANTONE colors, which we’ll discuss in the next tutorial; however, global changes cannot be made and the PDF will only be storing these selections within the document. Let’s move on to the next tutorial where we’ll discuss color models in more details and explain exactly what the terms RGB, CMYK, and Pantone colors really mean.



Video: Exploring RGB, CMYK, and PANTONE Colors Now that we’ve discussed the basic differences between spot and process colors, it is important to know that differences between some of the terms discussed such as RGB, CMYK, and PANTONE colors. First, we’ll discuss the RGB color model. RGB stands for Red, Green, and Blue and is the color model used for all Microsoft Publisher 2013 publications. In the past, it was most often used for electronic publications. The RGB color model is similar to CMYK, but instead of 100% of each component color creating black, RGB creates pure white. RGB is the most common color model used when creating graphics, although graphics are usually converted to CMYK mode for commercial printing. Because of the eventual conversion for printed documents, you want to be careful which RGB colors you use, as not all RGB colors can be converted to CMYK. Due to Publisher 2013’s inability to convert all colors in a publication to spot or process colors as discussed in the previous tutorial, you may want to discuss your best process for moving forward with designing your publication for commercial printing with your representative at your commercial printer’s office. To demonstrate the colors used in the RGB color model, I’m going to explain the image that I have displayed on the screen. The software application I’m using to display this image is Adobe Photoshop. The reason I’m using Photoshop to view this image is because I’m going to do a little behind the scenes investigation when it comes to colors in order to demonstrate the different color models to you. I’m going to take a look at the channels of this RGB image. Notice when I select the tab, I can see the individual Red, Green, and Blue channel for the RGB color model. As I click through each of the colors, notice the image is displayed as Red, Green, or Blue. When all of these colors are combined with white, I see the end result image of the Koala Bear. Next, let’s discuss the CMYK color mode. The CMYK mode is a subtractive color model that is typically used in color printing and is used to describe the printing process as well – which we discussed in the previous tutorial. CMYK stands for the four types of ink generally used in color printing – C for Cyan, M for Magenta, Y for Yellow, and K for Key – which actually means black. Key is a term used in four color printing because printing plates are carefully keyed or aligned with the key of the black key plate. We won’t get too much in detail regarding this, but I thought it would be important to understand why K would indicate a black color. In theory, a mixture of Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow will create black, although often printers will print black on its own in order to avoid three different colors of ink being placed on top of one another on the paper. To demonstrate the CMYK color model, I’m going to refer back to the image of the Koala Bear that we looked at moments ago. This time, I’m going to actually convert the image to CMYK so we can look at the individual channels. To do so I’ll select the Image Menu, select Mode, and notice my color modes are available to me. RGB is selected now, but I’m going to select CMYK color from the dropdown list. Notice in the right hand side of the screen in the channels panel we see our options for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. I’m going to deselect all of the colors except for Cyan to start. Notice only the Cyan color from the image is displayed. Next, I’m © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 going to move to Magenta-Magenta is the only thing I see, and finally I’m going to take a look at Yellow. Initially, you might think that by selecting cyan, magenta, and yellow you would be good to go for printing because each color would be represented and altogether they make black. Looks what happens when I select all three colors – Although all three of those colors are applied we can definitely tell that something is missing in this image. We can’t forget to add the final black channel to the image in order to complete its look. Now, a term that you’ve heard mentioned a few times in this tutorial is the PANTONE color system. The Pantone Color Matching System is largely a standardized color reproduction system. By standardizing colors, commercial printer and manufacturers are able to match colors without ever having to connect with each other. These colors are standardizing the colors of the CMYK process. Any time that you access the Colors dialog box when applying a custom color, you will notice that PANTONE tab that will display the matched PANTONE colors within your publication. Last in this chapter, we’ll discuss how to apply custom colors to text and objects within our publication. This concludes our tutorial on exploring RGB, CMYK, and PANTONE colors. In the next tutorial, we’re going to explore the Adobe Kuler tool, which is a free tool that can allow you to obtain the color codes or values from predefined color themes or images that can be used within your publication.



Video: Using Adobe’s Kuler Tool In this video, we will explore Adobe’s Kuler tool in order to browse, edit, and create color themes that can be used within Publisher 2013. Adobe Kuler is a web-hosted application used to generate color themes. Most Adobe Creative Suite software applications, such as InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator will have a built-in Kuler panel that can be used directly within the software application. Because Microsoft Publisher is not an Adobe product, there is no panel or tab within the application to be used with the Kuler tool. However, you can still take advantage of this tool through the Kuler tool’s website. To access the Adobe Kuler tool, open a web browser and navigate to kuler.adobe.com. You are required to log-in to this site with a username and password. It is free to sign up to use this site, so if you do not have a username and password already, take a few moments to fill out the online form. Once you have signed in to the tool, you’ll notice that a number of color themes are displayed on the front page. These themes were created by other Kuler users and can be accessed by you at any time. On the left hand side, you can choose to view the Newest, Most Popular, Highest Rated, and Random themes. Let’s say that I am looking for a color theme for a project that I’m currently working on within Publisher. I can browse through the themes that are display and when I find one that I think I might want to use, I can select that theme within the page. Information about that theme will be displayed if the author has decided to share any information. If you’d like to find out what the color codes are for the colors of this theme, then you’ll want to click on the icon displayed in the top right corner of the theme section. When you hover over this icon, you’ll notice a pop up box that says “Make Changes to This Theme and View Color Values”. Let’s click on that icon to take a look. The next screen that is displayed will show you all of the colors of the theme. Below each color, notice that you have several color codes available to you. While some of the codes are for color models that are a bit more advanced and we did not discuss in a previous tutorial, notice that the color themes for the RGB and CMYK color models are displayed. Now, if you wanted to exactly match the colors used in this theme within your publication, you would want to make note of the appropriate color model’s code for that color and then use it within the Publication. Now, that we’ve taken a look at how to access the color codes of the colors used in color themes that were created by other Kuler users, let’s take a look at how we can leverage this tool to our advantage even further. Let’s say that you are working with a company’s logo or an image within your publication and you’d like the text and other elements within the publication to match the colors used in that logo or image. It can be extremely difficult to match the color by eye, so instead it would be a good idea to use the Kuler tool to match these colors. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


The Kuler tool allows you to upload an image from your computer and in return, the tool will show you the color codes needed to exactly match the colors within the image or logo. So, let’s say in our example that we’d like to know the exact colors used in the Gatesburg Country Club logo that is displayed on Page 1 within our publication. To get started, we’ll first need to upload the image. From the screen displayed, underneath the create heading, I’m going to select From an Image. Then, notice that you have the option to either select the Upload button to upload the image from your local computer, or you can choose to click the Flickr button and upload an image from your Flickr account. In this case, I’m going to select Upload. Then, I’m going to search my computer for the Gatesburg Country Club logo. When finished, I’m going to click open. Notice that several colors are displayed below a preview of the image. Within that preview of the image, notice that there are small circles displayed. By default, the Kuler tool is going to select several spots within the image to sample for the colors to be used. If you’d like to change the area that is being sampled, you could always adjust the circles displayed on the screen by dragging and dropping them to a new location. Once you’re satisfied with the colors that have been sampled, you’ll want to include a title, tags, and decide whether or not the color theme should be public or private (and only for your viewing). When finished, click the Save button. Notice now that we have been returned to the front screen. Because the MyKuler heading is selected, with the Themes subheading selected, we can see a list of color themes that have been added by whoever is signed in at the moment. I’m going to select the Gatesburg Country Club color theme, then click the same icon that we clicked before when we were looking at other color themes. Now, we can see the color codes that are used for both the RGB and CMYK color models. For a future tutorial, we want to make note of theme color codes by either bookmarking this page or writing the down for future reference. This concludes our tutorial on using the Kuler tool to browse and create color themes. This tool is a great help in finding out the specific color codes used in logos that you may be working with within your publication. In a future tutorial, we’ll take a look at how these color codes can be used to increase consistency in colors used within the publication.



Video: Creating and Applying Color Schemes In this video, we will explore how to create and apply color schemes within the Publisher 2013 application. A color scheme is a choice of colors used in the design of your publication. Color schemes are often used in order to maintain color consistency throughout a publication and they are used to save a designer time as well. Microsoft Publisher 2013 comes with pre-made color schemes that can be used for your publication. TO demonstrate the use of these pre-made schemes, I’m going to open a new Publisher 2013 template to demonstrate how changing a color scheme can change the look of your publication. I’m going to click the File tab and within the File tab, I’m going to select New so that I can choose a new flyer template. I’m going to choose the Diversity Day flyer – which you should be able to see as well within your gallery of Microsoft.com templates. When the flyer opens, notice that this publication is a template… so basic and general information is provided and as the user, you are to replace that generic information with your own. You may also notice that the graphics within this publication have colors assigned to them already. This set of colors that complement each other within this publication is called a color scheme. To apply a pre-built or custom color scheme within a publication, select the Page Design tab from the Ribbon. Within the Scheme group, notice that a large gallery of color schemes are displayed. Notice what happens within the publication once I hover my mouse over the numerous pre-built schemes that are provided to you. As you change the color scheme, the colors within the publication change. This is a fast and efficient way of changing the color scheme within your publication. Now, there may come a time when you decide that you’d like to create your own color scheme within Publisher. If you’d like to create your own color scheme, click the More button to display the gallery of schemes and at the bottom, select the Create New Color Scheme button. Notice that within the Create New Color Scheme dialog box, you are asked to choose a main color, 5 accent colors, a hyperlink color, and a color that the hyperlink changes to once someone has clicked on it. To change any of these colors, you would want to click on the drop down menu for each category under the New column. Then, select a color from the gallery provided. If none of those colors were what you were looking for, you could select More Colors from the drop down menu. Notice then, that you could choose a color within the standard colors tab, you could specify your own color within the Custom tab by selecting a color from the color picker provided or you cold specify a color model and include the color code in the boxes provided. Finally, if you are familiar with the PANTONE color that you’d like to use within the scheme, you could specify that color within the PANTONE tab. PANTONE colors was discussed in a previous video in this chapter.


Learn Publisher 2013 When finished, click the OK button. Before exiting the Create New Color Scheme dialog box, you’ll want to provide a name for the new color scheme, and then click the Save button. This color scheme can now be applied to your publication, as it appears in the gallery along with the pre-built themes. This concludes our tutorial on creating and applying color schemes within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll explore the use of tints, gradients, textures, and patterns within Publisher.



Video: Tints, Gradients, Textures, and Patterns In this video, we will explore the use of tints, gradients, textures, and patterns within Publisher 2013. First, let’s start off by talking about tints. A tint is a screened, lighter version of a color. Tinting is a cost effective way to make additional spot color variations without having to pay for additional spot color inks. Tinting is also a quick way to create lighter versions of process colors, although it doesn’t reduce the cost of printing process colors. Let’s go ahead and take a look at Page 4 of the publication. In this chapter’s exercise file, notice that design elements have been added to the top and bottom of the page. These elements are shapes that have been filled in with the color displayed. If we find that we like the color that is displayed within the shape; however, we’d like to change the tint of the fill color, we can do so by selecting the shape, then selecting the Format tab. Within the Shape Styles group, click the Shape Fill button and select Tints. Within the dialog box, notice that as you select the boxes displayed, the text below the Tint gallery will show you the percentage of your tint. As you get closer and closer to the original color of the fill, you’ll notice that the tint percentage gets higher and higher until reaching the 100% Tint – which is the original color. Notice that within this box, you also have the option of applying a shade – or a dark version of the base color. At any point, you can also choose to change the base color of the fill by selecting a color from the Base color drop down menu. When finished, click the OK button. Next, let’s talk about gradients. Although gradients were briefly mentioned in previous tutorials and chapters within this series, let’s define them in more detail now. A gradient is a graduated blend between two or more colors or between two tints of the same color. The output device you use affects how gradient colors separate. Gradients can include Paper, process colors, spot colors, or mixed ink colors using any color mode. Gradients are defined by a series of color stops in the gradient bar. Let’s access the gradients area before we go much further. To apply a gradient, you can select the shape, and then select the Format tab. Within the Shape Styles group, select the Shape Fill button and select Gradients from the drop down list. Notice that you have the option of applying a pre-defined light or dark variation gradient from the gallery displayed. We’re going to select the More Gradients option at the bottom. Notice that you can change the type of gradient from linear to path, as well as the angle of the gradient. Then, notice the Gradient Stops bar. A stop is the point at which a gradient changes from one color to the next, and is identified by selecting the gradient bar within the slider, and then looking at the color button below. So, in this case, if I don’t want the first stop to be a light white color, I can select the gradient bar, and then choose a new color from the Color drop down menu. If I wanted to change the position of this color from 0% to say 50, I would type 50% in


Learn Publisher 2013 the box provided. Finally, if I wanted to change the transparency, I would do so in the box provided. Before finishing, notice that you can choose to add or remove stops to the gradient by clicking on the Add Gradient Stop or Remove Gradient Stop buttons to the right of the Gradient Stops bar. When finished, click the OK button. Next, let’s explore the texture feature. Applying a texture is a pretty simply process within Publisher 2013. First, select the object that you’d like to apply a texture to, then select the Shape Fill button and within the drop down menu, select Texture. Notice that a gallery of textures within Publisher is displayed. These textures can be applied to the fill of any shape within the tool; although, most people do not use them because you can see, they can be quite cheesy. I can’t think of any situation where you would want or need to apply the fossil to an object within your publication, but I guess you never know! Finally, let’s take a look at the pattern feature. We discussed the pattern a couple of times throughout this series, but to reiterate, if you’d like to apply a pattern to the fill of your shape, select the shape, then from the Shape Fill menu, select Pattern. Within the dialog box provided, you can select any of the patterns that are displayed. If you’d like to change the Foreground or Background colors used in any of these patterns, you can do so using the drop down menus provided. When finished, click the OK button. This concludes our tutorial on applying tints, gradients, textures, and patterns to an object within Publisher 2013. In the last video of this chapter, we’ll take a look at how we can apply custom colors to our objects within Publisher 2013.



Video: Applying Custom Colors In this video, we will explore how to apply custom colors within Publisher 2013. At this point, in previous tutorials we have explored how to apply colors to the outline and fill of images and shapes, as well as how to create a color scheme. But, we’ve haven’t discussed in detail how we can apply a specific color to the outline or fill of an object within Publisher. So, let’s say that we’d like to change the color of the text on Page 1 to match the dark green color from the Gatesburg Country Club logo. If you recall from a previous tutorial, you can use Adobe’s Kuler tool to find out the exact color code of the colors within an image that you upload to the Kuler site. We can then use that information to match the color exactly within our publication. I’m going to open the browser that displays the Kuler tool and note that the dark green color’s RGB value is 39, 140, 35. Using this code will give us the exact color from the logo. Next, I’m going to select some of the text on Page 1. Then, I’m going to select the arrow next to the Font Color button within the Font group within the Home tab on the Ribbon. To enter a precise color, I’ll select More Colors from the drop down menu. Although I could select a standard color within the Standard tab in the dialog box provided, I can also specify the amount (in a number value) of red, green, and blue that will be used. So, I’ll place, 39, 140, and 35 in the boxes provided. Click OK when finished. Now, if we wanted to apply this same color to the text at the bottom of page 1, then the process would bit a bit easier. Now, we’ll select the text, click the Font Color arrow, and then notice in the section that says Recent Colors, there is a dark green color displayed. If you hover your mouse over this color, you’ll notice the RGB color values. You can simply select this color to apply it to the text. Let’s say that we’d like to apply the medium green color and the light green color to the shapes on Page 4. It’s important to keep in mind that you can change the color of more than one shape at a time. First, let’s select the darker top shape, then hold the CTRL key on the keyboard and select the darker shape on the bottom. With both selected, we’ll click the Format Tab and then select the Shape Fill button. Then, select More Colors, click the Custom tab and input the 10, 191, and 4 values in the RGB boxes provided. Again, these values were taken from the Kuler tool that was discussed in a previous video. When finished, click the OK button. We’re going to do this one more time for the lighter colored shapes within Page 4. This time, we’re going to apply the RGB color values of 81, 242, and 75. Now that we’ve applied these custom colors to both text and a shape’s fill… it’s important to note that the process for applying a custom color to the outline of a shape remains the same as what I’ve just demonstrated here.


Learn Publisher 2013 One way of applying custom colors to objects within your publication that we haven’t explored yet is the Sample Color tool. The sample color tool allows you to select a color within an image or shape within Publisher to instantly apply to the outline or fill of a selected shape. So, let’s say on page 1 of our publication that we want the outline of the oval shape with the image fill to match the yellow tee color in the image. Instead of uploading this image into the Kuler tool to find the exact color, because the image is already displayed within the publication, we can simply select the shape, and then select the Shape Outline button. From the drop down list, choose sample line color. Notice that the cursor now changes to an eye dropper. This means that the color of whatever location we select within an image or shape will automatically be applied to the outline of this shape. So, I’m going to click on the Yellow tee and notice that the outline has changed to a yellow color. Using the sample color tool is that simple. It’s important to note that you can sample a color from anywhere and a sampled color can be applied to not only an outline, but a fill color as well. This concludes our tutorial on applying custom colors to objects within Publisher. To learn more details on how to manage objects within your publication, continue on to the next chapter.



Chapter 6 – Managing Objects Video: Utilizing the Scratch Area In this video, we will explore the Publisher 2013 scratch area. The scratch area is the space around the page within your publication file and it acts as a place to create or hold objects that you don’t currently want on any page. The advantage of using the scratch area is that the scratch area remains the same, no matter which page you are looking at within your publication. So, this means that if you place an object in the scratch area while working on Page 1 within your publication, that objects will be displayed in the same place when you switch pages. That way, it will be easy to move back within your publication where it is needed. This is really helpful as it acts as a “holding place” for objects that you don’t want to delete, but don’t want to immediately use. It’s important to keep in mind that objects within the scratch area will not print when you print your publication. Although the scratch area is not new with Publisher 2013, starting in this version when you insert images within the publication, they will be held in the scratch area until you decide what to do with them. Let’s demonstrate the use of the scratch area by adding a few items of Clip Art into the publication just for demonstrate purposes. So, let’s switch to Page 1 in the publication, select the Insert tab and then click the Online Pictures button. Then, search in the ClipArt area by the keyword of Golf. Although your results may match the results I have displayed on the screen, if you do not have the exact same images, that’s ok. We’re just going to demonstrate the use of the scratch area in this video, so the content we’re adding isn’t important. We’re going to add multiple clip art images at once, so select the first image, then hold the CTRL key on your keyboard and then select the next image, and then repeat this process until you have about 4 images selected. Then, click the Insert button. It will take a moment for the images to be downloaded, but when they are notice what happened. All four images are placed as thumbnails within the scratch area. Let’s use the Pages pane to move to the other pages within the publication. Notice as I move through these pages, the thumbnails remain in the scratch area. If you wanted to place one of these images on say Page 2, you would simply navigate to page 2 and then drag and drop the image in place. If you’d like to swap one of the images in the scratch area with one of the images within the publication, you can do so easily. For example, if I wanted to swap one of the images on Page 4 out for one of the images in the scratch area, I would select the image on Page 4, hold the control key on the keyboard, and then select the image within the Scratch Area. Then, click the icon that is displayed within the image within the Scratch Area. Notice that the images have been swapped. This is a nice way to try out different images within your publication before making your final decision.


Learn Publisher 2013 This concludes our tutorial on utilizing the scratch area within Publisher 2013. Hopefully you’ll utilize this helpful tool in the future so that you can be more efficient when creating your publication.



Video: Arranging, Grouping and Ungrouping Objects In this video, we will explore how to arrange, group, and ungroup object within Publisher 2013. First, let’s begin by discussing the arrangement of objects within our publication. Arranging refers to the order in which objects are displayed within a publication. If you have objects that overlap each other within your publication, how does Publisher know which one should be displayed on top of another? To demonstrate, I’m going to temporarily bring in a few images from the scratch area onto Page 3 within the publication. I’m going to move these objects within the page so that they are overlapping each other. Notice that when I overlap these images, there is an image in the back, and image in the middle and an image in the front. If we have a situation where we want rearrange the order in which these objects appear on our page, we have to use our arranging tools. To take a look at these options, select the front most image within the page. Then, within the Picture Tools tab, take a look at the options available in the Arrange group. Notice the two options – Bring Forward and Send Backward. If I wanted to position this image so that it is moved back one step and the second image within this stack, I would choose the Send Backward button. Notice now that this image is place behind the new front most image. Notice that next to the Send Backward button there is an arrow. When you click on that arrow, notice that you have the option to “Send to Back” – which means that if you select an image and click Send to Back, then you will be sending that image immediately to the back of the order – which I’ll demonstrate with the front most image. Notice now that this image is in the back of the order. The same concept works with the Bring Forward and Bring to Front options above the Send Backward button. If you’d like to bring an object forward in the order you would click the Bring Forward button… if you want to bring an object all the way to the front of the stack, you’d select the arrow and choose Bring to Front. Let’s say now that once you set your images in the order that you’d like them to appear, and you’d like to group these images together so that when you move one of them, you move all of them! For this, you’ll need to utilize the grouping tool. This tool is helpful in ensuring that groups of images within your publication will remain together and maintain their position in relation to each other as well. To group objects within Publisher, first you have to select all of the objects to be grouped. IN this case, I could choose to select the first image, then hold CTRL on my keyboard and continue to select the other images as well. Or, you could choose to click and hold your left mouse button somewhere outside of the objects, and then drag your mouse until the border you’re drawing encompasses all of the objects. When that happens, let go of the left mouse button and notice that all of the objects have been selected. Then, select the Format tab, and within the Arrange group, click the Group button. The objects are now grouped, and notice that if I go to move one of the images, I’m now moving all three. Also, if I choose to apply any kind of formatting to the group


Learn Publisher 2013 of images, such as applying a formatting effect like a picture border, the border will be applied to all three of the grouped objects at once. It’s important to keep in mind any time you have multiple objects selected, you can choose to take those grouped objects and save them as an image on your computer. So, let’s say that you created a collage of images in Publisher and you want to save that collage as an image itself. While the images are grouped, like the ones in this publication, you would simply right-click on the grouped image and select “Save as Picture”, choose a location of where to save the image on your computer, and then choose a file type for your image. For more information on the different types of digital image file formats, be sure to check out the tutorial from a previous chapter. Once saved, you can use this image in other software applications or send it via email. Finally, if at any point you would like to ungroup your images, select the group, then the Format tab and within the Arrange group, click the Ungroup button. This concludes our tutorial on arranging, grouping, and ungrouping objects within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll discuss additional ways to manage our objects, including rotating, flipping, nudging, and aligning.



Video: Rotating, Flipping, Nudging and Aligning Objects In this video, we will explore how to manage objects within our publication through rotating, flipping, nudging, and alignment. First, let’s start by talking about how to rotate objects within our publication. While it may have been briefly touched upon in a previous tutorial, we’re going to focus on it a bit more now. You may find that rotating objects within your publication can add visual interest to your publication. For whatever reason you may need to rotate objects within your publication, there are two ways that it can be quickly accomplished. First, if you’d like to rotate an image within your publication, select that image. When you select the image, you’ll notice the resizing handles that we’ve used in the past that can be used to resize your image. However, notice that there is also a rotation handle in the top middle of your image. When you hover your cursor over this handle, you’ll notice a small circular arrow that indicates that this handle is used for rotation. TO rotate the object, left click and hold your mouse button, then drag your mouse to the left or right. Keep in mind that you can rotate multiple objects within your publication at the same time and to exactly the same degree by selecting multiple objects before rotating using this handle. Now, there may be times that you need to rotate your object to a precise degree when designing your publication. If this is the case, you can select the object and then select the Format tab and within the Arrange group, click the Rotate button. Notice that you have the option to rotate the image to the left or right by 90 degrees as well as the flipping options I mentioned earlier. If you choose the Flip Vertical or Flip Horizontal options, then your image will be flipped completely in the vertical or horizontal direction. Finally, you have can click the More Rotation Options button if you want to specify a rotation that is not 90 degrees or a perfect flip. Within the dialog box displayed, notice that under the Size and rotate heading, you can specify the rotation degrees in the box provided. So, if I wanted to rotate this object by 270 degrees, I could type 270 in the box and click OK when finished. Notice now that the image is rotated by 270 degrees. I’m going to take a moment to place all images in their original positions. Next, we’ll take a look at how to align our objects by nudging as well as using the Align tools within the Arrange group. There may come a time when you need to move the position of an object within your publication by a very small amount. Dragging and dropping an image by very small increments can be incredibly difficult which is why you may want to “nudge” your object. Nudging is easy – simply select the object and with the object selected, press the up, down, left, and right arrows on the keyboard. Notice that each time I click the down arrow, the object is moved in very small increments. Finally, when it comes to working with objects, there may be times when you want to align or distribute your objects on the page. Let’s say that I want to ensure that all three of the images that are displayed on the screen are perfectly in line with each other. That can be an extremely difficult task to complete by hand. Instead, you can choose to select all of the objects to be aligned, and then select the Align button. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


The drop down menu shows a variety of options for aligning the selected objects. The first set of options allows you to align the left or right edges or center of all three objects to the leftmost, rightmost or center object. Align top, middle, and bottom accomplishes the same task; however, they align to the top, middle or bottom of the object. So in this example, if we wanted all of these objects to be aligned at the top of the highest object, with all three selected, we would choose “Align Top” and notice what happens. In this demonstration, all objects are aligned at the top by the highest object on the page. If I repositioned the objects and wanted to align them to the left, I was simply select the objects and select Align Left. All objects that are selected will be perfectly aligned with each other. The next two options are distribute horizontally and vertically. I’m going to reposition the objects on the page. Now, let’s say that I have all of these objects aligned with each other; however, I want them to be equally distributed on the page – meaning that I want there to be the same distance between the first and second object as there is between the second and third object – which is not the case at the moment. If this were the case, I would select all three objects, and then select the Align button and choose Distribute horizontally. Notice now that the middle object has moved so that there is the same distance between all three objects. Notice that there is an option at the bottom of the drop down menu that says “Relative to Margin Guides.” This means that when you align or distribute your objects, if this option is selected then all objects will automatically align relative to margin guides rather than other objects. This concludes our tutorial on managing objects by rotating, flipping, nudging, and aligning. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to wrap text around objects within Publisher.



Video: Wrapping Text around Objects In this video, we will explore how to wrap text around objects within Publisher 2013. In print publications, you have a few different options for how text will wrap around an image when a text box and image are in the same space. Which text wrapping option you choose, depending on your preference and how you’d like your publication to look as a designer. Let’s say that we’d like to add a picture of John Smith, Gatesburg Country Club owner within his message to Gatesburg Country Club members on page 2. Let’s select the Insert tab and within the Illustrations group, click the Online Pictures button. Then, conduct a ClipArt search using the keyword Business Man. Once you’ve found an acceptable image of a businessman within the gallery, select the image’s thumbnail and click the Insert button. First, let’s resize the image, if necessary. Then, if you move the image over the text within the text on Page 2, you’ll notice that the text is wrapped around the image tightly. The default text wrapping setting that has been applied is Square. Let’s take a look at all of our options by selecting the image, then selecting the Format tab and then click the Wrap Text button. The None option acts as if the picture isn’t there and as you move the image over the text, the image blocks the text from view. The Top and Bottom options will cause text to stop at the top of the picture’s frame and continue after the bottom of the frame. Tight wraps around the outline of the picture itself rather than around the frame. Through is similar to tight; however, for some pictures it will cause the text to wrap even more tightly around the picture’s outline. Square, the default in this case, wraps the text around the frame rather than around the picture itself. Finally, the last option is “In Line with Text.” This option will cause the image to be treated as any other text or object that would be placed in a line of text and the remaining text will continue before and after the image. In our example, I will choose In Line with Text and reposition the text and text frame so that the text is balanced and looks a bit better. This concludes our tutorial on wrapping text around objects within publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a quick look at how the format painter can be used to copy formatting form one object and easily apply it to another within our publication.



Video: Utilizing the Format Painter In this video, we will quickly explore how to utilize the Format Painter tool within Publisher 2013. The Format Painter is a tool that is available in many Microsoft Office applications such as Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook. You can use the Format Painter to quickly apply formatting from text, shapes, and pictures to another text selection, shape, or picture. To demonstrate the use of the Format Painter, I’m going to ensure that the formatting of the text in each of the text boxes on Page 1 does not match. Then, let’s say that I want all of the attributes of the text in the top text box to match the text in the second text box. This includes the font type, size, color, line and paragraph spacing and any other attributes assigned to the selected text. So, first we’ll select the text that has the attributes we would like to copy. Then, we’ll select the Home tab on the Ribbon and within the Clipboard group, we’ll need to select the Format Painter button. It’s important to note that left-clicking the Format Painter button will allow us to copy the attributes of the selected text and apply it to one selection within the publication. However, if you’d like to apply the formatting to more than one selection, then you must double-click the Format Painter button. In this case, we only want to apply it to one selection, so we’ll simply click the Format Painter button. Then, notice that the cursor has changed to a paint brush. To apply the attributes of the original text to other text in the publication, simply highlight the text you’d like to change. Notice now that the other text has changed. Since we simply wanted to demonstrate this tool, I’m going to undo those changes and that concludes our tutorial. In the next video, we’re going to wrap up the managing objects chapter by discussing how objects within the publication can be saved as “building blocks” and be reused in the future.



Video: Saving an Object as a Building Block In this tutorial, we will explore how to save an object within your publication as a building block. Building blocks are reusable pieces of content such as business information, headings, calendars, borders, and advertisements that are stored in galleries. You can access and reuse these objects at any time. You can create and save your own building blocks and tag them with keywords so they are easy to find. Custom building blocks can be a combination of graphics, texts, and other building blocks as well. So let’s say in our example that we like the visual elements that were included on Page 4 within out publication. We’ve decided that we’d like to be able to use these elements in the future, and we don’t’ want to have to open this publication over and over again so that we can copy and paste the shapes into new publication. We can save these shapes as building blocks instead. First, I’m going to group the top shapes together. Then, I’m going to select the grouped shape and right click on it. From the drop down menu, I’m going to select Save as Building Block. First, you’ll need to give this block a name. In this case, I’m going to call it Top Graphic Element. You can provide a description, if desired. Then, you’ll want to choose which gallery is most appropriate for the new building block and there are 5 available. Page parts is a gallery for pre-formatted structural elements for your publication like headings, sidebars, and stories. Calendars are for pre-formatted monthly calendars. Borders and Accents are for graphic elements for adding visual interest. Advertisements are for pre-formatted advertisement elements and Business Information is a gallery containing business information sets. For more information about business information sets, be sure to check out the appropriate tutorial in the first chapter. In this case, our grouped shape is a graphic element that should be placed in the Borders and Accents gallery, so I’ll select that from the drop down menu. Then, choose a category. If you’d like to apply any keywords, you can do so in the box provided. When finished, click the OK button. To demonstrate the use of this new Building Block, let’s say that I want to create a new publication for another project – that let’s say is with a brand new company. When the new blank publication appears, let’s say that I want to add that top design element to the blank page. I can do so by selecting the Insert tab. Then, notice that there is a group for Building Blocks. Because I placed these design elements into the Borders and Accents gallery, I can click the button and notice that within the General category, the design element is displayed. If I want to add this to the publication, I simply need to select it. This concludes our tutorial on saving an object as a building block within Publisher 2013. It’s important to keep in mind that building blocks can be any combination of graphics, text, and existing building blocks as well. The ability to create and save these building blocks for future use can be a big time saver, so be sure to utilize this feature when appropriate.



Chapter 7 – Working with Tables Video: Inserting a Table In this video, we will explore how to insert a table within our Publisher 2013 publication. A table can be described as a grid of cells that are arranged in rows and columns. Tables can be useful for organizing your information in a concise and readable way – especially if you have a lot of number data. In our example, we’re going to insert a new table on Page 3 that will contain information about prices for memberships to the Gatesburg Country Club. If necessary, let’s navigate to Page 3 of the publication. The process for inserting a table is pretty straight forward and similar to the process of inserting a table in Word and PowerPoint. To begin, select the Insert tab on the Ribbon and click the Table button within the Tables group. When you click on that button, notice that a grid is displayed. Using this grid, you can choose the amount of rows and columns that should be inserted into the new table within the publication. As you hover your mouse over the cells in the grid, you’ll notice that a preview of the size of the table will be displayed within the publication. If you do not want to use the grid to create your table, select the Insert Table option from the drop down menu. A small Create Table dialog box will be displayed. In this box, you can choose the amount of rows and columns for the new table. In this example, we’re going to include pricing information for a membership to the Gatesburg Country Club. Because we’re interested in offering several different levels of memberships for several different time periods, we’re going to need several rows and columns. To start, let’s insert a table with 3 rows and 4 columns and then click the OK button. The new table will be interested into the publication. You can reposition the table to be exactly where you want it to be by dragging and dropping the table on the page, much like you would a shape or image. You can also drag the sides and corners of the table to resize it as well. Once you’ve inserted the table, you’ll want to add text to it. To add text within a cell in the table, simply click inside of the table and begin typing – much like you would in any other text box. In the first cell of the table, we’re going to type the text Membership Level. Now, it’s important to know that you can move your cursor around in a table by using the keyboard, so you don’t have to use the mouse to click inside of a cell every time that you want to add text to it. So, if you’d like to move to the cell to the right, click the TAB button on your keyboard. If you’d like to move back to the left, hold SHIFT on your keyboard and then click TAB. Keep in mind that you can also use the arrows on the keyboard to move up, down, left, or right as needed.


Learn Publisher 2013 In this case, we’re going to put One Year, Two Years, and Five Years in the remaining cells for this row. Notice that when you get to the end of a row and you press TAB on your keyboard, your insertion point will be moved down to the next row. Within the second row, let’s type Single, $400, $750, and $1,600. In the last row, go ahead and type the prices for memberships of a couple. Now that we’ve got a good start and foundation to our table, let’s move on to the next tutorial and discuss how to edit a table’s structure and its contents.



Video: Inserting and Deleting Rows and Columns In this video, we will explore how to insert and delete row and columns within a Publisher 2013 table. Currently, we have four columns and three rows within our table. Let’s say that we’d like to add a header within our table that will display a “title” for the table about the existing cells. To insert a row within a table, first place your insertion point in the table. Then, select the Layout tab. Within the Rows and Columns group, notice the buttons that are displayed. You can click the Insert Above or Insert Below buttons to insert a row above or below the active row – or where your insertion point is displayed. You also have the option of inserting a column to the left or to the right by clicking the insert left or insert right buttons. Let’s go ahead and select Insert Above to insert the new row. In the first cell, let’s type 2013 Gatesburg Country Club Membership Rates. For right now, this text might seem like it doesn’t really fit into the area where we’ve placed it, but that’s ok because we’re going to talk a bit more about formatting our table in the next tutorial. It’s also important to note that if you find yourself with your insertion point in the last cell of the last row within a table, you can quickly and easily add a new row to the table by pressing the TAB button your keyboard. Because there is no row to tab to when you hit this button, a new one will be created! Let’s go ahead and insert a new row using this method. Within this row, let’s go ahead and insert a row for a family membership. This concludes our tutorial on inserting and deleting rows and columns within our table. In the next video, we’re going to take a look at how we can transform this plain table into a nicely formatted table that will be visually appealing to our readers.



Video: Formatting a Table In this video, we will explore how to format a table within Publisher 2013. Because we use a table to visually organize data and make things easy to read or stand out to the reader, it’s a good idea to format the table in a way that makes sense. Some of the formatting features that we’re going to take a look at in this tutorial include changing font attributes, aligning text, applying table styles, formatting cell borders and fills, and merging and splitting cells. First, let’s talk about changing font attributes within a table. The good news is that formatting text within a table is the same process as formatting text that is within a text box. For example, if we’d like to change the font of all of the text within this table except for the header information, first we’ll select all of the cells, and then within the Home tab, we’ll change the font to Arial. Let’s then change the size to 10. Finally, we can apply a bold format to the membership level color as well as the column headers that indicate the length of the membership. Changing these font attributes can make the text easier to read and in the case of the bold formatting, it makes it easier for us to tell which cells contain row and columns headings. Notice that we did not format the text within the row that contains the header. It’s a good idea that when you have a header for a table, that you merge and center the title or header for the table above the data. Notice that because we have four columns in this table, there are four cells (three of which are empty) that are displayed in that first row. What we’d like to do is merge all four of the cells together so that the text can span across all of them. To do so, first select all of the cells that you’d like to merge. Then, select the Layout tab and within the Merge group, click the Merge button. If you decided later that you didn’t want to have your cells merged anymore, you can choose to split cells as well. To do so, click the Split cells button and notice that the merged cell is returned to normal. In this case, we want to leave the merge cell in its place. You may now notice that something still doesn’t seem quite right with the text within the header cell. That’s because we actually want to center align the text within the merge cell. Within the Alignment group in the Layout tab, notice that there are 9 different alignment options that are available. In this case, we want to choose the middle option, Align Center. Let’s also bold this text and increase the size so that it takes up the entire cell. Now that our header is looking better, let’s go ahead and apply the top align center alignment to all of the rate columns. Next, within the Alignment group, you may have notice a button called Cell Margins. Cell margins are the space or padding that exists between the text in a cell and the border of that cell. The higher the cell margins, the more space there will be between your text and the borders. Notice that you can choose an option from the Cell Margins gallery, or you can choose to place a specific cell margin by selecting Custom Margins from the drop down menu. Before we move on to the more colorful types of formatting for our table, it’s important to note that in additional to changing the cell margins in order to create more space within a cell, row, or © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 column within your table… you can also choose to resize the width and height of the rows and columns as well. With the Layout tab active, notice the Size group on the right hand side. Within the boxes provided, you can choose to increase the height and width of the table as a whole. You can also choose to activate or deactivate the option displayed in the check box that will grow the table to fit the text placed within it. If you want to simply resize one particular column or row, you can drag and drop the borders to a new position. Now that we have formatted the table in terms of font attributes and alignment, let’s shift our focus to the stylization of our table. It’s important to know that you can add color to your table in order to give it a highly designed look, or to simply match the design colors of the publication. One quick way to do this is to apply a style to the table. A style is a predefined format for the table. To apply a style, simply select the table, then the Design tab, and within the Table Formats group, selected a pre-defined format from the gallery. Notice that a colored border has been placed around the table and the fill color of the header row was changed. If you’d like to change formatting of a table to meet your individual needs because you aren’t a fan of one of the predefined formats – or you just want to keep your colors consistent, you can change the border and fill colors at any time. In this case, let’s place our insertion point inside of the header row. Then, in the Table Formats group, select the Fill button arrow. Then, select the recently used dark green color. Applying this color to the header row will tie in the colors of the Gatesburg Country Club logo and the design element on the page of page nicely. Next, let’s look at how to change the borders and border colors for the table. If you’d like to add, remove, or modify the borders of the table or an entire cell, then you’ll first want to select the table or cells. With those cells selected, click the Borders button within the Borders group. Then, choose to change, add, or remove where borders are applied for that cell. If you want to change the weight or thickness of the border, select the weight from the drop down menu. Finally, if you’d like to change a borders color, select a new color from the Line Color drop down menu. This concludes our tutorial on formatting tables within Publisher 2013. In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at how we can manage pages and page masters in order to start finalizing the look of our publication!



Chapter 8 – Managing Pages Video: Working with Master Pages In this video, we will explore how to work with master pages within Publisher 2013. Publisher has two different kinds of pages – publication pages (which is what we’ve been working with all along) and Master pages (which are background pages that contain elements that are used on several pages in a publication). Utilizing master pages can help you to maintain consistency in the design of your publication as well as save you time. Think about a situation where you have created a 100 page catalog or booklet using Publisher. Let’s say that in the bottom right hand corner of ever single page, you must have the company’s logo displayed. Imagine how much time it would take to insert the company’s logo on ever single page of the publication! It would drive you crazy! Not only would it be time consuming to place the log on every single page, but it would also be difficult to ensure that the logo was in the exact same location on each page. Instead, we can include the logo on a master page and have it automatically be placed on every single page in the publication. Master pages can contain all kinds of design elements and not just logos. They can contain structural elements as well such as margins and guides. When you apply a master page to a publication page, the publication page displays all the elements of the master page. Let’s start working with master pages by accessing the Master page section by selecting the View tab and then selecting Master Page. Notice that a single blank Master Page is displayed. Within this page, we can choose to add our design and structural elements. Let’s say for example that we’d like to include the green design elements that are displayed on Page 4 within the Master Page. Because we saved these elements as a building block in a previous tutorial, we can choose to select the insert tab and then click the Borders and Accents button. Then, choose the green design elements from the gallery displayed. If you did not complete the steps from a previous tutorial, you can copy the design elements from the publication’s page and then paste them within the master page area. If you need to adjust the position of the page parts, please do so. If we close the Master Page view, notice that the design element has been applied to all pages within the publication. This may require use to make changes to the layout of the objects within the publication so that everything is in a place that makes sense. However, in this case, let’s say that we don’t want to apply this element to ALL of the pages in the publication. If that’s the case, let’s go back to the Master Pages area. Let’s cut the design elements from the current master page that it’s blank again. Now, let’s add a new master page. You must assign this Master page a letter and then name the master page. Then, paste the design elements into the new master page. This master page should then be © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 applied to just Page 4. To apply this master page, you can either select the Apply To button from the Ribbon, or right click on the Master Page thumbnail and choose Apply To. Then, choose to apply this master page to page 4. Now, let’s say that we’d like this design element to appear on the two page spread pages as well. If that’s the case, you’ll want to create a two page master spread. Let’s create a new master page (c) and make this new master a two page spread. Then, paste the design element onto the left page. Then, paste it again to the right page. Now, we’re going to Flip the design element so that it lines up with the design element on the left hand page and meets seamlessly in the middle. Now, apply this master page to pages 2 and 3. Let’s take a look at our document. Notice that the design elements have been applied to pages 2 – 4. Another advantage that we didn’t mention earlier of placing these design elements on the master pages instead of the publication pages is that you no longer have to worry about another Publisher 2013 opening this file and accidentally repositioning or deleting your design elements. Notice that when I’m looking at the publication pages, I cannot select these design elements. Let’s return back to the master pages so that we can take a look at how to insert a header or footer with things like date, time, page numbers, and other fields. When within the Master Pages area, click the Show Header/Footer button to be taken to the space dedicated to the header. Within this space, you can choose to type text that you’d like to appear at the top of every page that this master page is applied to in the future. If you wanted to jump to the footer, you can click the Show Header/Footer button again. If you do not wish to include static text in your footer, you can choose to insert a date, time, or page number field within the header or footer. The advantage of using these fields instead of just typing page numbers, the date, or the time is that the information will automatically be updated when the date, time, or page numbers change – which can be a real time saver if you’re looking to include that information on your pages. In this case, we’re going to stick with utilizing the master pages to include the design elements we worked with a few minutes ago. The last thing I’ll point out is that if you need to Duplicate, Rename, and Delete a Master Page within Publisher, be sure to click the corresponding button within the Master Page group in the Ribbon. This concludes our tutorial on working with master pages. Hopefully now you have a better understanding of what a master page does, how to create and apply one to your publication, how to work with your headers and footers, and finally, how to rename, duplicate, or delete a master page, if necessary.



Video: Applying a Page Background In this video, we will explore how to apply a background to a publication page. If you are creating a publication that should have an image or a color in the background, you’ll be happy to know that Publisher makes this easy to accomplish. The easiest way to apply a background to a page within the publication is to select the Page Design tab and in the Page background group, select the Page Background button. Notice that a gallery of predefined page backgrounds is displayed. Now, there is a good chance that none of the colors or the gradients that are presented here are what you are looking for in terms of a page background. If that’s the case, select More Backgrounds from the drop down menu. The Format Background dialog box will be displayed. You have the same options for filling the color of a page as you have for filling a shape or text box. You have the option to use a solid color, gradient, picture or texture, or a pattern when applying a background color. If you’re interested in learning more about gradients or patterns, be sure to check out the appropriate tutorials in a previous chapter. In our case, if we had decided that we wanted to change the background color to a solid fill, we would select the solid fill radio button and select the color. If we wanted to apply a picture or texture to the background, we would select the radio button and then upload the image. I’m going to click OK so that we can take a look at another method for filling the background of a page within a publication with an image. Let’s go to page 1 and move the image filled oval into the scratch area so that we can demonstrate this method. Let’s go ahead and find an image using Microsoft’s ClipArt feature to insert into the publication. Now, let’s right click on the image. Notice that in the drop down menu, you have the option to “Apply to Background” When you hover over this option, notice that you can choose to fill the entire background with one instance of the image, or you can choose to “tile” the image to maintain its original size and then repeat. If you wanted to apply either of those options, you would simply select it from the list. This concludes our tutorial on applying a page background within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a look at how to manage our page setup options.



Video: Managing Page Setup Options In this video, we will explore how to explore page setup options with as the page orientation, margins, and size. First, let’s take a look at the orientation options. Publisher, like other Microsoft Office applications, offers two different kinds of page orientation – portrait and landscape. Portrait will display a page vertically and landscape will display a page horizontally. To change the orientation of a page, select the Page Design tab and within he Page setup group, click the Orientation button. Then, select Portrait or Landscape from the drop down menu. Keep in mind that changing the page’s orientation after you’ve added content to your publication will most likely require you to adjust the elements and text on your page. Next, let’s take a look at the margins settings. Margins provide the cushion around the page edges where your content will not print. A lot of times, you may find yourself not wanting any page margins to be applied to your publication so that you can accomplish what is called a full bleed. Bleeding in publishing refers to content that runs off the edges of a page. If you’d like to change your margins, click the Margins button within the same group. Notice that there are presets for margins sizes. If you don’t like any of the sizes that are provided, you may select Custom Margins at the bottom of the drop down menu. Within the Layout Guides dialog box, you can specify the size of the left, right, top, and bottom margins as needed. Finally, let’s take a look at how to change page size settings. In this publication, we’ve been using the standard “letter” size of paper of 8 ½ inches by 11 inches. However, if you want to change your paper size, you can do so by select the Size button within the Ribbon. If you are not presented with a paper size that meets your needs in the gallery displayed, you can create a new page size by selecting that option from the drop down menu. Then, within the Create New Page size dialog box, you’ll want to change the width and height of the page size and click OK when finished. It’s important to note that Publisher 2013 does not have a “full bleed” option for printing. This means that if you’d like to apply a bleed of your content off the edges of your pages, you will want to print your publication on a larger size of paper and then trim the edges after printing. It can be a frustrating process; however, unfortunately this is one of the draw backs of using a more intuitive and user friendly desktop publishing software application like Publisher. As I’ve mentioned in previous tutorials, Publisher is not capable of some of the more advanced features you might find in another desktop publishing software application. This concludes our tutorial on managing page setup options within Publisher 2013. In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at how to conduct a mail merge within Publisher 2013.



Chapter 9 – Create a Mail Merge Publication Video: Starting a Mail Merge In this video, we will define a mail merge and also start the mail merge process within Publisher 2013. Mail merge is the process of combining information from a data source with a publication to print a batch of individually customized publications. Mail merge is most often used to automatically address envelopes, labels, postcards, form letters, brochures, newsletters, and other publications for mass mailing. You can also use it to personalize publications, for example, by adding personalized notes. You can merge both text and pictures into your publications. While you might find that you don’t need to utilize the mail merge feature within Publisher for every publication, when you can use it – it’s best to do so because it can save you a lot of time and hassle. To demonstrate the use of mail merge within Publisher, we’re going to use a new publication for the mail merge demonstration purposes. Let’s open a new publication by searching for a postcard template within the search box. A few postcard options will be displayed and I’d like you to go ahead and choose whichever postcard you’d like. Once the postcard template options, notice that there are placeholders for all of your information. Now, it might not take too long for you to insert your own business information into the placeholders that are provided; however, if you’re designing a postcard for yourself or a client that will be sent to 10’s, 100’s, or even 1000s of people, then you certainly don’t want to create a new post card for every single recipient and then spend the time to type the mailing address of every recipient in the box provided on the page that has the placeholder for the recipient’s address. Instead, you should utilize a mail merge in order to have Publisher take a list of recipients and merge that list with the publication in order to fill in the address information for you. To begin a mail merge so that the recipient’s address information will be automatically filled in on the page of the publication that has the placeholder, first we’ll want to select that page. Then, select the Mailing tab. Within the Start group, you’ll want to click the Mail Merge button arrow. When you click on this arrow, notice that you have the option to select Mail Merge from the drop down list and then manually continue with the process of creating a mail merge, which is what we’re going to do for our demonstration tutorial purposes. However, you also have the option of working through the Mail Merge Wizard. A Wizard is a tool that asks you a series of questions to walk you through the steps of a process within a Microsoft Office product. Notice that if I click on the wizard option, a pane on the right hand side opens. You’ll have to read through these screens and make selections when necessary. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 In our case, we’re going to work through the mail merge process on our own. The next step in the process is to Select Recipients which we’ll discuss in the next tutorial – so be sure to move on to learn more!



Video: Selecting Mail Merge Recipients In this video, we select a recipient list for the mail merge publication that we were working on in the previous tutorial. To perform a mail merge, you must open a new or existing publication and then connect to a data source, which is a file that contains the unique information that you want to include. A data file may contain a list of names and addresses, product data, pictures, and many other kinds of fields. The data file can be in a variety of formats, including:    

An Outlook contact list An Excel worksheet A Word table An Access database table.

If you do not have a list already typed in one of these formats, you can also create a new recipient list as well. To get started with making the connection between the data source and the publication, select the Mailings tab, if necessary. Then, click the Select Recipients button. Again, if at this point, you did not have a list of recipients, you should select the option that says Type a New List. For demonstration purposes, let’s go ahead and select that option from the drop down menu. Notice that a New Address List dialog box is displayed. By default, Publisher will assume that you want to add a new list of recipients by including information about their name, company, and address. If that is the case, you would simply begin typing their information in the fields that are provided. Of course, you don’t need to include information in all of the fields if you don’t want to use that information or if you don’t have it. When you’re typing within each field, you can move between the columns by pressing the TAB key on your keyboard. If you want to move back, you’d hit SHIFT and TAB. If you want to add a new entry after completing your first, you could either select New Entry from the dialog box or you could press TAB at the end of the previous record. If you want to delete an entry, you would simply select the gray selector box to the left of the record and then click the Delete Entry button. If you find that you’d like to remove, edit, or add columns within this list, you can do so by clicking on the box that’s says Customize Columns. Within the new dialog box that displays, you can select any field within the list and either delete it or rename it if you’d like. If you’d like to Add a field that doesn’t already exist, you would select the Add button and then give that field a name. If you needed to reposition any of the fields within the list, you could select that field and then choose the Move Up or Move Down option, depending on where you wanted the new field to be displayed. When finished, click the OK button. Now, in our example, we have an existing list that we’d like to use for the mail merge, so you can select the Cancel button to close the New Address List dialog box. © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 Let’s click the Select Recipients button again. If you’d like to use an existing Word table, Excel spreadsheet, or Access table, you can select the Use Existing List button. If you’d like to use an Outlook contact, you can choose that appropriate option from the drop down menu. In this example, we’re going to use the Excel spreadsheet exercise file. So, from the drop down menu, select Use Existing List. Then, search for the location on your computer where you downloaded the Chapter9_RecipientList.xlsx file that was provided. Once you find the file, select it and click the Open button. The Select Table dialog box will display a list of spreadsheets that exist within the Excel Workbook file that we’re using. If we were using a Word or Access table, this screen would ask us to select the appropriate one to use. In this case, we want to select the first option that says RecipientList. If you know that your source data has a single row at the top of the spreadsheet that contains column headings, then you’ll want to make sure that the “First row of data contains column headers” checkbox is select. When finished, click the OK button. The Mail Merge Recipients dialog box will be displayed. All of your information has been imported into the list that can be used for the mail merge. Now, at this point, you could choose to click the OK button and proceed with inserting fields into your publication. However, notice that you do have a couple of options for refining the recipient list. If you choose sort, you’ll have the option of sorting records in ascending or descending order. First, you determine the field to sort by and then select the order in which you’d like to sort. If you’d like to add a second or third level of sorting, you can do so in the additional drop down menus. You can also filter your records as well. If you select Filter within the list, you can choose the field that you’d like to filter on and let’s say in this example that we’d like to filter by recipients in the state of Pennsylvania. We would select the State field from the Field drop down menu, and then choose a comparison operator. In this case, we want to use Equal to, but notice the other options that we could use, depending on the kind of field we’re filtering on. Then, let’s type PA in the Compare To: box. Then, click the OK button. Now when we take a look at our list, notice that only recipients within PA are displayed. If you’d like to narrow down the recipient list any further, you can choose to not include a recipient within the list by unselecting the checkbox next to their name. The next option is to Find Duplicate records within your list. There are no duplicates in this list, so notice that the opened dialog box does not yield any results. Finally, you can look for a specific recipient by selecting Find Recipient. In this box, you can search for a keyword and search for that keyword in any existing field or a specific field that you list within the drop down menu. When finished, click the Find Next or Cancel buttons. When finished, click the OK button. Notice that now that we’ve selected a recipient list for our mail merge, the Edit Recipient List button within the Ribbon is now available to be clicked on. Let’s click on that button and notice © Copyright 2008-2013 Simon Sez IT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Learn Publisher 2013 that the recipients dialog box is displayed. If you’d like to remove the spreadsheet as the data source, you would want to select the data source in the box listed and click Remove. This concludes our tutorial on selecting a recipient list within a mail merge publication. The next step in the process is to insert the mail merge fields within the publication, so be sure to check out the next tutorial.



Video: Inserting Mail Merge Fields In this video, we insert mail merge fields from our data source into a Microsoft Publisher 2013 publication. As a reminder, a mail merge combines one document containing the information that is the same in each copy and some placeholders for the information that is unique to each copy. Although we have a lot of content that will appear on every post card for each recipient, the place where the address information will be displayed for each recipient should be contain fields where each recipient’s information will be inserted into the final publication. These fields come from the data source or recipient list that was selected in the previous tutorial. To get started, move to the page of the publication you’re using that contains the mailing address box. In my case, I have a text box on page two that contains placeholder text such as “Mailing Address Line 1-5”. I’m going to delete the text within this box and then proceed with inserting the merge fields. To insert a merge field from your recipient list, select the Mailings tab, if necessary. Then within the Write & Insert Fields group, select Insert Merge Field. When you click on this button, a list of all of the fields within your data source recipient list will be displayed. Since an address begins with an individual’s name, you’ll want to select the First Name merge field from the drop down menu. Notice that a field (which is indicated by the left and right arrows) is inserted into the publication. Next, we’ll want to place the Last Name field inside the publication; however, it’s important to note that because we don’t generally type a person’s first and last name together without a space, and then we’re going to have to physically put a space after the first name field before we insert the last name field. So, I’m going to type a space and then select Last Name from the Insert Merge Field drop down menu. Next, I’ll want to include the street address on the next line, so I’m going to have to hit ENTER on my keyboard and then select Street Address from the Insert Merge Field drop down menu. Then, we’ll hit ENTER again. Finally, we’ll want to add the city, state, and zip code fields in the third row. Keep in mind that we have to actually type the comma and space between the city and state as well as the spaces between the state and the postal zip code. When you’re finished with those steps, the process for inserting mail merge field has been completed; however, I do want to point out the Address Block option that is displayed in the Write and Insert fields group. Inserting an address block is a quick way to insert a set of fields that generally make up an address block, but we do it with one click. Notice that it took us a good minute or two in order to insert all of the fields that make up an address. Well let’s click on the Address Block button and see what happens.


Learn Publisher 2013 Within the Insert Address Block dialog box, notice that you can specify the format in which the person’s name will be displayed and then you can view a preview of how your recipients will look when the mail merge is completed. Everything looks good in our example, but if you find that Publisher isn’t picking up on the correct fields that should be used within the Address Block, you can click on the Match Fields button. Notice that a list of fields that are required for an address block are displayed on the left. On the right, publisher has done a good job of matching the names of the fields within your data source recipient list with the fields of an address block. If for any reason the fields were matching up, you could manually match them by selecting the correct field from the drop down menu displayed for each required field. In this case, we’re good to go so we would want to select the OK button. This concludes our tutorial on inserting merge fields within your publication. We’re almost at the mail merge finish line, so be sure to check out the next video where we preview our mail merge results and complete the merge!



Video: Previewing and Completing a Mail Merge In this video, we preview the results of a mail merge within Publisher 2013 and then complete the mail merge. As you can see, the conducting a mail merge within Publisher is a multi-step process. We are in the last step of the process where we’ve initiated the merge, we’ve selected a recipient list and we’ve inserted our fields. Now, we’ll want to preview our results and then finish the job! Previewing the results of the merge is a good way to see whether or not your information is being included into the merge correctly. Previewing the results is a pretty easy process. First, select the Mailings tab and then within the Preview Results group, click the Preview Results button. Notice that the merge fields that were inserted within the publication have been replaced with the first recipient’s information. Publisher is showing us what our information will look like when it replaces the merge fields when we complete the mail merge process. We can check to see what additional recipient’s information will look like in the publication by select the right arrow in the Preview Results group. As we are previewing the results, we can choose to find a specific recipient OR we can choose to Exclude a recipient by selecting the Exclude This Recipient button when we come across their record. In this case, we want to include all of the recipients. Then, we have to complete the merge. Within the Finish group, click the Finish and Merge button. When the drop down menu is displayed, notice that we have a couple of options. First, we could choose to merge our results by directly sending them to the printer. So, if we had 50 records in the data source, we would be sending 50 post cards directly to the printer. The next option is to merge all of the information into a new publication. Finally, we can choose to merge all of our information into a publication that already exists. In this example, we’re going to merge our information into a brand new publication file. So, from the drop down menu, select Merge to Publication. A new publication will be displayed. This publication should be displaying 150 pages. Because the postcard is double-sided, the 75 records that we had in our recipient list has generated 150 pages in the new publication. If we were to take a look at Page 1 of each post card, you’d notice that they all look exactly the same. If we move to page 2 of each post card, notice that the merge fields have been replaced with the names and addresses of the recipients in our Excel spreadsheet that live in the state of PA. Other than the address, notice that each postcard looks exactly the same. It is at this point that we would save our publication for printing at a later time, print the post cards, or send the file off to be commercially printed.


Learn Publisher 2013 This concludes our tutorial on previewing and completing a Mail Merge. Merging your source data with a publication can save a lot of time and hassle, so be sure to review any tutorial in this series again if you need a refresher on how to use this powerful tool.



Chapter 10 – Finishing the Publication Video: Working with SkyDrive In this video, we will explore the Microsoft SkyDrive. Microsoft SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud storage system. Cloud computing and cloud storage allows users to save files to an online server which can be access from any computer. Not only does cloud storage with Microsoft SkyDrive make it easier for you to access your files from other locations, but it also makes it easier for you to share files with other users, if necessary. When you configure a Microsoft SkyDrive account with Publisher, you not only are saving your files to the SkyDrive.com server, but you are also saving a copy of these files to the SkyDrive folder on your local computer. This enables you to work on these files when you do not have an internet connection. Then, when you connect to the internet, the files on your computer will be synced with the files on the server and everything will be updated. So, the first step in using Microsoft SkyDrive is to sign up for a Skydrive account. You can do so by going to skydrive.com. When you get to SkyDRive.com, you can click the Sign Up Now link to sign up for a free account. Once you have signed up for and verified the account, you can return to this log-in screen to access your account. I’m going to go ahead and log-in so that you can see what SkyDrive looks like through your web browser. Once logged in, notice that you can see the files currently located in your SkyDrive folder, you can check our recently used documents by clicking that option on the left hand side, you can view documents that have been shared with you by other Skydrive users. Then, you’ll want to install the SkyDrive application on your local computer. You can do so by navigating to apps.ive.com/skydrive. Once you’ve installed the application, you will be presented with a Windows Live sign-in screen. In this screen, you’ll want to put in the username and password that you signed up for a few moments ago. Once you have successfully signed in, your version of Office on your computer will be connected to your online cloud SkyDrive.com account. You will also notice a SkyDrive tutorial that will display after the desktop application is finished installing. I recommend browsing through that tutorial if you are new to the concept of cloud storage. So let’s take a look at how SkyDrive works. I’m going to open up our Gatesburg Country Club flyer publication with Publisher 2013. Let’s say that I’d like to save a copy of this file in our Skydrive space. To do so, I’m going to click the File tab and then select Save As. Notice that I have the option to save this file in Someone’s SkyDrive. Now, the reason that it says “Someone” here instead of Jane Doe’s SkyDrive is because my name is not listed. In this case, I’m going to select Someone’s SkyDrive and then select the Document’s button. Notice that the Save As


Learn Publisher 2013 dialog box has been displayed. Since we selected the SkyDrive folder in which to place this file in the last screen, we can just got ahead and click the Save button. So, not only have we gone through the process to save this file onto our computer within the SkyDrive folder, but we have also saved this publication in the cloud. I’m going to display the SkyDrive web application and notice that the Publisher file is now displayed in my web browser as well. This concludes our tutorial on working with SkyDrive. Cloud computing and storage is growing rapidly because of its ease of use and convenience, so be sure to take advantage of this feature in order to access your files quickly, easily, and efficiently.



Video: Running the Design Checker and Managing Embedded Fonts In this video, we explore the Design Checker feature and manage embedded fonts within Publisher 2013. The Design Checker is used to find potential problems in your publication before printing, sending in email, or saving with the Pack and Go feature which we will discuss in an upcoming tutorial. To access the Design Checker, click the File tab and select Info from the left hand side of the screen. Within the Info section, click on the Run Design Checker button. When you select this button, notice that your publication is displayed with the Design Checker pane on the right hand side of the screen. Notice that you have several check boxes that determine what will be looked for when the design checker is run. When you open the Design Checker task pane, it dynamically updates the list of problems as they occur or as you fix them. Run general and final design checks will check for design problems, such as empty text boxes, that may adversely impact your publication. Run web site checks will check for web site specific problems, such as pictures without alternative text that may adversely impact your Web site publication. Run e-mail checks (current page only) will check for problems, such as text that contains a hyphenation, which may cause gaps in the message when it is viewed in certain e-mail viewers. If you see anything listed in the Select an item to fix box, then Publisher is warning you of potential problems. The Design Checker task pane lists the problems that are found in the publication. Each problem listed includes a description of the problem and where the problem is located. Most problems occur on a specific page. However, some problems affect the entire publication. If you click on a problem in the list Publisher will switch to the page and object with the problem. If you click the down arrow to the right of the problem you will have other options for going to the item, fixing the problem if an automatic fix is available, telling Design Checker to never check for the item again, and explain to get help on the item. Close Design will stop the Design Checker and close the task pane. When you close the Design Checker, it will not run in the background until you start it again. Click on the link provided to access the Design Checker Options dialog box, where you can set display options for the problems that are listed in the Design Checker task pane. You can also select a page range to check, or you can select specific checks.


Learn Publisher 2013 It’s important to keep in mind that the Design Checker does not prevent you from completing your publication, but merely acts as a guide and warning system to let you know of potential problems. If we select the File tab and then Info, we can notice there is a button called Manage Embedded Fonts. Let’s click that button. Embedding the fonts in your publication is one of the best ways to ensure that a font is always available, even if you move the publication to a new computer or take it to a commercial printing service. You can embed only TrueType fonts, and then only if their licensing allows embedding. All of the TrueType fonts that are included in Publisher allow embedding. It’s important to keep in mind that embedding fonts will increase the file size of your publication, so you may want to limit the number of fonts that you embed. You can choose to embed all fonts (with or without system fonts), only certain individual fonts, or subsets of certain fonts. When you embed the fonts in your publication, common system fonts are not included in the embedded fonts because they are likely to be installed on most other computers. But, you can choose whether to embed the system fonts. (For example, you may choose to embed them when you know that someone working with your publication does not have access to them.) Once you’ve made your selections within the dialog box, go ahead and click the OK button. This concludes our tutorial on working with the design checker and managing embedded fonts. In the next tutorial, we’ll take a look at some of the printing options available within Publisher 2013.



Video: Printing a Publication In this video, we explore how to print a publication with Publisher 2013. Although the process of straight printing a publication only requires us to click the File and then click the Print button, there are a few things that you will want to keep in mind when printing your publication. First, let’s click the File tab and then select Print. Notice that you have the option to set the number of copies to print as well as the printer that you’ll be using. In the Settings area, notice that you have options for whether you are printing all pages within the publication, or you click the drop down menu and choose to print only the selected page, the current page, or you can specify a range of pages to print, if needed. Next, you can choose whether you will want to print only one page per sheet, or if you print a booklet, multiple pages per sheet, or print your publication tiled within the page. Next, you specify the page size that this publication will be printed in, and whether or not you want to print the publication as a single sided page, or a two sided page. If you print a two sided page, keep in mind that you can control which way the page should be flipped in order to view the information on the second page. Finally, you can choose whether you’d like to print this publication as a compost RGB publication in color, or you can choose to print it in Grayscale. Keep in mind that this option will vary depending on whether or not you are trying to print to a color printer or not. This concludes our tutorial on printing a publication within Publisher 2013. In the next tutorial, we will explore additional savings and exporting options.



Video: Additional Savings & Print Options In this video, we explore additional saving and exporting options that you can utilize when you have finished working with your Publisher 2013 publication file. The first option that we’re going to take a look at is saving your publication as a PDF or portable document format file. The advantage of saving your publication in this file format is that a PDF can be viewed on any computer that has Adobe Reader, a free software application, installed on it. Also, users cannot easily change a PDF document, and commercial printers will often ask for the publication to be in a PDF format. To save your publication as a PDF document, select the File tab, then select the Export option from the left hand side of the screen. Then, click the Create PDF/XPS document button. Once you have decided on a name for the file and a location of where the file will be saved, go ahead and click the Save button. Next, if you’re interested in publishing your file as an HTML document so that you can use the publication as a web page, click the Publish HTML option and choose whether or not this file should be saved as a web page or a single page web file. Next, let’s take a look at the options displayed under the Pack and Go heading. First, select Save for Photo Printing. By selecting this option, you can save your publication as a set of images to print at a photo center. Each page in the publication will be saved as a separate image and you can choose from the drop down menu whether or not these files will be JPEG or TIFF file formats. Be sure to check out the digital file format tutorial in a previous chapter on more information about digital file formats. Then, you’d want to select Save Image Set. The next option is the Save for a Commercial Printer option. In this area, you can prepare your publication for commercial printing by selecting the file quality and file type appropriate for your printer. Be sure to contact your rep at the commercial printer’s shop to find out the specifics of what they require for printing. Then, when you’re ready you can click on the Pack and Go Wizard to display the dialog box. Here, you can burn your files directly to a disc that you’ll want to insert into your computer, or you can choose to click Browse and specify another location on your computer where you want to store the files. Then, click the Next button. The files will be saved to that location on your computer and you can either email that folder to the printer, or place it on a flash drive to be given to the printer as a later time. The last option, Save for Another Computer, will bring up the Pack and Go Wizard. Here, you would follow the same steps that we just mentioned. This concludes our tutorial on additional saving and exporting options for your Microsoft Publisher 2013 publication. It’s important to be sure that you are saving and exporting your


Learn Publisher 2013 publication in the correct format, so be sure to stay in contact with your commercial printer or clients (if you have them) to ensure you are providing them what they need.



Chapter 11 – Conclusion Video: Course Summary Thanks for watching this Microsoft Publisher 2013 video series. Throughout this series, we have learned many valuable skills within Publisher. These skills allowed us to start with a new blank document and build upon the demonstrated topics in order to create a document ready for final publication or printing. Our main topics of discussion included an overview of the interface, available tools as well as how to create, edit, format, and manage images, shapes, text and tables. In order to enhance these objects, we explored the use of color and now understand standards and expectations of commercial and third party printers when using any one of the several available color models. Throughout the series, hopefully you have practiced the skills obtained in order to increase efficiency and decrease frustration when working with this powerful software program. Thank you and congratulations for dedicating your time to learning about Publisher 2013. Always keep in mind that this information can be easily obtained at any time and you can reference any individual tutorial within a chapter at your leisure.
