1 Design sets
Publisher includes a series of design sets that you can choose from when creating a publication – for example, there are 45 different Informational Flyer designs to choose from. The beauty of it is that you can use a chosen design for other publications to give them a cohesive look. So, if you choose the Bounce design for a flyer, you can use the same design for other things too, such as business cards, brochures, catalogues, email, envelopes, letterheads, newsletters, postcards and even websites.
2 One-click business information
Entering all your business data can be done with a single click in Publisher. You create a ‘business information set’, including a person’s name, name of business, address, phone, fax, email address, as well as the business logo, then you save it. To add that data to a publication, you go to ‘add Business Information’ and choose which set to use. If you create a set for everyone in your company, you can populate a business card design with all the data with one click. Apart from being an efficient way to enter data, it’s also an accurate one – as long as the information was entered correctly in the first place.
3 Reusable content
Any text and images you use repeatedly can be stored in the Publisher Content Library. So, for example, you can save product images and photos
of key people by choosing ‘Insert > Add to Content Library’. Later, you can insert the item by selecting ‘Insert > Item from Content Library’, rather than having to re-type information or find the images on your disk. This will speed up your work by placing important content within easy reach.
4 Publications for all media
Publisher is no longer simply a tool for creating publications for print. It also allows you to design entire websites, email newsletters and invitations. You’ll only need to use one program to create most of the business publications you’ll ever need.
5 Customise, or not
Microsoft Publisher designs are attractive, but there’s always the risk that the design you’ve chosen will be used by other businesses. However, they are easily customised, and you can save the design to reuse. So, for example, if you spend five minutes with the Bounce-style business card, replacing the fill colour in the curve with a photograph, resizing it and removing extra elements, you’ll have an individual look for your business with very little work.
6 Font and colour schemes
So that your publications match the look and feel of your other business documents, Publisher lets you create a customised colour palette. This can then be applied to any publication by simply clicking on it. You can also customise the Font Schemes, which are combinations of fonts used in a publication. If your business typically uses Verdana and Times, for example, you can set these up as a Font Scheme and then click to apply it to any publication.
7 Master pages speed up long documents
When you have a multi-page document, you may want to customise elements such as page borders, page numbers and perhaps even watermark images
on every page. Instead of setting up each page individually, Publisher lets you create master pages that you can use whenever you need them. You can design master pages for right or left-hand pages; you can even have multiple master pages for a publication, so you can choose the one that is most suitable for each page. This gives your publication a cohesive look and reduces design time.
8 Email merge and more
A new feature of Publisher 2007 is that you can merge email newsletters with a list of email addresses, and send them from Publisher via Outlook. Unlike other applications in the Office suite, Publisher can merge data from a range of sources – an Outlook contact list, or an Excel worksheet – for a single email merge. You can even merge product information and pictures into a multi-page catalogue, using ‘catalogue merge’.
9 Print-anywhere options
Most small businesses will print publications in-house, but sometimes this won’t give you as professional a result as a commercial printing service. Publisher tools let you prepare your publication for commercial
printing, including creating colour separations. It’s worth checking with your printer before designing, to make sure they can use your file in their software; but generally, if it’s designed in Publisher, you should be able to print it just about anywhere.
10 Web content
Publisher has a save-to-web feature that lets you re-purpose printed documents such as flyers and newsletters for the web. This tool converts a printed document into a web publication that you can upload to your website. The code it produces isn’t as sleek and sophisticated as one from dedicated web-design software, but it does give youa quick conversion tool that’s suitable for most needs.