Tutorial for Creating Newsletters in Microsoft Word

To create your newsletter in Word, it is best to put it into tables. Before you begin, you need to know the essential information you want to include and have an idea of how many boxes, or cells, your newsletter needs to have. You may even want to sketch a rough plan.  Design ideas include where you want to put the title, grade level, date, graphics, and text. Once the table is set up, you can merge, add, or delete cells to edit your newsletter. Inserting graphics works much better using tables and are easy to move around without affecting around your design.

The following newsletter was made from a simple 3 column, 3 row table. Directions to create this newsletter layout are given to show you how easy it is to use tables to design a newsletter.

The following example is a table set up with 3 columns and 3 rows.

·        Go to Table on the menu bar at the top of the screen.

·        Click on Insert.

·        Click on Table.

·        Set the Number of Columns and number of Rows to 3.

·        Click OK.

  Then a row was added.

·        Click mouse over the first box in the first column.

·        Hold and drag the mouse over the row until the entire row is highlighted.

·        Go to the menu bar at the top and select Table.

·        Select Insert.

·        Select Rows Above or Rows Below.

·        The row will automatically be added.

  The cells in the second row were merged. 

·        Click the mouse over the first cell in the second row.

·        Hold and drag along that row until all cells are highlighted.

·        Right click and select Merge cells.

·        The cells will automatically be merged into 1 cell.

  The last two cells on the bottom row were merged to create a larger cell. 

·        Click, hold, and drag the mouse over the last 2 cells on the  right, bottom row.

·        Right click and select Merge cells.

·        The cells will automatically be merged into 1 cell.

Begin to enter text where you want it to go. Just click in the cell and type the information you want. The cell will automatically get larger as you type. Highlight the text you want to change and use the menu at the top for type of font and size. The color of text can be changed using the Draw menu at bottom of the screen. 

Before you go too far with adding text, you want to make sure that your layout is pretty much the way you want it to look in the end. Maybe it is decided to include a graphic in the Homework box. First, you must split the cell to create a new cell to insert the picture.

To split a cell…

·        Highlight the Homework cell by moving cursor until you see a dark arrow in the corner, then left click. The cell should become highlighted.

·        Right click to see the choices.

·        Select Split cells .

·        Make sure that 2 rows and 2 columns are selected.

·        Click OK.

Now the 2 bottom cells on the right need to be merged to create a large cell to include homework information.

·        Highlight the 2 bottom right cells by clicking and dragging mouse over both cells.

·        Right click to see menu.

·        Select Merge cells.

·        Cells will be merged to create a large cell.

Now you can begin to insert pictures or graphics and continue to enter the text of your newsletter.

To insert a graphic…

·        Click in the cell where the picture is wanted.

·        Go to the menu bar at the top of the screen and click on Insert.

·        Select Picture.

·        Select the location of the picture you want to insert. (Clip-art, File on computer, or File on floppy disk or CD) 

·        After locating the picture, click on Insert.

·        The picture will be in the cell.

To resize the graphic…

·        Click on the picture. (There should be handles around the picture)

·        Click on the picture in one of the corners.

·        Hold and drag toward the center of the picture until it is the size you want it to be.

To move the picture within the cell…

·        Click on the picture.

• Select the alignment setting you want, left, center or right. (It is difficult to move a graphic with the handles unless it is a small picture in a large cell.)

To move the picture from one cell to another…

·        Click on the picture.

·        Hold and drag to a new cell.

Your newsletter may be looking something like this.

You may decide that the graphic for the Homework section will look better in the middle of the page instead of the right side.

·        Delete the text in the cell that says Weekly Homework.

·        Put the cursor over the picture of the bookbag and right click. Select Copy.

·        Move cursor to empty cell on the right and right click.

·        Select paste.

·        The picture should appear in that cell.

·        Go to the cell on the left, right click on bookbag.

·        Select Delete.

·        Type in Weekly Homework.

As the font type and size are changed, the newsletter begins to shape up. More rows or columns can be added and cells can be split, or merged as practiced earlier. Graphics are best inserted into a cell that has no text. (Placing a picture in a cell that already has text will change the placement of the text and it is difficult to line it up without having large spaces. )

When you have finished and everything looks like you want it, you are ready for the final and very important stage.

PROOF READING

Please be sure there are no spelling errors. It is very easy to miss your own mistakes. Have someone else read it as well to make sure everything is correct. Spell check does not catch all errors. 

You now have a complete newsletter that can be put into FrontPage to go on our school web site. Your completed newsletter may look like this now…

To save your newsletter, DO NOT save as a web page. Simply save as a Word document. 

When this particular newsletter is put into FrontPage, it looks

like this…

You will notice that some of the spacing has changed. Where some cells were differing widths, FrontPage changed them to be the same. Extra spaces were added here and there, but the design pretty much looks the same. This is achieved by using Tables to create your newsletter!

Last Updated 08.27.2010 ∙ Wallace Gregg Elementary School ∙ 515 S. Francis Marion Road∙Florence, S.C. 29506 ∙ Phone (843) 664.8481 ∙ © 2002
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