Customize your school newsletter for the holidays

Starting from a Microsoft Publisher 2010 template, you can customize the color scheme and design to create and publish a holiday newsletter for your school—in a snap! There are a lot of great templates from Office.com to help you create a high-quality, personalized newsletter.

Read on to learn how to:
Select a template to make newsletter creation quick and easy Change the colors of your newsletter template Change the look of the newsletter banner Delete or add pages to your newsletter Save your newsletter template for future use
If you don’t have Publisher installed, you can also create a holiday newsletter using Word and Outlook templates.

First, choose a newsletter template

Don’t worry if the template isn’t exactly what you want. You can change it!

To choose a template from within Publisher:

1. Start Microsoft Office Publisher
2. Under Most Popular, click Newsletters. You’ll see a selection of Available Templates.To see all templates, select the More Office.com Templates option.
3. Double-click on the template you want and Publisher will open a new publication using this template. In this example, I’ve chosen the Fall newsletter template.


Do you want to change the color scheme?

If you like the color scheme of the template you selected, then you can skip this step. I want to use my school’s colors, so I’m going to create a new color scheme.

To create a new color scheme:

1. Click the Page Design tab.
2. In the Schemes group, click the More arrow next to the color palette. The palette will expand.

3. Select any of the Built-in schemes or click Create New Color Scheme to select your own accent and main colors.

4. Click the arrow next to a scheme option and choose a color. I’m going to click the down arrow next to Accent 1 and then click Black. Next, I'll click the down arrow next to Accent 2 and then click Gold. Finally, I’m going to click the down arrow next to Accent 3 and click Gray – 40%.


Notice how the preview of your newsletter changes colors as you select your color scheme!
5. You can give your color scheme a name to help you find it later, and then click Save.

Do you need to change the Clip Art?

It’s winter, right? So, I want to delete the leaves photograph in my Fall template and replace it with an illustration of a snowman.

To delete an image:

1. Click on the image you want to delete.
2. On the Home tab in the Arrange section, click Ungroup.

3. Click anywhere on the page to unselect all grouped objects and then click to select the image you want to delete.
4. Right-click on the image and click Delete Object.
5. Right-click on the remaining black box and click Delete Object.

Now that the leaves are deleted, I’m going to add a snowman image.

To find and insert Clip Art:

1. Click the Insert tab, then click Clip Art.
2. In the Clip Art pane, type a keyword into the Search for text box, then click Go.
3. Scroll to the clip art you want and click the picture.
4. Click the down arrow to the right of the picture, then click Insert.

5. Move the clip art and size it to fit in the newsletter.

If you need help, read Tips for working with images.

Is four pages too long? Or too short?

Publisher newsletter templates usually come in 1-page, 2-page, or 4-page options. But it’s easy to add and delete pages. Here’s how:
In the Page Navigation pane, right-click on a thumbnail of a newsletter page and click Insert Page. Publisher will give you the choice of adding a left-hand page or a right-hand page. With the Fall template, I want to select the 2-page option. You have the option of formatting each page, left or right, with different content types such as a calendar, order form, or other format. You can also select Insert Duplicate Page to make a copy of one or more pages to use as a template.
To delete a newsletter page, right-click the page and then click Delete. If you've selected the 2-page option, Publisher will give you the choice of which page to delete.
Don’t forget to save your template so you can use it again

To save the revised template as a Publisher file or you can save it as a template for use with later versions of your newsletter.

1. Click the File tab, then click Save As.
2. In the File name box, type the name of your newsletter.
3. Select whether you want to save as a Publisher file or as a Publisher template. If you save your newsletter as a template, you can find it under My Templates the next time you open Publisher.
4. Click Save.

All that’s left is for you to write your stories, then send out your customized newsletter!

-- Deb Lewy


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