Publishing with Publisher 2007

In this video we’ll take a brief tour of Microsoft Publisher 2007. Publisher 2007 has been around for a while and has a rich set of design tools. These tools will allow you to build sophisticated publications for print or online.

Some of the new features of Publisher 2007 include:

• The new Content Library where you can reuse various objects
• You can customize templates before using them
• A new task pane called Publisher Tasks
• Convert publications to PDF (very cool)
• Formatting tools that offer effects such as drop shadow, reflections, glow colors, and more.

Publisher

When we first start Publisher 2007 we are presented with a work area that allows us to select different types of popular publications. The left side of the work area includes all the publication types as well as a “My Templates” area and a “Getting Started” area that will return us to the work area that we’re at right now.

So let’s select a publication type of “Business Cards”. Everyone likes to create business cards. After selecting this type of publication, we’re presented with the various templates of business cards to choose from.

You can see we have a “New Designs” area as well as “Classic Designs” and the Microsoft Office Online templates that we can download. If you’re a company that has an established brand look and feel, then starting with one of the blank templates will help get you going.

So let’s select one and click on the “Create” button in the lower right-hand corner. We are now presented with the “Format Publication” task pane.

The Format Publication task pane includes the Business Card Options area, the Font Schemes area, the Color Schemes area and the Page Options area. All these areas help you design your publication which in this case is a business card.

In Publisher 2007 we don’t have the Ribbon that we’ve been talking about in the other videos. We are back to the standard menu structure as well as the familiar toolbar structure.

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