Helping High Schoolers to Do a Yearbook in Publisher 2K

[Madcat]

I work in a printshop with both Macs and PC's we try to be make sure we
can take in any customer work including Publisher. I actually encourage
smaller companies to use Publisher because of Pack and Go. To point of
all this is that I am trying to help a small private school here in
Lancaster do a yearbook. I have a few questions that were sent to me
that I do not have the answers to and am hoping some more knoweldgable
people can help me out.

When putting pictures into shapes is there an easier way?
This is how we did it last year.
Choose shape I want.
Go to format
Auto shape
Fill effects
Lock ratio
Click on picture word
Click on file I want.

Also we want your help with our cover.
One of our girls drew the school seal.
We would like to insert the artwork onto a solid background.

One problem we encountered last year was this.
When putting photos into a shape sometimes the heads looked stretched
or squashed. Is there a better way to do photos in shapes?

I have been trying to crop the art work that our one staff member did
for the cover. It is a round circle. We were hoping to put brown
background on the rest of the page. But so far I have not been able
to crop the art work into a circle.

Thanks for the Help
Ray

 

[Ed Bennett]

When putting pictures into shapes is there an easier way?
This is how we did it last year.
Choose shape I want.
Go to format
Auto shape
Fill effects
Lock ratio
Click on picture word
Click on file I want.

To do this in Publisher 2000 requires Insert > Picture > New Drawing (or
similar) first. It's been a while, so I forget the exact procedure.

Also we want your help with our cover.
One of our girls drew the school seal.
We would like to insert the artwork onto a solid background.

a) Edit the image in a photo editor to be a transparent GIF, or
b) Recreate the image in a draw program (such as CorelDRAW, not a paint
program such as PSP or PhotoShop).

Publisher 2000 offered few options in this matter; newer versions are
more flexible.

One problem we encountered last year was this.
When putting photos into a shape sometimes the heads looked stretched
or squashed. Is there a better way to do photos in shapes?

Not really.

I have been trying to crop the art work that our one staff member did
for the cover. It is a round circle. We were hoping to put brown
background on the rest of the page. But so far I have not been able
to crop the art work into a circle.

Have you tried cropping to a square in a photo editor and then inserting
into a circle in Publisher?

Note that if you don't have Publisher 2000, you may and probably will
experience massive formatting changes when you open the file in your
later version of Publisher.

 

[Madcat]

I believe everything is in publisher 2k3

To do this in Publisher 2000 requires Insert > Picture > New Drawing (or
similar) first. It's been a while, so I forget the exact procedure.


a) Edit the image in a photo editor to be a transparent GIF, or
b) Recreate the image in a draw program (such as CorelDRAW, not a paint
program such as PSP or PhotoShop).

Publisher 2000 offered few options in this matter; newer versions are
more flexible.


Not really.


Have you tried cropping to a square in a photo editor and then inserting
into a circle in Publisher?

Note that if you don't have Publisher 2000, you may and probably will
experience massive formatting changes when you open the file in your
later version of Publisher.

 

[John Inzer]

I believe everything is in publisher 2k3

=============================
If you are using Pub2003....your best
bet would be to prepare your cutouts in
an image editing program and import
them into Publisher in the .png or .tif
format.

If you do not have an advanced image
editor available, you could download the
following 60 day trial:

Microsoft Digital Image Suite
Anniversary Edition...60 Day Trial Version

Once your 60 day trial period has ended, the
program will de-feature to minimal functionality.


Microsoft Digital Image Suite
Anniversary Edition
http://tinyurl.com/gjnm4

(download site)
http://tinyurl.com/8x6ea

Be aware that it's a 109 MB download....

Also...if you would prefer, maybe I could help
you by making the cutouts for you.

--

******John Inzer********
**MS Picture It! MVP**

*****Digital Image******
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

*********Notice***********
This is not tech support
........I am a volunteer.......

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you.

Proceed at your own risk.

Need a Web Host?
*******Consider********
Annex Technologies
http://www.annex.com/
**************************

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

Lancaster? As in PA?

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[Mary Sauer]

If you have a photo editing program, resample (resize) the photos to the size of
your circle. www.irfanview.com can do this, it is free, you will need the
plug-ins. Paint.NET is also free. You can do cut outs with this program
http://www.getpaint.net/
You also can do cut outs in MS Paint.
As for your cover, if it can be reconstructed in a vector program as Ed advised,
it can be saved as a .wmf, the background will be transparent by default.

If you need help with the vector conversion, send the cover art to me and I will
see what I can do.
mary.sauer at columbus.rr.com

--
Mary Sauer MSFT MVP
http://office.microsoft.com/

http://officebeta.iponet.net/en-us/publisher/FX100649111033.aspx

I believe everything is in publisher 2k3

 

[Madcat]

First yes lancaster PA.

The answers I am getting are what i was expecting. I did not think
publisher had any advanced image editing features (Quark and Indesign
don't either). I appreciate the help so far and the ideas regarding the
cover are great. I will discuss workflow with the teachers and see what
I can find out about image editing. I think that's key.

Ray

 

[Madcat]

First yes lancaster PA.

The answers I am getting are what i was expecting. I did not think
publisher had any advanced image editing features (Quark and Indesign
don't either). I appreciate the help so far and the ideas regarding the
cover are great. I will discuss workflow with the teachers and see what
I can find out about image editing. I think that's key.

Ray

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

I'm just across the river. If I can be of any assistance, please feel free
to contact me offline.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375

 

[Madcat]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I was able to help them with most of
the issues they had. It turns out that they were doing the image
minipulation in Publisher. once I got them set up with an image editor
things moved very smothly. The one question I was asked a clueless
about was this. The Yearbook is being done on 3 different computers in
3 seperate files. Is their a way to merge these files in publisher or
does publisher allow collaboration between multiple users over the
network?

Also it is publisher 2k3

Ray

 

[Madcat]

Thanks for all the help everyone. I was able to help them with most of
the issues they had. It turns out that they were doing the image
minipulation in Publisher. once I got them set up with an image editor
things moved very smothly. The one question I was asked a clueless
about was this. The Yearbook is being done on 3 different computers in
3 seperate files. Is their a way to merge these files in publisher or
does publisher allow collaboration between multiple users over the
network?

Also it is publisher 2k3

Ray

 

[JoAnn Paules [MVP]]

What I would do is to create a .pdf file of each section and join them with
Acrobat but that may not be an option for you. Mary Sauer has instructions
on her for doing a merge of the files. I haven't tried it yet so I don't
know how easy/difficult it may be. I've heard her directions are quite clear
tho.

http://msauer.mvps.org/combining_publisher_documents.htm
--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

~~~~~
How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375