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> Hey, Techwhirlers,
>
> I'm (finally) handing off my little PTA (Parent Teacher Association)
> newsletter to two other parents. I've been creating it in Ventura
> Publisher, but I'm looking for a desktop publishing software package
> that's
> easier and cheaper (a lot cheaper), since the new folks have limited
> experience with DTP, and the PTA can't afford to buy them VP. They are
> both
> moderately experienced with computers.
>
> The newsletter is published 7 or 8 times a year, and usually has 6 to
> 8
> pages. I print a master and someone at the school district office
> photocopies them onto colored paper, so it's strictly black ink.
>
> So, does anyone know of any packages that fit these criteria, either
> PC or
> Mac? It would be especially nice if we could get an educational
> discount.
>
> If worse comes to worse, they can probably use Word, but it's a
> three-column format with a lot of text wrapping around graphics and
> I'm
> afraid Word would require too much fiddling.
>
I've been using MS-Publisher for something similar and I'm fairly happy
with it. It's easy to use and specifically designed for low-end DTP
jobs. Before Publisher I used Word to do the same publication (club
newsletter) and it took me about three times longer, even though I'm
almost a Word-guru. The problem with Word is, that it is not page
oriented. If you mess up something at the beginning of the doc, it's
going to ruin your layout all the way down to the end. Also a complex
doc never looks the same on somebody else's computer.
If you get Publisher, you could develop a template for your successors,
and be reasonably confident that their results will look the way you
intended. For them it would then be just a matter of drawing some frames
and dumping in text and graphics.
Mike
--
Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de
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