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Reach out to customers and friends with Publisher greeting cards
 
Applies to
Microsoft® Office Publisher 2003
Microsoft Publisher 2002

Greeting cards offer an excellent opportunity to reconnect with old friends and thank loyal customers.

Anniversary party invitation card

Using Publisher, you can assemble exactly the greeting card you want. Publisher's professionally polished designs enable you to:

  • Choose a design that targets a specific event or holiday.
  • Match a Publisher design that was used to create other company publications.
  • Add personal touches, in the form of messages, pictures, and company logos, to each page of the card.
The four panels of the anniversary party invitation card

1  Front of card

2  Inside left

3  Inside right

4  Back of card


To create your own greeting card in Publisher, follow these three steps:

  1. Choose the pre-designed publication and layout.
  2. Customize the card.
  3. Print the cards.

Choose the pre-designed publication and layout

While you can create a greeting card from scratch, basing your card on a pre-designed greeting card publication gives you a head start. With a pre-designed publication, you can:

  • Build on a professional design that, in many cases, you can creatively modify.
  • Print the cards easily on Avery or other brands of greeting card paper, by taking advantage of the pre-set print options.

ShowTo choose a pre-designed greeting card publication and layout in Publisher 2003

  1. Start Publisher. In the New Publication task pane, click Publications for Print, click Greeting Cards, and then click a design theme, such as We've Moved or Special Day.
  2. Scroll through the pre-designed greeting card publications on the right. When you find one you like, click the thumbnail image.
  3. In the Greeting Cards Options task pane, under Design, click the option that you want to modify the layout and appearance of the original design.

     Note   Some card designs, such as the Fading Frame and Tipped Title designs, are set up for only one layout option. If you choose one of these designs, the layout options displayed under Design in the Greeting Card Options task pane will not be available.

  4. Click Page Options, and then choose the card size and fold style you want under Size and Fold.
  5. Click Color Schemes, and then choose the color scheme you want.
  6. Click Font Schemes, and then choose the font scheme you want.
  7. When your greeting card looks the way you want, save the file.

 Tip   As you are choosing your design and layout, check how each choice affects all four pages of your greeting card. To move among pages, click the page navigation control at the bottom of the window.

ShowTo choose a pre-designed greeting card publication and layout in Publisher 2002

  1. Start Publisher. In the New Publication task pane, click Greeting Cards, and then click a design theme such as We've Moved or Special Day.
  2. Scroll through the pre-designed greeting card publications on the right. When you find one you like, click the thumbnail image.
  3. In the Greeting Cards Options task pane:
    • Under Layout, click the layout option you want.

       Note   Some card designs, such as the Design Box and Fading Frame designs, are set up for only one layout option. If you choose one of these designs, not all layout options will be available.

    • Under Size and fold, choose the card size and fold style you want.

       Note   Some card designs are set up to be folded in only one way. If you choose one of these designs, all size and fold options will not be available.

    • Click Color Schemes, and then choose the color scheme you want.
    • Click Font Schemes, and then choose the font scheme you want.
  4. When your greeting card looks the way you want, save the file.

 Tip   As you are choosing your design and layout, check how each choice affects all four pages of your greeting card. To move among pages, click the page navigation control at the bottom of the window.

Customize your greeting card

After you've modified a pre-designed greeting card with your layout and fold style, you're ready to customize the card. Do one or all of the following tasks:

  • Replace the placeholder text with a seasonal verse or your own message.
  • Replace the placeholder pictures with your own pictures.
  • Add new text and pictures.

How to customize your greeting card

To Do this
Display a different page of the card Click a page navigation control at the bottom of the window.
Replace placeholder text with a verse
  1. In the Greeting Card Options task pane, under Suggested verse at the bottom of the pane, click Select a suggested verse.
  2. Under Category, click the message category you want. Under Available messages, click the message you want, and then click OK.
Replace placeholder text with your own text Click the placeholder text, and then type the new text.

Tips

  • In most cases, the text resizes automatically to fit within the text box. If you want to control the text size yourself, click the text box. On the Format menu, point to AutoFit Text, and then click Do Not Autofit (if you are using Publisher 2002, click None). Select the text, and then choose a new font size from the Font Size list on the toolbar.
  • If you have already created a personal information set, information from the set, such as your name, will automatically replace some of the card's placeholder text.
Add new text
  1. On the Insert menu, click Text Box.
  2. In your card, point to where you want one corner of the text to appear, and then drag diagonally until you have a box that is the size you want. Click inside the box and type your text.
Replace placeholder pictures with your own pictures Right-click the placeholder picture, click Change Picture, and then choose the source of the new picture.

 Tip   If you don't see Change Picture when you right-click, click the placeholder picture once until you see the white circles surrounding the picture's frame, click the picture again until you see gray circles with x's in them surrounding the picture itself, and then right-click the picture.
Add new pictures On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then choose the source of the new picture.
  • To reposition the picture, drag it.
  • To resize the picture, position the mouse pointer over one of the corner handles, and then drag.
  • To change picture colors, right-click the picture, click Format Picture, click the Picture tab, and then click Recolor.

 Tip   If you have already created a personal information set that includes a logo, you can quickly add your logo to the greeting card. On the Insert menu, point to Personal Information, and then click Logo.

For more information about working with text and pictures, see Help in Publisher.

Tips on printing your greeting cards

Greeting cards in Publisher are set up to print on letter-size paper. After the card prints, fold the paper to establish the appropriate relationship among the card's pages.

Typical folding pattern for a four-panel greeting card

For example, for a quarter-page, side fold card:

1  When you preview the card before you print it, it looks like step 1 above.

2  When you print the card on a color printer, before it's folded, it looks like step 2 above.

3  In step 3, you fold the card in half from top to bottom.

4  In step 4, you fold the card from side to side.


Follow these tips to get high quality printed results:

Question Tips
What paper should I print my greeting card on?
  • Purchase card stock designed specifically for greeting cards from suppliers such as Avery or Office Depot. These packages usually include envelopes.
What if my cards don't print correctly and I waste the special paper I bought for printing the cards?
  • On the File menu, click Print Preview to see how your publication will look on the printed page. This way, you can make any necessary adjustments before you print.
  • Print one or two test cards on regular paper before you use the more expensive card stock paper.
Will the colors look the same when I print my card, as they do onscreen?
  • Because colors in a printed document can look different from colors on the screen, before you print your cards, print a color sampler on the printer you expect to use.

    To print a color sampler:

    1. On the Format menu, click Color Schemes.
    2. In the Color Scheme task pane on the left side of the window, click Custom color scheme at the bottom of the pane. Click the Standard tab, and then click Print color sampler.
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