By Katherine Murray

Unless you really have a knack for publication design, chances are you’ll appreciate the ready-made templates included with Microsoft Office Publisher 2007. Templates are included with your copy of the program, but you’ll find dozens of templates—for all the different publication types—on Microsoft Office Online. Office Publisher 2007 shows you the full range of templates that are available when you first launch the program. You can also view the templates whenever you open the File menu and choose New to start a new document.

Once you choose the template you like, you can change it so it includes all the elements—colors, fonts, and more—that you use to help build a brand for your business. In this article, you will learn how to customize a template to fit the brand you have developed (or are developing) for your business.

Choosing and customizing a template

1. To start the program, click the Start button, point to All Programs, choose Microsoft Office, and then select Microsoft Office Publisher 2007. The Welcome to Microsoft Office Publisher window appears.
2. In the Publication Types list in the left column, select E-mail.
3. You will see a collection of designs displayed. Choose the template type you want to use, as shown in Figure 1. At the top of the center column, you can narrow your selection by choosing one of the design categories displayed (Newer Designs, Classic Designs, and Blank Sizes). For this example, scroll down to the Newsletter section of either the Newer Designs list or the Classic Designs list. Click a template to see what it looks like in the preview area in the upper-right corner of the screen.

   

   Figure 1 Template designs for a publication.
4. In the Customize box, you see current selections for the Color Scheme, Font Scheme, and Business Information set. These choices are important because they set up the selections linked to the brand you create in your Office Publisher 2007 materials. You can click the arrow next to Color Scheme, Font Scheme, or Business Information to enter specific settings for your particular business publication or the overall brand you want to create for your materials.

 Tip   Using the Classic Designs group of templates as an example, notice that the various designs have specific names, such as Arcs, Borders, Marquee, Layers, and more. These template names correspond to other types of templates to help you preserve the same look and feel throughout all your marketing materials. For example, in addition to the Marquee newsletter template, you can also choose a Marquee postcard, catalog, calendar, and more to reinforce the consistent look for your brand.

Customize your brand elements

The Customize box provides three options for specifying brand elements before you even open the publication:

• Color scheme   The color scheme you select communicates the feel and flavor of your overall brand. Darker colors imply seriousness; bright colors are vibrant and high-energy; and soft pastel colors evoke a sense of emotional connection.
• Font scheme   The font you choose for your logo, your motto, and the business information on your publication all contribute to your customers’ sense of your brand. Common fonts like Times Roman, Arial, and Bookman can be familiar and reassuring; artistic fonts can stand out and make a statement.
• Business information   Office Publisher 2007 enables you to save all your business information as an element—company name, address, Web site, e-mail, phone, and more—so it is entered automatically for you when you create new documents.

 Tip   The font scheme you choose will make a subtle but important impression on your customers. Resist the temptation to overdo it with exaggerated fonts unless your brand calls for a sense of being highly creative, challenging, or risk-taking.

Choose a color scheme

Office Publisher 2007 includes dozens of professionally designed color schemes you can use in your publications. This is great news for those of us who don’t have the creative eye required for mixing and matching colors. To choose the color scheme you want to use as the default for the publications you create in Office Publisher 2007, click the Color Scheme arrow in the Customize box. The selection menu shown in Figure 2 appears. Click your choice to apply a color scheme to your publication.

Choose a font scheme

Next, you can choose the font scheme that best reflects the style and tone of your brand. In the Customize box, click the Font Scheme arrow. The menu shown in Figure 3 appears. Scroll through the list and click the font scheme that you want to use as the default for your publications.

Add your business information

By adding your business information directly into Office Publisher 2007, you save yourself keystrokes (and reduce the potential for error), because all the key contact items for your company will be in one place, and they can be accessed easily and reused in different types of publications.