Creating a Newsletter

You must include the following elements in your newsletter: a graphic or image, a headline and, possibly, a hyperlink.

The headline should be a larger font that extends the full width of the paper and is located at the top of the page. You must be able to use the formatting menubar.

Graphics (clipart) and images (digital or scanned pictures) come in a variety of formats. Some formats that display on "Windows" computers will not display on Macintosh ones. Windows computers will always display BMP graphic files while Macintoshes will always display PICT's. Three formats that can easily be used on both platforms are JPG (or JPEG), GIF, and TIFF. The first two, JPG and GIF, also display within Web pages. The GIF format is the best if the image or graphic has relatively few colors (like clipart, usually) while the JPG format works well with images (real-life pictures) that include hundreds of shades of color. You may wish to "borrow" graphics from the Web. This can easily be done. Simply right-click over a graphic on any Web page and you can then save it to your hard drive. You may also wish to "touch up" and/or crop graphics and images before using them in a newsletter. This can often be done with freeware or shareware programs that can be downloaded from such sites as www.download.com and www.shareware.com . Of course, you can use commercial products such as Adobe PhotoShop to do extensive image editing.

It is essential that you be able to use Cut, Copy, and Paste commands when desktop publishing. This way you can write articles on one computer and easily transfer them into the proper place on your newsletter. It is also wise to use a template or stationary format to permanently save a master file that contains nice newsletter formatting. For future newsletters, you will not have to "begin from scratch" in this case.

Adding a hyperlink to a word processor or desktop published document can be very easy. Most recent word processors (MS Word 97 & WordPerfect 7) incorporate the ability to build a hyperlink into a word that links the reader to another document on the hard drive or an outside Web page! Simply type a URL address within the text of a newsletter and MS Word will turn it into a hyperlink. If the software that is available for you to create a newsletter does not include the ability to automatically generate hyperlinks, see the instructor for a possible work-around. Otherwise, you will not be responsible for this item in your final newsletter.

I take advantage of the newsletter wizard that comes with MS Office (MS Word, etc.). This greatly helps to create a newsletter that looks very professional. ClarisWorks and other programs include templates that educators can use as well. Finally, it is very convenient to "mail merge" your newsletter with a list of names and addresses. That way, you can buy Avery labels and simply printout all of the addresses or have the addresses printed right on the newsletter itself.