So my boss today asked me to design a technical course catalog. Basically, company I’m working with does a whole bunch of in house training for employees and they want to put together a catalog of what’s available to employees. Good so far.
Not so good: While the course material is already written up for the most part, it’s in various formats (word and PDF’s). Unfortunately as things are, the current documents all have differing formats/images/layouts, so while I can copy paste the text, modifying the layout and reformatting images will be required.
She wants some pages full, some two column all to be printed on letter-size folded in half booklet form. Don’t ask. She’s convinced that this is the “best” for some reason.
So, anyone have suggestions what software is best for a NON-PRO to do the layout in as easily/fast as possible? I have full MS office suite (including Publisher though I’ve never used it) and Adobe Pro version already in system. Assume I have to learn the basics as I go (I’ve some experience doing layout work for DTP but that was like 10 years ago).
Thanks
Speaking as someone with a tiny, tiny amount of experience years and years ago in layout design and related matters, with what you have, I’d say use Adobe Pro.
InDesign might be the better choice, but you don’t have it and I’m guessing your boss won’t want to pay for it…and I’m guessing it’s a larger learning curve to use it.
I’ve always hated MS Publisher, even back to Win 95/98 days when I only used it for stupid little high school and college group projects. Maybe it’s gotten better in the past 13 years?
Also…I’m curious how some of the things printed “full page” will work if it’s going to be folded and distributed in a booklet-style. Shouldn’t EVERYTHING be in two or three column format (depending on how it gets folded)?
What I mean by this is that the document will be printed in a small form factor (so regular “letter size” - 8.5x11 sheets folded in half) - each half comprising of one page of the document. So a “full” sheet would physically represent half of the paper sheet. The columns would further divide each “page.” The fold is separate.
Current layout uses the full “letter” format and straight up copying causes layout issues when scaled down. Which means I have to do it all manually. Resize, align, and copy the text and images.
InDesign and other ‘publishing’ apps will handle things like booklet formatting: you lay out the pages in the desired order, then tell the program it’s a booklet, and it rearranges things for the way the sheets are arranged during printing.
InDesign is available for $20/month on a subscription basis.
I did take a look at InDesign (figured I’d give the trial version a run) but a quick perusal through tutorials leads me to think I’ll spend WAY too much time learning how to use it rather than actually using it. (I learned photoshop way back when and the learning curve was BRUTAL). It looks too complicated is what I’m saying.
I’m trying to do this in Word right now though if anyone who reads this can recommend something better I’d greatly appreciate it.