Create a Brochure using Microsoft Publisher

What is a Brochure?

A brochure can be in the form of a pamphlet or booklet that can be used to inform, educate, persuade, explain, or instruct. Brochures would usually have a planned layout, typography and graphics.

What is a Brochure?

In creating a brochure, one must choose the most appropriate brochure format for their topic, condense information into "brochure-size bites," include the most appropriate elements of a brochure, and select suitable graphics or photos, if any.

Creating the Brochure

Planning

Plan what you need to accomplish with your brochure. Here are some questions that you need to answer:

1. What do you want to present in your brochure?

2. Who are your target readers?

3. What task should the reader be able to accomplish after reading this brochure?

Research

• You can find content and ideas from the internet, books, and even from sample brochures. Sample brochures, in particular, can give you some ideas on how a brochure looks and how the information in it is presented.

• Start picking out significant or interesting facts that you think you will want to highlight in your brochure

Format

• You must decide the best format to present your information. Different formats work best for brochures with lots of text, lots of pictures, small blocks of text, lists, charts, or maps.

• You'll need to find the format that works best for your information. You may sketch out some rough ideas of how you want your brochure to look, including any graphics you think you want to include. Try out different formats to fit your text. Edit your text to fit your layout. Experiment.

• Using the page layout software available to you, transfer your rough sketches to the computer. Your software may have templates or wizards that will provide you with even more ideas.

Using Microsoft Publisher

Choose a brochure design from available templates. For the purpose of this tutorial, let us select a tri-fold brochure template.

Make sure that the size and orientation of your paper is A4 Landscape.

You may choose the color and font scheme for your brochure by selecting the appropriate/new scheme.

Replace placeholder text with your own text.

Replace any placeholder pictures with your own pictures.

In case you plan to have your brochure printed professionally, you'll want to save or convert it to PDF format, as most printers prefer to receive documents in that format. Otherwise, Publisher Files format is okay.

Activity

• Design a brochure to promote a school program to students or parents.

• Make sure that the brochure contains the most important information about the program.

• Have a good mix of text and graphics in your brochure.

References

Bear, J. H. (n.d.). Brochure Lesson Plans. Retrieved from About Tech: http://desktoppub.about.com/od/lessonplans/a/brochures.htm

Ruff, R. (n.d.). How to Create Brochures Using Microsoft Publisher. Retrieved from wikiHow to do anything...: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-Brochures-Using-Microsoft-Publisher