Booklets

Ok, so I feel I'm pretty proficient in Microsoft Word. I know the basics, plus a little beyond. But Wednesday I taught myself something new, using Help (and I wish I would've known this way back in May...). My boss wanted me to make a booklet of all the assistive technologies we have in the office, and a lot of the assistive technologies that are "out there". So I went and gathered the information and put it in Word. When I was finished I thought to myself there's gotta be an easier way to put this in a booklet form than when I did the program for my wedding (back in May).

A long, long time ago... sometime around the middle of May, I was working on typing up the program for my wedding, which included all of what the Priest said, and our responses, plus the readings, congregation responses and whatever else that is part of a Catholic Mass wedding. Well, this program ended up being 8 - 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of paper, or 16 pages when folded in booklet form. I looked around Word but I couldn't find anything that would do that automatically (unfortunately for me then, I didn't use help, or I tried but it didn't work...I don't remember which). So, if I wanted it to be nice, and in order (especially when I made copies) I figured I had to copy and paste the text where I would need it. Long story short, I don't remember how many hours I spent working on it. I finally had the layout right, so when it printed, and I put the pages back to back (since my printer would only print on one side) and folded it, the text flowed and was in the correct order!!! YAY!! That part was done! Making copies was yet another deal, keeping the order straight when putting the booklets together, but I regress.

So anyway, back to this booklet thing. If you click on File, Page Setup, around the middle of the box that pops up is a drop down menu where it says Multiple Pages. If you select Book fold, Word automatically makes the orientation Landscape, and sizes each "page" down to about 5 inches. When you play around with the Inside and Outside margins you can get your text where you want it. Word shows you the document in order. And when you print, Word is smart enough to change the pages around, so when you do put it in a booklet form and fold it, all the pages are in order. I was so happy to find this out, I shared it with some people in my office, and I taught them a new thing! Now, if I had only known how to do this six months ago, I may have been even less stressed with my wedding!