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How can I make an online Zine?

Making Chapbook/Zine! Need help on how to format Microsoft Word! Please help

  • I am making a chapbook/zine that needs to be completed by noon on Thursday. I need help on how to format Microsoft Word so I can get the job done, printed and out to public. I am just finishing an 8 week writing class where we finish by making our own chapbook. I need to be taken through on how to adjust Microsoft Word so that I can format my writings so that I can print the them out and cut and paste together a mock version of the chapbook itself. This info is not available in the text. I am actually in an advance class where they do not have to make chapbooks so the teacher did not instruct me how to do it in the last session. Help!

  • Answer:

    A lucky trick I just discovered by mistake while copying things at Office Max: many nicer copy machines have a booklet setting in which you can feed a sheaf of 8.5x11 pages in, and it spits out a chapbook (everything .5 size), paginated in the order received, ready to be stapled with a long-arm stapler (behind the counter). It doesn't require your doing any preparatory layout (besides what you'd normally turn in formatted for class, unless you'd like the text size to be larger!), and takes almost no time. Also, Kinko's doesn't charge for mistakes made--so take any screw ups to the counter and they'll refund the cost of them.

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Look at the template for a brochure and see if you can adjust its settings to your needs.

gjc

If you're trying to print the pages in the right order, it goes something like this... Last Page (e.g. page 20), First Page, 19, 2, 18, 3, 17, 4, 16, 5 ... etc i.e. reduce the big number by one, and increase the little number by one until the page numbers meet. If you need to print the pages on one side, and then swap the paper in the printer, print 20 & 1, turn the paper over and then go for 19 & 2. Then start on clean paper and continue as above.

seanyboy

If you're cutting and pasting (with scissors and glue)... Put a text box in the middle of the page, fill it with text and then print it out. Cut out the box and paste it into your chapbook. (I can't believe you're even asking this. Have I missed something?)

seanyboy

what format do you want? something 5.5" x 8"? In the past, I've done the quick and not very elegant thing of using landscape page layout, and two collumns. Balance the collumns so that if your outside margin is .5", then the space between the collumns needs to be 1". There may be templates that do it more easily, but I like controlling my own formatting. I didn't make the pages go in the proper order (which for an 8-page chapbook would be like 8&1 together, then 2&7 on the backside, then 3&6 then 4&5 in the middle, all doublesided of course), because it was 1996, and I was making the chapbook on a photocopier, so I just used scissors and glue to get this in the right order. I don't know the best way to do this in Word itself - when making CD booklets, I usually put out all the text as a jpegs (because there are lots of images as well), but that can be lossy in printing.

jb

I wouldn't use textboxes; that would be just a lot of complication. Actually, I do believe you could set page formatting to be 5.5" x 8", and then just print two pages per page. But I don't know if you could balance the margins as well as a collumn can. Collumns would be a problem if you want page numbers.

jb

The format is 5.5 x 8.5

goalyeehah

I know how to do everything with the exception of going into Microsoft Word, turning the page sideways and inserting the page format numbers.

goalyeehah

Do you have access to Microsoft Publisher? It's not the best program in the world but it is basically Word for flyers/posters/etc...it is easier to lay things out (you don't get Word's stubbornness).

radioamy

Also, how many pages is your book?

radioamy

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