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Writing a Christmas newsletter the easy way with Word 2010

Either you love them or hate them, but Christmas newsletters can be great fun to create and a good way of sharing news with colleagues or family and friends.   If you volunteer for a charity or help out with your local school, you may be asked to sort out the newsletter.

You can save yourself time, and prevent pulling your hair out, by using one of the templates in Word.  Yes, if you have time, you can start from scratch and create the headings, and columns, sections for photos or background colours.  But, frankly, in between making sure my child learns Christmas songs for the school performance and organising the hundred and one other end of year activities, I don’t have time.

So, Word has a little gift for me.  The newsletter template.  All shiny, colourful and ready to go.  Now all I have to do is customise it, and add some content (compiled from different emails from other “willing volunteers”) and ta da! We have a newsletter, ready to go on the website, or added to school bags as a hard copy.

Here is my “I-don’t-have-time-to-start-from-scratch” newsletter survival plan….

Select your template in Word, from the File tab (backstage view). Look at how many you have to choose from…and what’s more, they are calorie-free.

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Look the Microsoft Elves have come up with loads of templates for me to choose from. From a formal newsletter to a cheery family one.

Great, download the template you want, save it to your system and start customising it with your school//charity logo.  Change the colours if you want, or font.

Luckily you can preview changes before you apply them…or just use Control plus Z to undo them if you don’t like them.

I opt for the template “Weekly Class newsletter” and using this I can customise it to fit in with what I want.

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ClipArt is in the illustrations section of the Insert tab.

I can use ClipArt to change the image at the top of the newsletter.  I delete the 2 images that are there (the boy, plus the image of the pencils) and replace them using the Insert menu, selecting ClipArt, and using the dialogue box to select the image of Santa that I want.  I can then work with the image to fit the format.  I can also now type in my headings and content, using the columns and formatting already included.  I now have a structure to add my photos, text, and images to.

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I have changed the ClipArt image to a Santa one, and added a photo, and started to add the text.

This template has two pages, so I have space to add all my reminders for next term, updates on news from the Autumn term, and photos from the school play.  Within 10 minutes I have a newsletter up and running.  I can carry on customising it, and adding content and have a professional-looking newsletter in the time it takes me to drink  two cups of coffee.

Sometimes, shortcuts are the best way to go.  With Christmas bringing goodwill and cheer and extra work for work and home life, it is worth using your Microsoft Word Training London courses to give you the gift of a bit of extra time and less stress. https://www.stl-training.co.uk/word-2010-intermediate.php

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Using tracking tools in Word 2010 (Introduction)

Documents evolve over time and with the input of others.  Tracking changes is a perfect for editing Word documents as you can see any sections that have been deleted, had format changes or include new content.

With tracking tools you can control the changes by accepting or rejecting suggestions and approve the final version.

To access the Track Changes options, you need to use the Review tab.

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Nestled in the Review tab, the track changes options.

If I click on Track Changes, the button changes to yellow (to show that I’ve applied it) and now, when I type in new content, it appears in red font with deletions crossed through and changed to red font.

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Reminiscent of being back in the classroom, changes appear in red pen with the deleted items with a line through them.

Now, if red pen brings back bad memories of C- scores in essay writing, how about changing the way the tracking is shown?  When you click on the down arrow below the Track changes button, you can select the Tracking options menu, giving you the choice of how to show changes.

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Tracking changes can be more than just red pen. Hurrah!

Customise the tracking style.  For my example document, I decide to use teal for the font colour for new content and for the strike-through of deletions.  Teal is a bit easier on the eye I think.  I click OK, and the new colour is applied.

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Ah, teal…so much more calming than red…

Using tracking views
I can customise the way tracking is viewed to speed up my work.

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Viewing your Word document using different views can help compare versions.
  1. Final: Show Markup
    This view shows any edited content and formatting with the track changes text in red (or other) colour or strike-throughs for deletions.
  2. Final
    This view shows the content with all the changes in place.   You won’t see all the track changes colour or deletions.
  3. Original: Show markup
    This view shows your original document and includes all the edits that have been made.
  4. Original
    This view shows you the document at the beginning before you made any changes or edits.

Tip: Remember to check which view you are using before emailing your final version, as you may also be sending them all the comments and changes.

Accepting or rejecting changes
You’ve tracked all the changes, and now you need to sort through them and accept or reject them.  The buttons you need for this are next to tracking in the Changes section.

You can whizz through the document from start to finish, or work in sections – either way, you can use the different views and the changes buttons to work through the edits.

Once you have explored these tracking tools, you can build on your skills to include more intermediate and advanced techniques.  I’m working my way through tracking and more with Microsoft Word Training at the moment.  If you want to find out more about the skills you can learn, take a look at: https://www.stl-training.co.uk/word-training-london.php