If you’re looking to share news with your community, customer list or office patients, a quick and portable way to do so is through a brochure. Brochures are traditionally single-page, double-sided, tri-folded pieces of paper. They are filled with information that sometimes includes graphics, charts and contact details. Instead of spending big bucks for a design company to make your brochures, create them yourself for free by taking advantage of software programs already on your computer or through a free-trial download of a desktop publishing program.
Instructions
1. Open your desktop publishing program or download a free trial and select the "Publications for Print" or "Templates" link. Click "Brochures" and scroll through the preset brochure templates. Double-click a brochure design, which opens it in the desktop publishing workspace.
2. Click your cursor into one of the brochure’s headlines and highlight the text. Type directly over this text with your own information, such as "Flu Shots to be Offered Here." Repeat this throughout the brochure, creating new headlines where there are placeholder ones. Use the text toolbar at the top of the page to change the headlines’ font, size and color.
3. Click into a text box under one of the headlines and begin typing information, such as a description of the item the brochure is designed to sell. Click and add more text to each of the text boxes on the brochure.
4. Right-click a placeholder graphic on the brochure and select "Change Picture." Choose "From File" and browse to a digital image on your computer. Double-click the file and it appears in place on the brochure. Repeat to change all the placeholder graphics on the brochure. If you don’t have your own images, add some of the program’s clip art by selecting "Change Picture" and "Clip Art," then typing a word or phrase into the clip art "Search for" box.
5. Highlight the placeholder information for contact details on the brochure and type over it with your own. Add your hours of operation, emergency contact procedures, a website, email address and any other way you want readers to get in touch with you.
6. Turn on your printer and load it with paper. Pull down the "File" menu and click "Print." Choose your printer from the options; it may already be the default. Under the printing section, be sure to select that only page 1 should print. Advance the "Copies" or "Number of Copies" box up to the number of brochures to print. If you want to print a large quantity of brochures, consider breaking the number up into groups to avoid jamming your printer with too much paper.
7. Click the "Print" button and the first page of the brochures print. Let them dry, place the papers back in your printer face up and repeat the printing process, but select to print "page 2." Be sure to print the same number of copies. When dry, fold the brochures along their lines.
