Basic Template Design Questions/Feedback
Submitted by Jaxia on Wed, 2008-08-06 01:48.
I'm messing around with a letter-sized 2 pages per week template design and I have a couple of general questions.
What are typical margins? I've seen on the site to use 3/4" for the parts where the rings go, but what about the rest of the margins? Outside edges? Top? Bottom?
If I want to share it later, what is the easiest way to arrange the pages so that people can easily print them? (I'm creating it in open office calc, and can export to PDF.)
How do people create those little monthly calendars that are typically at the top of planner pages?
I've attached my first rough draft. Please feel free to share any tips/feedback.
Thanks for any help!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Jaxia_planner.pdf | 79.72 KB |
Some answers ...
Margins vary by printer. With my Dynamic Templates, I have found I have too set outer margins to at least 7mm to avoid having my printing cropped.
You can share the Open Office Calc document without problem. Lotsa folks use them. I would suggest uploading PDF's for folks that do not care to mess with Open Office.
Them little monthses ? I makes them with magic ! :)
Seriously, in a spreadsheet setting like you are using, I am not sure it can be done unless one can "embed" a table into a single cell of another table
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)
I guess I wasn't clear with
I guess I wasn't clear with my PDF/OO question. I'm trying to figure out the best way to order to pages so they can be easily printed without a duplex printer. I guess I'm trying to find out if someone knows the following:
Do most printers pull from the top and then leave that page on the bottom? So, if I print even pages 2, 4, 6, 8 then does the pile of printed pages wind up (from top to bottom) 8, 6, 4, 2?
Then, when it's time to print the odd pages, can most people just flip the stack over so that the black side of page 2 is now at the top?
Basically, I'm just trying to save the hassle of shuffling pages.
I can paste 'images' into calc with no problem. However, for some reason, the calendar contents seem to shift around a bit when I copy it from Draw and put it into Calc. I'll see if I can attach my file so you can see what I am talking about. I found these little calendars in some random other file, so I'm not sure what is causing the problem. These calendars aren't solid images -- they have a bunch of little pieces that shift around when I copy/paste.
**ETA**
I figured out the calendar problem -- I can edit the files in Draw and line them up the way I want it done. Woo!
Thanks!
Don't bother
Hi.
On the page ordering, don't bother being so accommodating. :) I think half the printers end up face up with the pages in reverse (inkjet), and the other half end up face down with the pages in initial order (laser).
So pick an order you like and let the users figure it out. Most print softwares allow you to 'print evens' and 'print odds' and in 'reverse order' and some have drivers that let you pretend they're duplexing when they're not really (my HP does that). Some have booklet printing so the user can print it on double-size paper with a folded crease in the middle..
It's really not worth the effort trying to set it up for everyone. It never works. :)
shris
Use MS Word
If you use MS Word you can set up whatever page size you want to use. Than draw a textbox almost to the edges on 3 sides, with a little more room on one side to accommodate holes or smurfs. I generally make 2 pages, one with more empty space on the left, and the other with more empty space on the right. You then have a front and a back you can use, as needed.
If you don't want a border around your page, make the textbox invisible with no border. Treat the area within the textbox as though it is your document and set up your page within.
Using a textbox allows you to fool both the program and your printer and print very nearly to the edge of the page. I use this with 3x5, compact, and classic sizes.
Wow. That never occurred to
Wow. That never occurred to me. I'm so accustomed to having margins that I never thought of a page without them! Thanks for the idea!
**ETA**
I forgot to mention that I'm using calc so that it will automatically fill in my dates for me. I'll see if there's some way to get it into Word when I'm ready to print.
I believe you can
I think you can put functions into MS Word - it's just a lot more hidden and complicated than in Excel and require slight coder skills.
L
Check the version ...
You should check which version of Microsoft Word you have or will have in the future. There have been suggestions that Microsoft will pull Visual Basic from Word in some future version; not before time given it's implication in virus propogation, in my not so humble opinion.
Stick to the PDF / OO and do not worry about page order
There are utilities (Multivalent) that can re-order PDF pages.
I would suggest avoiding MS-Word only because you will be excluding the Linux folks (or Mac folks like me who refuse to buy Word) who will end up opening it with OpenOffice anyway.
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)