Word 2003: 'Almost' a Full-Fledged Desktop Publishing Program

What program comes with the capability to create multicolumn layouts, smoothly import any kind of graphics, use slick design techniques such as drop caps, and even embed fonts for delivery to a professional printer? It's the same program that provides built-in brochure designs, custom fonts, clip art images, and drawing and font effects software. Yes, Word 2003 does all that.

Word isn't a full-fledged desktop publishing program. But if you know your way around Word, you can create a pretty fair newsletter or brochure. Chapter 13, "Getting Images into Your Documents," and Chapter 14, "Using Word's Quick and Easy Drawing Tools," cover many of the features you can use to build visual documents, including

• Importing graphics (Chapter 13)

• Creating text-based graphics with WordArt (Chapter 13)

• Scanning graphics or acquiring them with a digital camera (Chapter 13)

• Controlling text wrapping and other aspects of picture formatting (Chapter 13)

• Drawing with Word's drawing tools (Chapter 14)

• Editing elements into and out of existing images (Chapter 14)

• Using prefabricated AutoShape images (Chapter 14)

• Working with colors, patterns, and fill effects (Chapter 14)

• Using shadowing and 3D (Chapter 14)

• Controlling layers and grouping in drawings (Chapter 14)

• Working with the drawing grid (Chapter 14)

Other chapters containing valuable techniques for use in this chapter appear earlier in this book:

• Formatting characters and paragraphs (Chapter 4, "Quick and Effective Formatting Techniques")

• Using styles to build consistent visual documents (Chapter 10, "Streamlining Your Formatting with Styles")

• Using templates to automate the production of visual?and other?documents (Chapter 11, "Templates, Wizards, and Add-Ins")

• Using tables as a layout tool (Chapter 12, "Structuring and Organizing Information with Tables")

In this chapter, you'll learn about several more features that you can use in any document, but that also lend themselves especially well to newsletters, brochures, and other traditionally desktop published documents.