How to Make a Newspaper on Microsoft Word
Collect some newspapers., Plan your layout before beginning., Decide on your page size., Collect all of your articles in compatible formats.
Step-by-Step Guide
-
Step 1: Collect some newspapers.
Draw inspiration from existing newspaper designs.
Look at what works and what doesn't.
See how major papers place pictures and headlines to attract the reader’s eye.
Understand how the basic elements of a newspaper work together.
Stories:
This is the meat of the paper, where the majority of the text is.
Images:
Photos and graphics are an essential piece of newspaper design.
The break up large swaths of text and help provide context for stories.
Also important for images are the captions explaining the significance of the image.
Headlines:
The headline is the first thing the reader will see before deciding whether or not the story is worth their time.
Sidebars:
These are attached to stories that contain extra information related to the story. -
Step 2: Plan your layout before beginning.
It will help to have a basic idea of your paper’s design before opening Word and messing with the formatting.
Take a few sheets of scratch paper and sketch out a few different designs.
Design different pages.
The front page will look significantly differently than inside pages, and different sections will have slightly different styles.
Draw lines to see how columns will affect the flow of your paper.
Too many columns will make your text too crowded, while too few columns will lead to your stories appearing blocky.
Try placing text blocks in different places on your scratch page.
Wrap text around images, or try placing an image directly above or below the story that it’s related to.
Experiment with headline placement.
Headlines need to grab the reader’s attention, but they can’t be so large that they’re distracting. , The average American newspaper is about 15”x22”.
You can recreate this size in Word, but printing it from home will be next to impossible.
You could potentially get this size custom printed, but it can be spendy.
Instead of making a standard newspaper size page, you can make a newsletter format.
These typically have two columns, and fit on standard 8 ½”x 11” paper.
How you fold the paper will affect how you design it.
A typical newspaper is folded in half horizontally, so important content will go on the top half of the front page. , If you are managing a newspaper design, you will most likely have a variety of contributions from different writers or editors.
Make sure that all of these are in compatible formats where you can drop the text into MS Word without too much trouble -
Step 3: Decide on your page size.
-
Step 4: Collect all of your articles in compatible formats.
Detailed Guide
Draw inspiration from existing newspaper designs.
Look at what works and what doesn't.
See how major papers place pictures and headlines to attract the reader’s eye.
Understand how the basic elements of a newspaper work together.
Stories:
This is the meat of the paper, where the majority of the text is.
Images:
Photos and graphics are an essential piece of newspaper design.
The break up large swaths of text and help provide context for stories.
Also important for images are the captions explaining the significance of the image.
Headlines:
The headline is the first thing the reader will see before deciding whether or not the story is worth their time.
Sidebars:
These are attached to stories that contain extra information related to the story.
It will help to have a basic idea of your paper’s design before opening Word and messing with the formatting.
Take a few sheets of scratch paper and sketch out a few different designs.
Design different pages.
The front page will look significantly differently than inside pages, and different sections will have slightly different styles.
Draw lines to see how columns will affect the flow of your paper.
Too many columns will make your text too crowded, while too few columns will lead to your stories appearing blocky.
Try placing text blocks in different places on your scratch page.
Wrap text around images, or try placing an image directly above or below the story that it’s related to.
Experiment with headline placement.
Headlines need to grab the reader’s attention, but they can’t be so large that they’re distracting. , The average American newspaper is about 15”x22”.
You can recreate this size in Word, but printing it from home will be next to impossible.
You could potentially get this size custom printed, but it can be spendy.
Instead of making a standard newspaper size page, you can make a newsletter format.
These typically have two columns, and fit on standard 8 ½”x 11” paper.
How you fold the paper will affect how you design it.
A typical newspaper is folded in half horizontally, so important content will go on the top half of the front page. , If you are managing a newspaper design, you will most likely have a variety of contributions from different writers or editors.
Make sure that all of these are in compatible formats where you can drop the text into MS Word without too much trouble
About the Author
Jack Jones
Professional writer focused on creating easy-to-follow cooking tutorials.
Rate This Guide
How helpful was this guide? Click to rate: