(Legacy) Microsoft Publisher 2003: The Publisher Environment

Publisher is a powerful software application used for desktop publishing. It allows you to manipulate features such as page size, text, graphics, and borders. Publisher's strengths are in its ability to bring together text and images to make professional looking flyers, brochures, handouts, and newsletters. This document will familiarize you with the Publisher environment and its components.

The Publisher Window

The Publisher window contains many parts that work together to make creating a document easier.

Window Elements

Understanding the elements you see in the Publisher window is the first step to becoming comfortable with the application. The elements listed below are the ones you will use most often.

Title Bar
The Title Bar displays the document's name. If the document is unnamed, the name displayed in the title bar will be PublicationX where X is a sequential number.

Rulers
Two rulers running vertically and horizontally along the screen can be set to measure in inches, centimeters, picas, or points (a pica is a unit of measurement used in typography, equal to 12 points, approximately 1/6 of an inch). You can choose to display or hide them.

Work Area
The work area is the background surrounding the Publisher document (beyond the margins). It is useful for temporarily placing text and graphic elements when deciding where to place items, or when moving items between pages. Text and graphics on the work area will not print.

Guides
The blue dotted lines represent the page margins. Generally, all the text and graphics are placed within the page margins.

Boundaries
The page boundaries represent the edges of the paper. Any items outside or overlapping the page boundaries will not print.

Task Pane 
The task pane provides quick access for complicated functions and can include Help, Clip Art, Find and Replace, Graphics Manager, Publication Designs, Styles and Formatting, and many others.

Object Bar
Publisher provides several tools that are used to accomplish various tasks. 

Scroll Bars
Like Microsoft Word and other applications, Publisher has scroll bars to help you move to various points on the current page(s). Scroll bars are not used to move between pages.

Standard Toolbar 
The Standard Toolbar contains buttons for common functions in Publisher and throughout Microsoft Office. This toolbar is similar in most Office 2003 programs.

Formatting Toolbar
The Formatting Toolbar contains buttons for common text formatting options in Publisher and throughout Microsoft Office. This toolbar is similar in most Office 2003 programs.

Page Icons 
The Page Icons indicate how many pages the publication contains and which page is currently selected. The Page Icons are also used to navigate between the pages of your publication.

The Object Bar

The Object Bar contains each of the tools you will use to create and manipulate text and graphics in Publisher.

ToolFunctionSelect ObjectsSelects lines, shapes, graphics, and text boxes. Selected items can be resized and have their attributes changed.Text BoxCreates text boxes.Insert TableCreates tables.Insert WordArtAdds WordArt to your publication.Picture FrameCreates a frame in which a picture may be inserted.Line ToolCreates a line.Arrow ToolCreates an arrow.Oval ToolCreates circular and oval shapes.Rectangle ToolCreates rectangular shapes.AutoShapesCreates a variety of different shapes
EXAMPLE: Hearts, lightning bolts, thought boxes.Design Gallery Object

The Basic Toolbars

Microsoft Publisher contains various toolbars to assist you in creating your publications.

Displaying a Toolbar

1. From the View menu, select Toolbars.

2. Select the desired toolbar.

Standard Toolbar 
Provides shortcuts to basic functions such as save, open, new, cut, copy, and paste.

Formatting Toolbar
Displays paragraph styles, font, font size, alignment, indentation, and space before and after paragraphs when working with text.