Stuart, The hardest part of creating something together for print is making sure that your images are conveyed properly. For almost all color printing on coated paper stock, you will want your images to be at least 300 dpi (dots per inch, sometime referred to as "ppi" - pixels per inch) resolution at the size that they are actually going to print and in CMYK color mode (as opposed to the RGB mode that is standard for images displayed on computer screens).
The problem is that most standard word-processing programs, such as Word (and presumably Pages, although I don't know enough about it to say for sure) don't give you much control over resolution or color mode. Which is why serious graphic design for print is usually done in programs like QuarkXPress, InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop. Having said that, most commercial printers are used to converting files from programs that aren't really meant to output high-res press-ready documents, so the best bet if you don't have a true page layout program is to ask whoever is printing the program what their preferred formats are. They may prefer to have you send them a mockup done in a word-processor, but then to get the hi-res images and text separately so that they can use their own processes to put them together in the best way. Dan > Hi all, > > I want to put together a professional looking ad for a playbill, but I'm not > a designer! Are there any simple programs out there that can make my text > and images look wonderful? Perhaps template based. I would, of course, > prefer a free or inexpensive program. > > Any thoughts/help greatly appreciated! > > Stuart > > > _______________________________________________ > MacGroup mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup > > _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
