Digital Workbooks Options and Guide

Microsoft Office - Publisher If you use PC’s rather than Macs then ‘Publisher’ is part of the Microsoft Office Software package. It is very easy to use and is the program used to produce the sample worksheets.

Publisher Once open, you will see the start page. Click on ‘blank paper sizes’, select A3 Landscape and then double click on it.

Publisher You will then be presented with the workspace for your layout. The software has similarities to word so should be easy to adapt to. There are plenty of options in terms of ready made templates but your probably best to make your own. There are loads of options for fonts and background designs too.

Publisher The main command that you will use is then ‘Insert’. Go to ‘Insert’, ‘Picture’ and ‘From File’ to insert your own pictures or research images. To add text go to ‘Insert’, ‘Text Box’ and simply type in your text. The images and text are then very easy to move by clicking and dragging, resizing is also easy using the transform controls.

Publisher This is how you will gradually construct your pages. At the bottom of the page you can see the numbers 1 to 8. This represents how many pages are in your publication. To add a new page simply go to ‘Insert’ - ‘Page’. You can have as many pages as you need all contained in one document.

Publisher You can easily add arrows and lines using the tools on the left side of the page. If you want a black line around an image or text box then use the rectangle tool. You can alter the thickness of the line or arrow as seen in illustration

Publisher It really is very straight forward and you don’t need to be too elaborate in your design of the pages. Ultimately it looks very neat and professional, along with being very easy to change, improve, alter and correct.

Publisher Besides the usual save options, publisher also lets you import work documents, publish your pages to the web or publish as a PDF file. PDF ‘s are really useful as they can usually be opened on any computer with ‘Acrobat Reader’ and they are a good format to print from. Also, we will accept workbook submissions as PDF’s for interim assessment. You will have to print out the final thing though.

Microsoft Office - Powerpoint There are a couple of definite benefits to using Powerpoint to construct your workbook. I know we think of it as a ‘presentation’ program but it is very capable of producing documents too. The main benefit is that the file will be interchangeable from PC to Mac. This means that if you have a Mac at home you can still open and expand it on either machine. You can also save the Powerpoint file as a Pdf document which you can then upscale to A3 for printing out. The other main bonus when using Powerpoint is the fact that you can integrate movies, animation and other interactive content into the workbook for viewing ‘on screen’.

Avoiding Potential Problems Your submitted digital workbook will need to be in Pdf format, unless you have interactive content, in which case it will be in Powerpoint format. A number of people experienced problems last year due to oversized documents. As the document grows and due to the fact that you are loading it with images we advise that you do one of the following: 1.Split the document into sections so that it can be combined at the end using Pdf Pro (this option if you want to print it). 2.Make sure that when you insert images, contacts, scans etc you make a copy of the original file and reduce the size to a ‘screen resolution’ image (72dpi). This is the file you should then insert into the document.

In Conclusion There are definite advantages to constructing your workbook digitally: No carrying around your workbook and no danger of losing it. Easy to construct in class or at home on a Mac or a PC. No messy glue, smudges and no need to hand write everything. Easy to correct and add to text, easy to remove images and re-organize layout. Looks very professional, neat and shows of your work well. You can keep multiple copies in different formats. Can be handed in for interim assessment in digital form – i.e. Docx, Pdf, web. Can be printed out at the end of the Unit once you are happy with it. Reprographics can bind it for you in college. Saves on storage space for us and is easy for the Moderator to access. You also have the option of producing an on-line book – see Blurb.com.Blurb.com