Microsoft Office Publisher Blog

The page, the sheet and the difficulty to differentiate them (Part 1)

2009-12-11T21:18:00Z

It is very likely that in the past some Publisher users got confused regarding the distinction between page and sheet. In the print dialog when should one choose "Multiple pages per sheet" or "Multiple copies per sheet"? I know this is confusing. This current article intends to clarify some of the unknowns.

The Publisher user will work either in the WorkSpace creating, editing or fine tuning her publication or in the Backstage saving, printing or performing other actions. In Publisher 2010 we made an effort to improve the print experience and we will we used this opportunity to illustrate the distinction between pages and sheet. Briefly stated the old print dialog, the old print preview and the old print setup dialog are replaced in Publisher 2010 by the new Print Back Stage.

Let’s start by defining the notion of Page. Think about the Publisher page as the white area displayed in the WorkSpace surrounded by the Scratch area. The size of the page can be changed using the page setup dialog. For example the user can set the page size to be 8.5x11 or A4 even a custom size. To navigate from one page to the next use the page navigation pane.

Now let's talk about the sheet. When we use the word sheet we are referring to the actual piece of paper the publication will be printed on. To visualize it, let's enter the Print BackStage and observe the actual sheet being the white are in the preview window. The sheet size can be changed. The selection of sheets is limited by the paper sizes supported by the current printer driver. To navigate from one sheet to the other user the Sheet navigation controls in the Print BackStage.

For example a small desktop printer that can support only A4/Letter size sheets (papers) cannot allow the user to feed A3 or Tabloid (11x17) size paper. As a result in the Print BackStage the user cannot change the sheet size for this particular printer driver to A3/Tabloid.

Summarizing the distinction between page and sheet:

	Publisher Page(s)	Publisher Sheet(s)
See it as	The white rectangle in the WorkSpace	The white rectangle in the Print BackStage
Change it's size	Using the Page Setup dialog	In the print BackStage using one of the printer driver supported sheets
Think about it as	… a digital area where the user places some content	… a physical piece of paper where the content will be printed on
Navigate using the	page navigator in the workspace	sheet navigation arrows in the Print BackStage

One might ask why should we have this distinction between page and sheet. Can't we just have one of them? This is a very good question. In some cases the overlap is so perfect that the distinction is completely blurred. For instance: an A4 flyer printed on an A4 sheet will basically make the distinction invisible. However one might start appreciating the distinction between page and sheet when we use different page sizes than sheet sizes. For instance a post card size page (page width= 5.5'' and page height= 4.25'') on a Letter size sheet (sheet width= 8.5''and sheet height = 11''). Since the page and the sheet sizes are different the user can place the smaller sized page on the larger sized sheet in multiple ways. We call those possibilities imposition styles. A particular case of imposition is when the page size is larger than the sheet size. For example a banner publication printed on letter size paper will be tiled.

How can I see the relationship between the page and the sheet in a single view? The Print BackStage has some powerful tools to enable the visualization of the page relative to the sheet. One of them is the "Page number slider". This slider will display two things: the page margins illustrated with a red line and the number of the page as an outlined number in the center of the page. This content is not printed just displayed for the user.

Let's consider the imposition styles "Multiple copies per sheet". A more verbose definition of this would be "Multiple copies of one page per sheet" or "Fill a sheet with multiple copies of the same page". To illustrate it see the screen shots below.

"Multiple pages per sheet" would have a verbose definition as "Place on a sheet multiple pages". To illustrate it see the screen shots below .

With the just learned differences between page and sheet this should be somewhat easier to understand.

This would conclude the first part regarding the print experience in Publisher 2010.

Publisher 2010 Public Beta Now Available

2009-11-18T10:00:00Z

Today, the Publisher 2010 Public Beta is as the name suggests, available to the public. This means that you can now go download it, along with the rest of Office 2010, from www.microsoft.com/2010. Go ahead. Go download it. I’ll still be here when you get back.

In my July post about the Technical Preview, I called out the feature areas at the core of this release. They are:

- The Office ribbon

- Lots of enhancements to the core document workspace

- Some great picture enhancements

- Cool new typography features

- An integrated Print and Print Preview experience

Read more about each of these in the original post or check out this list of the top 10 benefits of Publisher 2010. With this Beta, you’ll also see more online content coming from the beta Office.com site. In many template categories of the New experience in the Backstage, you’ll see fresh content from Office.com at the top.

We’ve fixed a whole lot of bugs since the Preview and made a number of changes based on user feedback. In direct response to your feedback, we now show you more pages in the Page Navigation pane by default, the Review tab is back and PDF’s can be password protected at generation time. How did we know how you felt about these things? One of the ways is the Send a Smile tool that is included again with the Public Beta. This lets you send us comments and a screenshot of what you are doing.

Enough talk for now. Go download the beta and send us a smile or frown to let us know what you think.

About the contributor: Jeff Bell is the Group Program Manager for the Publisher & Text Services team in Office.

Fun with Candy Bar Wrappers

2009-11-17T04:59:00Z

One fun and easy project I’ve done using Publisher is to make a candy bar wrapper replica for special occasions. These are simple to create publications that you wrap around a store bought candy bar to dress them up with your information on them.

You could use them for:

• Birth announcements with the new baby’s name and vital statistics on it
• Party invitations with directions, date and time information
• Wedding announcements with the happy couple’s names
• Promotional business handout with your business hours, address and phone number
And many more occasions that you might want a different way to let people know some information.

Here at Microsoft I make a different one each year on my hire date anniversary to hand out to the people in my work group. It’s a tradition here to hand out candy or other goodies on your hire date.

So first off start by picking a candy bar you want to put your wrapper on. Open up the wrapper and measure it so you can get the correct dimensions. Depending on the shape of your candy bar you will have to position your data on the wrapper so that when it is wrapped around the original bar it looks good. Once you figure out the different sections of your wrapper you can print one out to verify it fits well and make adjustments as needed. Here’s a picture of the layout I used on one of my creations.

Don’t forget to leave an area where the glue will go on the overlapping section.

Once you’ve got the different sections laid out you can go ahead and fill them up with the information you want displayed on your wrapper.

I’ve found that the color on the screen may be slightly different from what the printer I’m using prints out so you can try printing out a test sheet with different shades of the colors you are using to see which ones print out the way you want it to look.

Enter all your information, pictures and anything else you want to include on your wrapper and print one out as a test. Cut your printout to size and wrap it around your candy bar and glue the overlapping section. If everything looks good and fits well then you are ready to print some more out. If not go back and make any adjustments and changes you need to. Depending on the size of your candy bar you might be able to printout more than one on a page. If you select all the objects you’ve used and make them a grouped object you can then copy and paste that object onto the page so you can get more wrappers on the page. Position the grouped objects so they don’t overlap. Print them, cut them, wrap them and glue them and that’s it. You have a great looking invitation, announcement or just a custom candy bar to hand out to your friends and family.

Here’s a picture of the one I did for my 7 year Microsoft anniversary mimicking the famous Hershey’s bar.

Once you’re done you can save your publication as a template to reuse it again later. You could also share it with the online community at Office Online.

John Dimmick

Software Design Engineer in Test II

About the contributor: John Dimmick is a Software Design Engineer in Test and has worked for Microsoft for 12.5 years, 10.5 years on the Publisher test team. In his spare time he likes using Mail Merge and making perfect circles.

Fun With Publisher – Pumpkin Carving Stencils

2009-10-27T04:23:00Z

People often think of Publisher as a tool for newsletters, brochures, and other serious business… but, here on the team we also like to use the app for fun projects. From candy bar wrappers to wanted posters, there are all sorts of fun things you can do in Publisher.

Today, I’d like to address a super important type of fun: carving pumpkins. With Halloween quickly approaching, it’s about time to start planning a pumpkin. Unfortunately, every year I get a bit of anxiety before I cut the pumpkin – I’m always afraid of messing it up and ending up with a really awful looking pumpkin.

This year, I’ve decided to be proactive about things. Instead of agonizing over ruining my pumpkin, I launched Publisher this morning and decided to make a pumpkin carving template. Using the shapes tool, I arranged a whole bunch of shapes into a goofy face pattern for my pumpkin. I made sure to use the fill tool on each shape, so that it’ll be easy to see.

Here’s what my pumpkin is going to look like:

Now, all I have to do is print it out, tape it to my pumpkin, and start carving – no more anxiety about a crazy lop-sided pumpkin! This leaves me time to do much more important things in Publisher… like make invitations to a Halloween party!

So how about you? Let us know in the comments section about some of the fun projects you’ve been using Publisher for. We always love to see how creative our users are! J

-Michelle Lisse

About the contributor: Michelle Lisse is a Program Manager and has worked on the Publisher team for about 11 months, after previously completing an internship with the team. She really likes the color pink, and is easily distracted by shiny objects. Like Publisher 2010.

Intro to uploading templates to Office Online

2009-10-23T23:33:00Z

In the previous post, we explored the vast array of Publisher templates available on Office Online that you can download and use for free. Though some of those templates were created by Microsoft, most were created by customers like you. In this post, we’ll talk about how you can post your Publisher files to the Office Online community to share with other Publisher users too!

Why upload my templates?

Many users have templates that they use and reuse time and time again. Why not share your solutions with other members of the Microsoft Office community and build up a reputation of fresh designs and creativity among your peers?

How to submit a template

Submitting templates to Office Online is easy. Simply go to the template submission page, and you will be directed to sign in using your Windows Live ID. There you will find easy to use, step-by-step instructions on uploading, and finally sending in your template submission.

There is generally a wait time of 1-2 days before your submitted templates are posted, since the templates are checked for viruses, personal information, objectionable content, and copyright material. If your templates are downloaded by your peers enough times, they may even show up in the Publisher application’s catalog!

And that’s it! Simple as that, your templates are uploaded to be shared with Microsoft Office users around the world.

-Stella Chui

Intro to downloading from Office Online

2009-10-21T05:29:00Z

Microsoft Publisher has always included a large collection of built-in templates to help you create your publications, but did you know that Publisher 2007 can connect to Microsoft Office Online to download snazzy new templates as well? If the answer is no, you’re not alone. Many folks were unaware of this great feature and today we’d like to talk about how you can get content from Office Online.

Downloading templates from Office Online

When you open Publisher 2007, the first thing you’ll see is the Publisher Catalog, which contains the different types of publications you can create, such as newsletters, brochures, business cards, and more. Choose a publication type, and if you’re connected to the Internet, you’ll be able to get the latest and greatest templates from Office Online displayed right alongside all the classic Publisher templates. Just click on the "View Templates from Office Online link. It’s that simple! For instance, let’s click on the Newsletter category. See the section titled “Microsoft Office Online Templates” at the top of the screen? That’s where you’ll find the freshest templates—some created by Microsoft and some created by other members of the Publisher community. Want to filter the Catalog so that it only shows templates from Office Online, or hides the Office Online templates altogether? It’s easy—just click the drop-down box near the top-left corner of the Catalog (the one that says “Search for Templates”) and choose the setting you want.

So, that’s how you can access great premade content from Office Online in Publisher 2007. But as you already know, Microsoft Publisher also gives you the power to create your own great designs from scratch. What if you’ve created a slick design of your own that you’d like to share with other members of the Publisher community? In our next blog post, we’ll discuss how Publisher 2007 enables you to share your own content with other folks through Office Online. Stay tuned!

Omeed Chandra

About the contributor: Omeed Chandra is a Software Development Engineer in Test on the Microsoft Publisher team. He has been working at Microsoft for a year and a half, and is convinced that the music scene has been all downhill ever since The Beatles broke up.

A Glorious Tour of Microsoft, Redmond, and Seattle

2009-07-31T04:17:00Z

Today's entry is our second in the series from our 2009 summer interns. See the previous entry to find more info on the Microsoft intern program -- Cherie

After living most of my life in the state of Michigan, I got the opportunity to move to Redmond, WA for twelve weeks of the summer, work for Microsoft, and explore the Seattle area. During my time here I interned as a Program Manager, or PM, on Microsoft Publisher. Going into the internship I knew that Microsoft was not paying me just to get coffee for the boss and drink pops from the drink cooler, but I didn't expect to be working on features that are very valuable to the product. This summer I was given the opportunity to make improvements to the "Save as PDF or XPS" experience, an experience that I have personally used numerous times in Word and Publisher 2007 to turn in papers and print publications on the University printers.

It was exciting at times and intimidating at others to know that my feature space is an area that has such an impact on most of Office software applications. But, I have to say the coolest thing about being a PM is watching the feature grow from an single idea to bringing it to life with the help of a team that included a tester, a developer and myself. I actually got the opportunity to design, spec, and implement two features that may find themselves in Office 2010, as well as make recommendations for the next version of Publisher. And I got to do this with a great group of people giving me help and support along the way.

Nicole Dolan

About the contributor: Nicole is a senior at the University of Michigan. Her home town is Lake Onion, Michigan.

Twelve Weeks and a Hundred Chocolate Milks Later

2009-07-28T02:02:00Z

Each summer, Microsoft hosts hundreds of interns from universities around the US and the world. This year, the Publisher team was fortunate to have four – two in Development, one in Program Management, and one in Test. We’ve asked each of these unique individuals to share their thoughts on the blog as their time with the team comes to a close. Interns spend 12-16 weeks working on real projects that will eventually ship with one of our products. If you are interesting in exploring an internship possibility with Microsoft, more information can be found at https://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/collegembahome.aspx. - - Cherie

Having finally finished a summer internship on the Publisher team, I have felt firsthand the magic of Microsoft. The first few days were dizzying, deciphering the geek speak and diving into the work. Soon enough, I became oriented and went full speed ahead with my assigned projects. As if I were standing on a rug, wondering when it would be pulled out from under me, I worked each day with that thrilling, nervous excitement of perhaps seeing the most challenging problem or most heinous programming bug I had ever known. The fact that I was even given work that involved such brain-bending, mind-crushing, clown-saddeningly tricky enigmas was surprising—a welcome relief from the formulaic and manufactured problems I was expecting, to say the least.

After the initial dust settled and I dared peek out of my office, I came to a great realization: Microsoft Office is an organization of people. Rather than being a horde of drones, domesticated and benighted by the blissful imbibing of corporate Kool-Aid, I saw it as a vibrant culture of geniuses—scary, not because of any spooky aura of evil encircling each employee, but because each individual is so alive and talented and full of knowledge that you’re just waiting for their head to explode in a gory, B-movie kind of way. And although I noticed that the individual employee is important, the lessons learned of teamwork were even more vital to me. As a software developer at Microsoft, you are not alone. For each feature, I always had a program manager making sure I was headed in the right direction and a tester making sure I was not headed in the wrong direction. No longer did I work while crossing my fingers only hoping I was right. If there existed a bug in my code, I would hear about it: from plain to pedantic to simply pathological—I always heard all about it.

Not only has the work itself been fascinating, but the activities and opportunities—particularly for the interns—have been plentiful. Ranging from free chocolate milk in every break room to special guest speakers every week to renting out two entire IMAX theaters for a night, there has never been a dull moment. Working on the Publisher team has been a real delight.

Trevor Lacey

About the contributor: Trevor is a senior at Brigham Young University, majoring in Computer Science. His hometown is Heber City, Utah. He spent the last twelve weeks working on the Publisher 2010 Page Setup experience and a couple of other unannounced features that he can't tell you about.

Capturing & Applying Color and Formatting

2009-07-23T23:16:00Z

Ever see a color in your Publication, an object, or a favorite picture and wish you knew what it was so that you could apply it to other items in your publication? You can! Ever wish there was an easy way to grab all of the formatting off of one object and just paint it onto another one? Well…there is!

The “Eyedropper” and “Format Painter” are two tools in Publisher that help you easily capture colors and formatting from one object and apply it to other objects as you wish.

The “Eyedropper” Tool

Using the Eyedropper tool, you can sample color from anywhere in the publication document until you find the perfect color for you, grab it, and apply it to another object that you feel deserves an opportunity to wear that color, too.

Where’s this Eyedropper tool located?

You can find this tool in several locations depending on what you wish. to apply color to.

Fill Color ...

Line Color ...

Font Color ...

Shadow Color ...

3-D Color ...

How to Use it

Let’s say you want to grab a color out of an image in your publication and apply that color as a fill to a shape or object.

1. Select the shape or object you want to apply the desired color to

2. Drop down the Fill color toolbar

3. Select “Sample Fill Color”

a. The Cursor will change to an “Eyedropper”

4. Left click and drag the cursor around until the large zoomed display is focused on the color you want

5. Release the mouse

The color will be applied to the shape or object you selected.

How you can find out the color value of this desired color -

A color’s value is its ID#, so often you may find it useful to have this handy. The good news is that now that you have grabbed a sample of the color you wanted, this color will appear in the MRU of the Color toolbar dropdown. If you hover over this color swatch, it’s value will appear!

Also, the other good news is that now that this color is in your MRU, you can access it easily and apply it to other shapes and objects in your publication as you wish.

The “Format Painter” Tool

This handy tool will do just what it says – grab formatting off of one object and paint it onto another like object. It comes in really handy when you desire to make the formatting in your publication consistent or when you just want to apply similar formatting from one object to the next. No longer will you have to spend extra time applying formatting to each object individually if you don’t want to.

Where’s the Format Painter tool located?

The Format Painter is located on the standard toolbar:

How to Use it

Just about all formatting can be copied from one object to another like object using format painter.

Let’s say you want to copy the fill, line color, and shadow effect currently applied to a rectangle autoshape in your publication to an oval autoshape.

1. Select the rectangle autoshape

2. Select Format Painter

a. The Cursor will change to a “paintbrush” when it is over an object that the formatting can be painted onto

3. Click onto the oval autoshape

The formatting that is currently applied to the rectangle is applied to the oval shape:

You can also use format painter to paint text formatting into another object--

1. Select the text with desired text formatting in it (in this example, the text within the rectangle shape)

2. Select the Format Painter icon from the Standard Toolbar

3. Left Click and drag cursor over all of the text you want to apply the text formatting onto

I use these tools ALL the time when I want to coordinate the formatting of my publications, and I hope you find them handy when you want to easily apply consistent color and formatting throughout yours. Happy formatting !

Mwanza Russell
Software Design Engineer in Test II

About the contributor: Mwanza Russell is a Software Development Engineer in Test on the Publisher team. She has worked for Microsoft for 9 years and believes that life without color and formatting just isn’t life at all.

Designing a Tri-Fold Brochure

2009-07-18T01:16:00Z

We return to our regularly scheduled Publisher tips and trick to bring you pointers for creating a brochure in Publisher 2007. Similar steps can be used for earlier versions of Publisher.

Printed materials are an excellent way to communicate information. A well-developed brochure for advertising a product or communicating a message to a specific audience can be designed to be cost effective as well as practical.

The size and shape of your brochure may vary depending on desired aesthetics and function. You may be as creative as you like. Your only limitation is the size of the paper you are going to print on and folds for your intended margins. The most common type of brochure is the tri-fold. If you have a tight budget and a small format printer you may be limited to a traditional tri-fold style on 8.5x11 paper.

These are samples of traditional tri-fold brochures. Concepts are shown for a cover, the front, and back views of tri-folds before folding along the overdrawn pink lines.

The main reason for the design and use of a brochure is the convenient size to read.

Microsoft Publisher makes it really easy to create a 3 fold brochure - all you have to do is select the type of stationery you want to use and a template is presented to you ready for the design details--no formatting and aligning needed. The following steps detail using Publisher to create a brochure.

Choose a Brochure Design

1. Start Publisher.

2. Click Brochures from the Publication Types - you are given a large variety of starting designs for a three-panel brochure. There are some really great designs to choose from.

3. After you select a design that you like, you can customize your brochure with the various Font and Color Schemes.

4. You can also add Business Information to your brochure.

5. Select or clear Include Customer address, depending on whether you plan to mail your brochure to customers.

6. Under Form, select a type of response to add, or select None.

7. Click the “Create” button to create a starting template.

Replace placeholder Text and Pictures

· The starting template is already set up with boxed sample text in the correctly aligned place on your tri-fold brochure. It includes place markers for name and address and other business details for your company as well as other suggested text. It will include your business details if they are already stored by Microsoft Publisher 2007.

· You can then overtype this text with your own text, move that text, add your own images in place of the predesigned images or anywhere you want.

Complete the Brochure

· At the bottom of this screen there are two small icons showing the number of pages in this design. On this one there are two pages, one for the front and one for the back. You can click on either one of these icons to choose to edit or view the front or back side of your brochure. Both the front and back side of the brochure has pre-formatted suggested text.

· When the brochure looks the way that you want, save the file by clicking Save As on the File menu.

· If you plan to mail your brochure to customers, prepare it for printing by using mail merge to add the addresses onto the copies of the brochure.

· Print your brochures. For more information about two-sided printing, see Print on both sides of a sheet of paper (duplex).

Nupur Agarwal
Software Design Engineer in Test, Microsoft Office Publisher

About the blog contributor: Nupur has been working for Microsoft for the past 4 years as a Software Design Engineer in Test. In addition to other areas of expertise, she has experience in Internationalization of Office Products with the emphasis on Complex scripts. She is currently working with the Publisher and Word teams.

Giving Feedback on Publisher 2010

2009-07-15T03:03:00Z

The Office 2010 Technical Preview invitations have been sent out now, and we're looking forward to getting as much feedback as possible. We have a few tools to get feedback in the technical preview, and we want to make sure you know how to access them.

For the majority of our users, those who are not receiving invitations to the technical preview, you still have an opportunity to give us feedback. There is lots of information coming out over the next few weeks, and lots of places are disseminating this info, so everyone will have a chance to "see" the beta even if you aren't downloading the bits to play with. We invite you to post comments to this blog, to either this topic or any other, for any thoughts you have on what you are seeing in the media, on our blog, or on any other Office sites that talk about what's new and cool in Office 2010. See the end of this post for several links to more info on Office 2010.

For our users who have received the very limited number of technical preview invitations that were available, the first and most important way to give feedback is to submit it on Connect. Those who were invited were given a personalized link to get the bits. If you have any feedback for us (good or bad) you can submit it by logging back into the Connect site and choosing 'Feedback'. The site will guide you through with step-by-step directions.

One of the other ways to interact with Connect is through the newsgroups. In the newsgroups you can meet other users of the technical preview, and share your experiences. The newsgroups work much like web forums, and they're a great way to find solutions if you're having trouble with the new software.

Outside of the Connect website, there are also a few other ways to make sure we hear your feedback. The Send a Smile tool is one of the quickest and easiest ways to let us know how you're feeling. When you install the technical preview, we put a yellow smiley face and a red frown in your system tray. When something happens in Office, you can click on whichever face represents your interaction. You'll be offered a dialog where you can include a screenshot, your contact information, and a comment about the experience. You can include as much or as little information as you'd like. Most information on Send a Smile can be found on today's post to the main Office 2010 blog.

There are a few other, easy ways you can help us make a great version of Office. When you install Office, please leave the Customer Experience Improvement Program enabled. Also, in the unfortunate event that the software crashes, please choose to send the error report -- this information really helps us fix problems. This is true whether you are running the beta or a released version of Publisher.

Thanks you to those of you participating in the Technical Preview program, and continued thanks to all our users who continue to provide us with great information on how Publisher does and does not work well for them. We really appreciate any and all feedback you provide to us.

Here are a few interesting links with more useful information:

· An introduction to Office 2010: http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/

· Office 2010, the movie: http://www.office2010themovie.com/

· More information about Publisher: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/publisher/default.aspx

· The main Office 2010 blog: The Office 2010 Engineering blog

Michelle Lisse, on behalf of the whole Publisher team

The Publisher Technical Beta is Released!

2009-07-13T20:51:00Z

Starting today, people who are part of the Office 2010 Technical Beta and Office 2010 Technical Preview programs start getting access to our first public bits for Publisher 2010. This is good news for you as a reader of this blog, whether or not you are getting the bits, because it means we can start talking about the work we’ve done and the big improvements you will see in Pub 2010.

Today, I’ll give a quick overview of what is really a pretty major release. I’m sure it will prompt as many questions as it answers. Let us know in the comments what you think and help us decide what details to fill in next.

So what’s in Publisher 2010?

Some of the things we are really excited about are:

- The Office ribbon (Did you notice it above?)

- Lots of enhancements to the core document workspace

- Some great picture enhancements

- Cool new typography features

- An integrated Print and Print Preview experience

I’ll introduce each of these areas in this post, and I expect that we’ll get into more details on these and other areas with new stuff to share in coming weeks.

The Office ribbon

One of the questions we have been asked a ton since the release of Office 2007 was when Publisher would get the ribbon that some of the Office apps introduced that release. Now we are able to say that we totally agree with all of you who have been telling us that the ribbon is a natural for Pub. Not only are we now able to deliver core experience consistency with other Office apps, but we can give you live previews of formatting changes, visual galleries of effects, contextual controls for your selected objects and a rethought organization of the commands that accumulate over many versions of ribbons and toolbars.

Renovating the core workspace

Overhauling the Publisher experience goes much farther than just the ribbon. We took it also as an opportunity to modernize the interactions of objects on pages. You will see a new page navigation experience (showing page previews like PowerPoint, and page spreads in a Publisher-specific twist) and you won’t see a lot of on-page helper UI until you need it. Now outlines on objects only appear on hover or when an object is selected. Page margin guides can appear as you drag the edge of an object near them and disappear when they would just be a distraction. Aligning objects with each other is made easier by automatic alignment guides that appear only when relevant. Worth special mention are the improvements made to picture manipulation and text formatting.

Document-friendly picture manipulation

The guiding principles in our pictures area were to make working with pictures more direct and more document-friendly. The improvements are very visible with picture insertion, with picture pan and crop and with pictures on shapes. It is hard to explain all of this without a bunch of visuals, so we’ll get an expanded post on picture enhancements up here soon.

Typography

Shapes, pictures and text are the basic building blocks of the materials we all create in Publisher. So in addition to making it easier to align shapes on a page and to insert and manipulate pictures, we also gave text some love this version. The techy umbrella for these features is that they all relate to taking advantage of cool features in modern (“OpenType”) fonts. If you start with a font like Calibri, Cambria, Candara or Corbel, you’ll see that text just looks subtly better than in previous versions because common letter pairs are replaced with standard ligatures, the letter shapes drawn by the type designer for the specific case of the letter combination. See, for example, the automatic replacement of f, f and i with ffi in the second ‘Office’ here:

Some of the other new text features are off by default but lend themselves well to exploration with the new galleries and live preview. Stylistic sets with the new font, Gabriola, give effects like the one I showed in the first picture in this post.

Print

Print and Print Preview have joined forces. With Publisher 2010, there is no more separate Print Preview command. (I guess we always had mixed feelings about Print Preview, since it seems like Pub was one of the last Office apps to add it, back in 2002.) Instead, you now get all the richness of Print Preview as part of the Print experience. This means that when you change the way your document is set up to print (such as the way postcards are laid out on sheets of paper) you get a big, rich preview of your result. We’ve even added a feature to simulate holding your two-sided document up to the light to see the front and back at the same time, as they will print.

Beta Administrivia

This is a beta. All the usual disclaimers apply. There will definitely be things that change between the beta and release. So don’t take anything that you see here or in any beta as the final word. Do take it all, however, as an indication of the direction we are headed in and let us know what you think.

No, I can’t get you on this beta. All of our slots for this beta are allocated. Unless something changes Office-wide to open up a bunch of new slots, you either have an invitation to the beta coming soon to you in email or you will have to wait until the next beta to get your hands on the bits. When we have information we can share on access to the next beta, we’ll post it on this blog.

More to come

I hope you’ve found something interesting to watch for in the coming release of Publisher. We’ll have more details on all of these things as the beta progresses. If you are on the beta, give the product a try and give us feedback. We’ll also be conducting a conversation here that’s open to everyone.

Jeff Bell, for all of us on the Publisher team

About the contributor: Jeff Bell is the Group Program Manager for the Publisher & Text Services team in Office.

How to add UI to Publisher for your macro code

2009-06-22T22:31:00Z

In this post I wanted to cover something simple that might come up handy when trying to add custom controls to Publisher’s UI that can serve as entry points for your macro subroutines. For that, I created a simple macro that adds a new button to the “Objects” toolbar. Then it creates a new toolbar and adds a button there too. The button uses a custom icon and whenever you click it, it runs a macro subroutine that will insert a custom shape. To be able to do that, we have to code a sub that will modify our UI and create the UI entry points for our functionality, then ensure that this sub runs whenever we open our document:

Sub AddMyEntryPoint()

Dim objectsCommandBar As commanBar

Dim myCommandBar As commandBar

Dim myButton1 As CommandBarButton

Dim myButton2 As CommandBarButton

Dim app As Application

Dim picPicture As IPictureDisp

Dim picMask As IPictureDisp

'Find the Objects toolbar

Set app = Application

Set objectsCommandBar = app.CommandBars("Objects")

'Create a new toolbar and dock it to the top

Set myCommandBar = app.CommandBars.Add("Insert Shape", MsoBarPosition.msoBarTop, False, True)

'Add a button to the objects command bar

Set myButton1 = objectsCommandBar.Controls.Add(MsoControlType.msoControlButton, , , , True)

'Add a buttom to my custom toolbar

Set myButton2 = myCommandBar.Controls.Add(MsoControlType.msoControlButton, , , , True)

'Load the pictures we'll use for our button

Set picPicture = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture("c:\funkyimage.bmp")

Set picMask = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture("c:\funkymask.bmp")

myButton1.Picture = picPicture

myButton1.Mask = picMask

myButton2.Picture = picPicture

myButton2.Mask = picMask

myButton1.OnAction = "DrawMyFunkyShape"

myButton2.OnAction = "DrawMyFunkyShape"

myCommandBar.Visible = True

End Sub

The first thing we need to do is to find the toolbar where we want to put our entry point in. In this case, since I’m inserting a shape, I’ll add my entry point to the “Objects” toolbar:

Set objectsCommandBar = app.CommandBars("Objects")

I also want to add a toolbar of my own to add the button there as well. We want to name our toolbar “Insert Shape”, dock it to the top, make it not a menu bar and make it so that it removes itself when the document is closed (by forcing it to be temporary)

Set myCommandBar = app.CommandBars.Add ("Insert Shape", MsoBarPosition.msoBarTop, False, True)

The next step is to actually add the buttons that we’ll link to our sub. For that we’ll use the default values for most of the parameters except for temporary, which we’ll set to True so that the buttons are removed when we close the file.

Set myButton1 = objectsCommandBar.Controls.Add(MsoControlType.msoControlButton, , , , True)

Set myButton2 = myCommandBar.Controls.Add (MsoControlType.msoControlButton, , , , True)

Once we have our buttons, now we need to give them an icon and an action:

For the icons, you want to create 2 bitmaps, each 16 pixels by 16 pixels in size. One of the bitmaps represents the main icon the other one the mask. (So that we can make some of the pixels transparent). In my code I hardcode the paths to the images to my “c:” drive just for sample purposes.

Set picPicture = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture("c:\funkyimage.bmp")

Set picMask = stdole.StdFunctions.LoadPicture("c:\funkymask.bmp")

myButton1.Picture = picPicture

myButton1.Mask = picMask

myButton2.Picture = picPicture

myButton2.Mask = picMask

The OnAction property on the button contains the name of the sub that will be run when the button is clicked.

myButton1.OnAction = "DrawMyFunkyShape"

myButton2.OnAction = "DrawMyFunkyShape"

myCommandBar.Visible = True

Now, we need to ensure that this method runs whenever we open the file. For that, we need to use the Open event in the document.

Private Sub Document_Open()

AddMyEntryPoint

End Sub

Finally, we need to implement the method that will execute our action. In our example, the method that we are using will insert a custom shape in the middle of the page. The shape is composed of a polyline and some ovals that get grouped to create the final shape. Since the focus of this example is not the actual sub that gets called, but the creation of the UI entry points, I’m not going to go into detail for this subroutine. Here is the code:

Sub DrawMyFunkyShape()

'Insert our funky shape on the middle of the page

Dim app As Application

Dim centerX As Single

Dim centerY As Single

Dim shapeHeight As Single

Dim shapeWidth As Single

Dim body As shape

Dim rightEye As shape

Dim leftEye As shape

Dim rightEar As shape

Dim leftEar As shape

Dim initialX As Single

Dim initialY As Single

Dim shapePoints(1 To 11, 1 To 2) As Single

Dim eyeWidth As Single

Dim eyeHeight As Single

Dim earWidth As Single

Dim earHeight As Single

eyeWidth = 10

eyeHeight = 5

earWidth = 18

earHeight = 9

shapeHeight = 100

shapeWidth = 100

Set app = Application

centerX = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Width / 2

centerY = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Height / 2

initialX = centerX - shapeWidth / 2

initialY = centerY - shapeHeight / 2

'Our funky shape will be a polyline grouped with 4 ovals: 2 for the eyes and 2 for the ears

shapePoints(1, 1) = initialX

shapePoints(1, 2) = initialY

shapePoints(2, 1) = initialX + shapeWidth

shapePoints(2, 2) = initialY

shapePoints(3, 1) = initialX + ((shapeWidth / 3) * 2)

shapePoints(3, 2) = initialY - ((shapeHeight / 3) * 2)

shapePoints(4, 1) = initialX + shapeWidth

shapePoints(4, 2) = initialY - (((shapeHeight / 3) * 2) + (shapeHeight / 12))

shapePoints(5, 1) = initialX + shapeWidth

shapePoints(5, 2) = initialY - (((shapeHeight / 3) * 2) + ((shapeHeight / 12) * 2))

shapePoints(6, 1) = initialX + ((shapeWidth / 4) * 3)

shapePoints(6, 2) = initialY - shapeHeight

shapePoints(7, 1) = initialX + (shapeWidth / 4)

shapePoints(7, 2) = initialY - shapeHeight

shapePoints(8, 1) = initialX

shapePoints(8, 2) = initialY - (((shapeHeight / 3) * 2) + ((shapeHeight / 12) * 2))

shapePoints(9, 1) = initialX

shapePoints(9, 2) = initialY - (((shapeHeight / 3) * 2) + (shapeHeight / 12))

shapePoints(10, 1) = initialX + (shapeWidth / 3)

shapePoints(10, 2) = initialY - ((shapeHeight / 3) * 2)

shapePoints(11, 1) = initialX

shapePoints(11, 2) = initialY

'Add the body

Set body = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Shapes.AddPolyline(shapePoints)

'Add the eyes and ears

Set rightEye = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeOval, initialX + ((shapeWidth / 3) * 2), initialY - ((shapeHeight / 12) * 10), eyeWidth, eyeHeight)

Set leftEye = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeOval, initialX + (shapeWidth / 3) - eyeWidth, initialY - ((shapeHeight / 12) * 10), eyeWidth, eyeHeight)

Set rightEar = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeOval, initialX + ((shapeWidth / 4) * 3), (initialY - shapeHeight) - (earHeight / 2), earWidth, earHeight)

Set leftEar = app.ActiveDocument.ActiveView.ActivePage.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeOval, initialX + (shapeWidth / 4) - earWidth, (initialY - shapeHeight) - (earHeight / 2), earWidth, earHeight)

'Fills

'Blue Fill

body.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 0, 255)

rightEar.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 0, 255)

leftEar.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(0, 0, 255)

'White Fill

rightEye.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(255, 255, 255)

leftEye.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(255, 255, 255)

'Select all and group

body.Select (True)

rightEar.Select (False)

leftEar.Select (False)

rightEye.Select (False)

leftEye.Select (False)

app.Selection.ShapeRange.Group

End Sub

Here is a screenshot of what the final results looks like:

Then, after you click on the button, we call the sub and our custom shape gets inserted into the document

Hopefully you’ll find this useful when working with macros in Publisher. You can find the publication with the macro and the icons that I’m using from this location.

About the contributor: Miguel Gonzalez-Gongora is a Software Design Engineer in Test and has worked for Microsoft for 4 years, all of them in the Publisher Test Team. Besides writing macros using Publisher, he is the resident expert in tequila in all its permutations.

Beta test Publisher 2010!

2009-06-20T02:26:00Z

Office is now taking applications for the Technical Beta program for the next release. If you'd like a chance to test drive Publisher 2010 and give us feedback on the upcoming release, fill out the nomination form. You'll need to sign into Microsoft Connect with a Live ID to access the form. MVPs don't need to sign up - they are already nominated.

We'd love to get your feedback on the new Publisher. Space is limited in the program, so not everyone nominating themselves will be invited to participate. If you don't get into the program you'll still have an opportunity to see sneak peeks of the new version here on the blog after we release the first beta in July.

Did you know ... #2

2009-06-12T23:08:00Z

This article is the second in our series of quick tips for Publisher. This week we have a couple of quick tips about working with pages. Did you know ...

.....that you can have multiple Master Pages in a publication?

CTRL+M to get in and out of Master Pages mode.
Notice the scratch area color changes and the Edit Master Pages taskpane starts in Master Page mode. You can create multiple Master Pages here.
Master Pages are like backgrounds you can apply to the foreground pages. Apply them then go to the foreground pages to see them with both background and foreground objects on the page.

....that you can change the order of the pages in your publication by dragging the page icons at the bottom of the page?

Just drag the icon to the new position.
And did you know that you can give the page a name so that when you hover the mouse over the page icon the name will appear?
Just right-click on the page icon and select Rename Page... after changing the name just hover the mouse over the page icon to see the name.

John Dimmick

Software Design Engineer in Test II

About the contributor: John Dimmick is a Software Design Engineer in Test and has worked for Microsoft for 12.5 years, 10.5 years on the Publisher test team. He believes in making every page masterful.