Creating flyer with tear-off tabs - any step by step guide?

[FlyerDude18]

Hi Forum:

I'm trying to create A5 and A6 flyers with tear-off tabs that I plan on creating in a new A4 OpenOffice document (which makes cutting the flyers a lot easier later on ).

Creating text and all that above the tear-off tabs isn't the issue. Rather, it's the tear-off tabs below that give me a hard time , i.e. getting the tabs to have the same width and creating the vertical text.

Is there something like step by step instructions that help me understand how to enter text, keeping it neatly in 3 or 4 lines (instead of going off in all directions when I press some keys)? Working with the arrow keys on the right side of the keyboard plus the Enter, Backspace and Space keys is kind of confusing because the keys somehow always do the opposite of what I want them to do ...

Many thanks!

John aka FlyerDude

[Villeroy]

Don't use a word processor for page layout. With Draw this is an easy thing to do.
menu:File>New>Drawing...

[John_Ha]

1. Use a table for the tear-offs.
2. Rotate the text to vertical for the tear-offs - select text > Format > Character > Position > Rotate = 90.
3. Investigate the Table > Table properties ..., command for options; or read Chapter 9 - Working with tables.
4. right-click inside a table cell for options for setting column widths (equally), row heights etc.

See attached file.

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3 - Working with Text
4 - Formatting Pages
5 - Printing, Exporting, Faxing and E-Mailing
6 - Introduction to Styles
7 - Working with Styles
8 - Working with Graphics
9 - Working with Tables
10 - Working with Templates
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[FlyerDude18]

Hi Villeroy and John:

Thanks a lot for your replies.

I've got a few quick questions (before delving into the nitty-gritty of creating the flyers ) I hope you won't mind answering.

As for the 'Draw' software, Villeroy, did you mean "Windows Draw" or "Micrografx Draw"? I did some googling for both but was unable to find a download site for the first (except for one that let me download a file the size of just 33kb, which turned out to be something like a jpg?!). As for 'Micrografx Draw', I did find a site with a downloader file (1.6mb). But trying to run it (after downloading it) got Avast Free AV to go haywire... If what you were talking about is one of the two programs could you point me to a 'real' download site (sites like CNET or Brothersoft always appear to create problems one way or another)? That would be awesome .

And with regards to your very detailed instructions, John, when opening OpenOffice.org's Writer, were you talking about selecting 'Drawing' instead of 'Text Document' (by clicking on 'File', then 'New' and then selecting any of the options in the drop down menu)? And if yes, should I click on 'Insert', select 'Table' from the drop down menu and then follow your instructions (steps 1 thru 4)?

Maybe I should add that I'm trying to move (to another city for a variety of reasons) and need the flyers for cafes, health food stores, etc. And because that alone keeps me quite busy I don't really want to spent too many on reading up on the ins and outs of creating flyers with tear-off tabs - hence my question about a step by step guide .

Many thanks!

John aka FlyerDude

[robleyd]

Villeroy is referring to the Draw (graphics) component of Apache OpenOffice - File | New | Drawing; as he mentioned in his post.

John_Ha is referring to the Writer (word processor) component of Apache OpenOffice - File | New | Text Document

[FlyerDude18]

Hi Robleyd:

Many thanks for your reply.

After trying to come to grips with the ins and outs of creating tables (and tables within tables) with Writer and not being terribly successful with it (even after reading ch. 25 of OpenOffice Writer.pdf) I tried MS Word. And to my surprise I found that what I'd tried with OpenOffice is somehow a lot easier to do with Word . I hope this isn't a serious offense . As an aside, I do believe that it always a good idea to try not-corporate products first.

Is it just me or is it possible that for some tasks MS Word is actually a bit user-friendly than OpenOffice?!

Many thanks again.

John aka FlyerDude

[John_Ha]

The definition of "user friendly" is "that with which you are familiar".

I am not sure why you had problems as all you had to do was to type your words into the file I uploaded ...

Showing that a problem has been solved helps others searching so, if your problem is now solved, please view your first post in this thread and click the Edit button (top right in the post) and add [Solved] in front of the subject.

[FlyerDude18]

Hi John:

Thanks a lot for your feedback and patience . And sorry about being late with my reply .

To be honest, I don't remember if I tried the file you'd uploaded. I did open it, though, but because it looked like the other file (two A5 flyers on A4) I left it at that. But after your 2nd reply I gave it another try. And surprisingly, adding content was somehow a lot easier. Not sure, why...

Anyway, is it perhaps possible to create these flyers (A5 and A6 flyers with tear-off tabs) in such a way that the flyer borders are equal with the A4 page borders, that is without the margins?! This would make printing and especially cutting the flyers that much easier .

Many thanks again.

John aka FlyerDude

P.S. Once the issue has been solved I'll make sure I mark the post as solved.

[John_Ha]

1 Create an A4 flier
2 Copy the page to give 2 (4) pages
2 File > Print ... Now find printing 2 (4) pages per sheet of A4.