RE: newsletters

Hi Shelley

You seem to have two conflicting requirements that can't be resolved, 
not easily anyway. PDF is essentially a print technology that's been 
grabbed by the web community to do a  job it wasn't originally 
designed for.


>	I personally prefer to print off hard copies of items such as
>newsletters to read, although I will read email and most other
>information from the web on my screen.  It's a terrible
>affliction - I'm a paper keeper :)

It's not an affliction, it's natural. We don't absorb relatively 
complex information from a computer screen - there are a number of 
factors that interfere with the reading process - limited view of the 
document, screen clutter, glare, difficulty navigating the material, 
lots of other things. Then there are different types of reading, all 
of which will be employed in the complete process of reading a book, 
newsletter, technical report, whatever. Scan first, note what 
interests you most and read that, go back to a previous reference, 
glance over the rest, maybe read it later after you've tackled more 
urgent things, finally go back and read it all again in detail - you 
can't do that on the computer screen. A behavioural scientist could 
give you a far better description than I can.

>Visual recognition of a
>newsletter regardless of format is a preference in that the copy
>you download off the web is the "same" as the copy that is
>received via snailmail.  (sheesh - I hope that made sense :) )

Certainly did - consistent brand image.

The only version you can read anywhere, any time, is the paper one. 
Try relaxing in the bath and reading the electronic version.

Olav is right in that Word isn't a DTP package although MS claim it 
is. I used to have to do 300+ page specifications for railway 
engineering projects with it, that's when I found out that master and 
subdocument, OLE, columns, and graphics handling are a sick joke. My 
old employer is planning to use Word to create pages for the company 
intranet (sigh). Adobe PageMaker gives a lot more control, options 
and exports to PDF, at a reasonable cost, if that's the route you 
have to take.

Regards.

Freda


.


-- 
'Never give up on what you know in your heart to be right. The world 
needs you and your commitment, desperately'  - John Denver. 
http://www.thp.org 

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