SUGGESTED FORMATTING IDEAS FOR FLYERS

1. By default, MS Word sets the margins at 1” at the top and bottom, and 1.25” at the left and right
margins. While this might be OK for formal documents, i.e., letters and reports, it wastes too much
space for a flyer, which is, in essence, a mini sign. Thus, I would suggest that you change the margins to
.5” (1/2 inch) on all four sides. Go to the <Page Layout> Menu, and Select Margins. Select Narrow
(.5” all four sides). [Below is a picture of the MS Word ‘ribbon’ which was introduced with Word 2007. It
makes many of the formatting commands more easily available for you. Throughout this Guide, I’ll refer to the
Ribbon. And since this was written prior to Word 2003 came out, some of the dialogue boxes will be from
Windows 2000, but they show the same options, just changing the title area and color scheme used by Microsoft.]

2. As a general rule, even if the flyer is printed on

colored paper, I like a border, as it tends to focus the
eye’s attention to the center of the page. To create a
border for the page go to <Page Layout> <Page
Borders > Select the Page Border tab. You’ll notice
three columns of information. For Column 1.
While you can experiment with each of the settings, I
usually select ‘Box.” Column 2. There are four (4)
choices, ‘Style.’ which refers to style of line; ‘Color’
which for flyers which are going to be printed in black
on a photocopier, is irrelevant; ‘Width’ which relates
to the thickness of the line; and ‘Art’ which instead of
a line, presents graphic elements as the border. When you select ‘Art’ it also allows you to adjust the
width of the graphics. Column 3. Preview gives you a preview, and allows you to ‘deselect one or
more of the borders in which these ‘styles’ are shown.

3. While there is a third tab, ‘Shading’ which could place a light color behind the entire page, unless you’re
printing in color (considerably more expensive), that ‘tool’ is not particularly useful.

4. After you’ve finished selecting all the elements of the page border, Click on OK, and the page border
will now appear on your page.

5. Once you’ve done that, you can actually save this format as a Template, so that you don’t need to redo
the margins, settings, styles, etc. each and every time. In the top left of the MS Word ribbon, you’ll see
the “Office Button” – I’ve got a yellow arrow to point it out on the image above - from which various
commands such as Saving the document, can be found. Click the Office Button and select either
<Save> or <Save As>, Type a Descriptive Name, and prior to saving, select from the drop-down list
“Document Template (.dot)”, Word will save this ‘template’ to a particular folder in your computer.
And then you’ll be able to retrieve this ‘template’ without a name, from the <File><New> command.

6. Important Note About Saving. Nothing is simple when it comes to computer files and different
versions of software and operating systems (Windows vs. Apple Mac). In an effort to add features to its
productivity software, particularly relating to security of files, with the release of Office 2007, Microsoft
changed the format of files created in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.. If you just click <Save> your
computer will save in this new format, with the file extension of .docx (instead of the previous format,
Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 1 of 8
 which created .doc. While this doesn’t create any problem if you’re going to open the file on the
computer which it was created, should you need or want to send your file to someone else, they may be
using an older version of Word, which doesn’t read .docx. While a person who has an older version of
Word, such as Word 2000 or Word 2003, can go onto the Microsoft website www.microsoft.com, and
download and install a ‘translator’ for .docx, their initial attempt to open the file will be unsuccessful,
which will result in frustration.

You can avert all this issue by saving in Word 97-2003 Document format. At the bottom of the Save
“Dialogue Box” you’ll see a drop down menu (see graphic below). The ‘Save as type’ value is usually
set to the default value, Word Document, which means in the new Word format, and will create a
.docx. But there are other choices available. In addition to saving in the new format, you can save in
the following additional formats: Word 97-2003 Document, Word (meaning new Word format)
Template, Word 97-2003 Template, and even PDF. [PDF, which stands for ‘Portable Document
Format’ is a format widely used on the internet, developed by Adobe, and allows for documents to have
the same ‘look and feel’ with formatting and fonts, on computers with different operating systems. It is
a great way to save a document which is going to be sent to others, IF THEY DON’T HAVE TO
MODIFY THE DOCUMENT, since it will look almost the same on their computer, irrespective of the
operating system, i.e., Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac OSX, Linux, etc.

To save in one of these formats, just select the one you want to use (my preference is Word 97-2003),
give the document an informative name, and save it to the folder/directory which you want.

7. Formatting Graphics. When you import a graphical image into your Word document, Word will, by
default, make sure that text does not display on either side. Far too
frequently, this means precious space is ‘wasted’ on your flyer,
which doesn’t have to be wasted. To correct this choice which
Microsoft has made, we’ll format this graphic image box to have
your text wrap around the box.
a. Click on the box to select it. You should see small ‘boxes’
on all four corners. Then right click on your mouse, and
contextual menu will drop down. Almost at the bottom of
the menu is the choice ‘Format Picture.’ A dialogue box
will appear, and select the middle tab, “Layout.”
b. In the ‘Layout’ you’ll have five (5) options: In Line, Square,
Tight, Behind Text and In Front of Text. For the most part,
graphics are contained in a box-shaped image, although the image may not encompass the entire
box. I usually select Tight, particularly if I am going to place the image on one side of the page
or the other, because text will wrap around the graphic, which may be confusing for the person
who is looking at the image, to read.
c. Sometimes, if I want very precise spacing, I’ll format the image so that it is behind the text.
[However, if the entire image is behind text, it can be very, very difficult to find that image so as to
change one of its settings.]

8. Graphics. Remember that although a particular graphic may look great on your computer monitor,
we’ll assume that it is going to be printed on a black and white copier, so all the shading and detail will

Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 2 of 8

 be lost. You can actually print out a flyer in black, grays and white on your color printer to get an idea
what it will look like. But that requires making certain settings in the print menu, which you or the user
may not have, so we’ll ignore this option for now.

9. The primary purpose of a flyer is to attract a person’s attention. Realize that a person may be looking at
a table full of flyers, but their mind is elsewhere thinking about a million other things. The flyer which
attracts will likely get noticed. You can get noticed by:
a. Color (of paper),
b. Graphical image (but that’s more difficult with a black and white image),
c. What the text says, (thus, your Title or Headline is more important than the text within, and so it
should be of a larger readable font.)
d. The size and attractiveness (for the particular purpose) of the font.

10. Color of Paper. While the color of paper a particular flyer is printed on is SUBJECTIVE, some colors
will be more appropriate or less appropriate for a particular purpose. For example, an invitation to the
Funeral Practices Luncheon would best NOT be copied on HOT PINK paper. I’ve printed our region’s
(Seaboard) Men’s Club Blue Yarmulke Honoree flyer on… what else, blue paper, so that the person
looking at the flyer instantly gets a connection… the flyer means more to them as a result.

11. Graphical Image. Remember, that a wonderful looking image in color on your computer, may not be
as ‘eye catching or eye-popping’ when it is printed in gray tones. Take the following two images
downloaded from the internet. In color, the image is wonderful. In tones of gray, it really doesn’t
capture what I want to say.

[You can change any image from color to its shades of gray. Click
on the graphic image you want to change, and right click on Format
Picture. In the Picture tab, look at the Image Control drop down
box, and change Automatic to Grayscale. You might want to play
and see how the other two values on the drop-down list, Black and
White and Washout work, but save your work first. All the image
control values can further be adjusted by the brightness and contrast
controls. You should experiment how changing the Brightness or
Contrast values, even by a small percentage, can affect how the
image looks and prints on paper. You can change the values by
single digits at a time, by using the up and down arrows to the right
of the value, or by using the sliding scale to the left of the value.

Cropping Your Image: If you’ve ever had an image which has either too much white space (border)
around it, or that you want to remove a portion of, if the portion can be removed by ‘cropping’ the image
from either the top, bottom, left or right side of the image. In the Format Picture dialogue box above, in
the ‘Picture’ tab, you’ll notice the ‘Crop From’ boxes. Each of those ‘boxes’ will allow you to crop the
picture from the applicable side. In fact, I used it for one of the images in this document. Where I spoke

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 about how you can save a document, on page 2 above, the image of the dialogue box was cropped about
3.5 inches from the top, so that the only portion of the image you can see is the portion on the bottom.

12. What the text says. The very first thing I look at when I’m looking at copy is what is being said. Can
it be said in fewer words, or more ‘attention grabbing words?’ Can a ‘Jewish’ spin on the language be
made? Can a humorous spin be adopted?

13. Alignment. This is something which drives many people batty, particularly ME. Alignment refers to
how text (or images) appear on the page. English is generally left aligned, while Hebrew is right
aligned. We are accustomed, through many years of education and looking at various publications, at
seeing most informal documents written in English to be left aligned, or for books and magazines, to be
full alignment/justification. For the most part, if you have a sentence or two or three of information to
convey, the text should be formatted as either left justified or full justified, NOT center justified. Center
justification is for VERY, VERY SHORT SNIPPETS OF TEXT, i.e., a Title, a date, a time, a
location. [Show me a book or magazine article which is published in center-justified text, and I might
have a different opinion.]

14. Fonts. Quick lesson on fonts. There are two primary categories of font. Serif and non-serif. Serif
fonts have extra ‘thin lines’ at the end of parts of the letter, like ‘wings’ where non-seriffed fonts do not.
The primary serif font is Times Roman (New Times Roman) what this document is written on, and the
primary non-seriffed font is Arial. This is an example of Arial. It is generally believed that a seriffed
font, i.e., Times Roman, is easier to read than a non-seriffed font. In addition, you have decorative
fonts, which are both seriffed and non-seriffed, of which there are thousands, like the following:

Bernard MT Condensed Broadway

Poster Bodini BT Comic Sans MS
Playbill Lucinda Handwriting
Bauhaus 93 STENCILI

All of the above are 14 point, and the one thing which you notice immediately is that 14 point in one
font is significantly larger than 14 point in another. For the most part, these decorative fonts only are
readable in short snippets, and only in larger sizes. NONE of them should be used for paragraph
text. But properly used, they help to convey an image or feel, which may bring about greater
attention getting potential on a flyer. The most important criteria for me is that irrespective of how
much I might like a font, whether it is quickly readable by a person who is glancing at the flyer,
since the PRIMARY purpose of such flyer is to convey information.

Two important pieces of information about fonts which are critical to understand is that:
1) Font Substitution. A Word document which has a decorative font and sent to another person
for viewing, will only display correctly if that person has the exact same decorative font installed on
their computer. If they do not have the ‘exact same font with the exact same name,’ Windows tries
to do font-substitution, and like most things in Windows, the result is usually a DISASTER. Thus, if
your document has decorative fonts, don’t send it to another person as a Word doc. At the very least,
you need to convert it to an Adobe Acrobat (also known as .pdf) format, since Adobe saves the font
information with the document. And realize that the Adobe may not be a ‘perfect match.’ The most
significant thing for you to remember is that when you’re dealing with foreign language fonts, i.e.,
Hebrew, they may not display correctly. While you see a particular font on the page, the computer
sees computer code. Recently I made some aliyah cards for the FJMC using an open source

Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 4 of 8

 program, called NeoOffice, and although the file was saved as a Word document (.doc), Word DID
NOT display the characters correctly, showing them as little boxes, rather than Hebrew letters.
2) Every printer will handle fonts just a little differently, so printing a document on one printer
may likely give a little different result than if printed on another printer. For most jobs, this won’t
matter significantly, but be aware that it can affect how something looks.

15. Adding Hebrew (or other foreign language characters) to your document. There are times when
you’d like to use a little Hebrew in your document. Word allows you to do that, but since Word is a
left to right letter entry program (at least the version which most western speaking people use), you
have to insert the Hebrew letters / characters one by one. Go to the Ribbon again, and this time
select the second Menu value, “Insert” and you’ll see a ribbon which looks like this:

We’re looking to insert Hebrew, which Word views as

symbols, so click on the Symbol icon at the right side of the
Ribbon. The ‘Symbol’ dialogue box will appear, as shown
on the right. There are two drop down lists which are
important. One is the ‘Font’ box. Not every font has Hebrew
Characters. Frequently, if you go to the font menu, found in
the ‘Home’ ribbon, (the font menu will display the name in a
graphic representation of what the font will look like) and
click on the font, if a particular font has Hebrew lettering, it
will show Hebrew characters to the right of the font name.
[Just some of the fonts which have Hebrew characters, on my Window XP machine with MS Office 2003, are:
Aharoni, David, FrankRuehl, Levenim MT, Miriam, Narkism & Rod.]

If you’ve selected a font which does have Hebrew characters,

initially you won’t see those Hebrew characters displayed.
That’s where the ‘Subset’ drop down menu comes into play.

Find the ‘Subset’ value of Hebrew, and click on it. Now,

miraculously, the Hebrew (and other) characters which are
available in this subset appear within the boxes underneath
the Font name and Subset. To add those letters, click on the
letter, and Word will add that letter to your document.

Now, there is something you need to realize. Since English is written left to right, the program will
enter your letters left to right. Thus, unless you click on the letters in the opposite direction that they
are written (Hebrew is written right to left), a word like Shalom ‫ שלזם‬may spell out differently
(fortunately, in my version of Word, Word 2003, the program knew to insert the letters right to left.)
Make sure your version will do this, or you’ll need to enter them backward.

16. Font (Character) and Line Spacing. There may be times when you have a little too much text to
fit on one page, and there isn’t really anything you can delete. How do you resolve that problem?
There are many ways, but one of them is: line spacing and character spacing. In the space below,
I’m going to show you how these two elements may be used. [I suggest when you have some extra

Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 5 of 8

 time, you play with both elements on a sentence or two, so you can better see and understand how
they work.

This sentence is 12 point Times Roman, with 100% character spacing.

This sentence is 12 point Times Roman, but with 95% character spacing.
This sentence is 12 point Times Roman, but with 105% character spacing.

This sentence is 12 point Times Roman with 100% character spacing, and I’m going to leave the
line spacing to Automatic, i.e., it will do 12 point.

This sentence is 12 point Times Roman with 100% character spacing, and I’ve changed the line
spacing to 11.5 point.

This sentence is 12 point Times Roman with 100% character spacing, and I’ve changed the line
spacing to 13 points.

Let’s go to the Home Ribbon, since you’ll find the controls you need for font and paragraph spacing
there.

Character spacing is found in the Font section of the Ribbon. At the

bottom right hand corner of this section of controls (to the right of the
word ‘font’ you’ll see a little box. When your cursor goes over that box, a
little ‘tool tip’ will display Font, and explain ‘Show the font dialogue box.’
Click on it, and the Font Dialogue Box appears. There are two (2) tabs in
this dialogue box. The first tab gives you a little more control over your
font, i.e., such as having the letters be all caps, small caps, embossed or
engraved. While you should play with the different effects, for the most
part unless your letters are very large in size, these affects get lost in
translation.

There are four options:

Scale – automatically adjusts the text you’ve selected, or if you haven’t
typed it yet, the text you’re about to select. As the numbers get smaller,
your text will be more compressed, and as the numbers get larger, the text
will be more spread out.
Spacing – you can choose Expanded or Condensed and it adjusts by
tenth’s of a point. You can see the relative affect on your text in a window
below the values you select.
Position – you can choose Raised or Lowered, which are the same as
Superscript and Subscript, and you can adjust how high or low such
numbers appear.
Kerning – by selecting this, you’re telling the program to treat the font as
smaller or larger than it really is.

When you select ‘Paragraph’ dialogue box (see the yellow arrow above at
the Home Ribbon, you’ll be presented with the ‘dialogue box which is on
Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 6 of 8
 the right. Half way on the right side of the box is a field called ‘Line Spacing’ which I’ve highlighted
in yellow. The choices are: Single, 1.5, Double, At least, Exactly, and Multiple. For our purposes,
when you select Exactly, it will initially place the point size of the font which is currently being
used. To the right of the Line Spacing box is an ‘At’ box, and it has a sequencer, in which you can
reduce or enlarge, by one point at a time, the line spacing. Play with it, and see what happened. A
trick which isn’t obvious is that you can ‘type in’ a decimal value. Place your cursor before the ‘pt’
and after the number, type a ‘.’ and a number, say ‘5’ and now you will have line spacing a .5 point
larger (or smaller).

17. Spacing Between Paragraphs. Now, there are also a number of ways in which you can modify the
space between paragraphs.
a. In the same Paragraph box above, you’ll see to the left of the Line Spacing adjustment
fields a ‘Spacing’ for paragraphs, and you have the ability to set the spacing before and the
spacing after. By default this is usually set to ‘0’ but if you have cut and pasted text from
another document, it might change that value to ‘Auto’ which is Microsoft’s way of
saying, we know best. [I have rarely agreed with that statement, and for good design
reasons.] The incremental controls to the right of the value increment in 6 point values.
However, you can type in any whole value you wish by clicking in the box and typing in
/ replacing the value. For example, I will usually, if I’m going to type a number of
paragraphs and spacing is an issue, set the value at 3 pts for smaller type fonts, or 6 points
for regular size fonts. If you’re working with 12 point type, 12 points equals 1 line.
b. You can keep the paragraph spacing at 0 both before and after, and leave a carriage return
space after each paragraph, the adjust each and every of these spaces to a larger or smaller
size by ‘blocking’ the space and then adjusting the ‘font size’ of the ‘space.’

18. Watermark. Sometimes, an elegant touch can be had with a faint watermark at the back of a flyer.
You can create such a watermark in Word, and I’ve recently discovered how to adjust the image.
However, in creating this, you have to remember a number of things if your original is going to be
photocopied. First, the Watermark icon on the Page Layout Ribbon, is really for business related
watermarks, i.e., Draft, Confidential, Sample, etc. So, my advice, is not to use that Watermark
creation tool.

a.
b.
To create the watermark, you’ll usually want to start with a blank document, since the image you
want to be BEHIND THE TEXT.
a. Find the image you want to use,
b. Paste it into the document you’re going to be using for the flyer,
c. Set the Layout……. to ‘Behind Text.’ [See above]
d. Resize it by clicking and dragging the corners, not the center
‘modification buttons’ since, otherwise, you’ll distort the
picture…. unless this is what you want to do.
e. Right click on the picture, and select Format Picture. If you get a
dialogue box which looks like the one at right (mostly white
background), the best choice I’ve found is to select the Picture
‘tab’ and ‘Recolor’ and select the bottom left colorization scheme
in ‘Light Variations’ (the colors are the most neutral).

Design Formatting Ideas for Flyers (January 2012) Page 7 of 8

 f. If you get a Format Picture dialogue box like the one on the
right (mostly gray background), adjust the image as if you
were adjusting a color image. Select Color to Grayscale.
g. Fiddle with brightness and contrast, since each image will have
a ‘better’ setting of both or either of these for the watermark
affect you’re striving for. [Remember, one characteristic of a
‘expert’ is that he/she has made many more mistakes than
you… and learned from them.]
h. Any watermark should NOT conflict with the reading of the
text. Sometimes you have to print and copy the image, with the photocopy, to see if
you’ve succeeded. And, give it to someone who doesn’t know the copy to see if it
interferes with their reading the text.

19. By default, a photocopy machine doesn’t know that you’re copying photo grade graphics, so that
the watermark may print too dark. [This is because the photocopy machine has to be set to print
more levels of gray, which by default, it doesn’t do.] You should be able to set the photocopy
machine to copy the flyer as if it were a PHOTO to get a better image.

20. In the same manner as different printers handle the same font a little differently, each printer handles’
graphics differently. You’ll need to experiment with the brightness setting of the image (the higher
the brightness image, the fainter or more transparent) for the printer you are printing on.

I would hope that these tips are helpful to you and your Club/Brotherhood in creating more
interesting and eye-catching flyers, which help to make your programs better attended and more
successful. If they do, the success is all your! Good Luck.

i
My ‘expertise’ if any, has come about through lots of reading of graphic design books, lots and lots of OJT, and many
compliments by professional printers and designers who have seen my work. When I was younger, I gave thought to actually
going into the profession, but for a number of reasons, became a lawyer instead. If you have any specific questions, I can be
reached at AllanKahanFJMC@gmail.com

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