Sunday, October 18, 2009

Ink and Fairydust Layout Adventures

So I'm hoping that this month's issue of "Ink and Fairydust" will have a new format. I've been toying around with the idea of switching from a newspaper format to the more visually appealing magazine format.

The problem with this, of course, is the work involved. Page layout is much more labor intensive than a simple text document. However I simply can't achieve the look and feel I want for this publication with a text document, so I decided to go searching for a better option.

After quite awhile of searching, I managed to find an free opensource software called Scribus that I think will meet my need. Scribus is not the most efficent software out there, but it's one of the few free one's that will fit the bill for "Ink and Fairydust."

So I spent much of this evening playing around with and getting familiar with Scribus. I think I've got the hang of the features I'll need to use for the newspaper, and hopefully I'll be able to manage laying it out in a timely manner. We'll see. October 20th is the deadline for "Ink and Fairydust" articles, although I've given several authors extended deadlines (school seems to be creeping up on everyone).

I'm excited about this issue of "Ink and Fairydust." This month's theme is "Shakespeare and Writing" which are two things our members are pretty passionate about. We have some fun articles planned that I think our readers will greatly enjoy.

Here's to hoping that the layout will go smoothly and I'll be able to achieve the look I want.

As always, if you're not on our subscription list, you can sign up to recieve the e-newspaper by sending your e-mail address to inkandfairydust@yahoo.com under the subject heading "Ink and Fairydust Subscription."

1 comment:

Hannah said...

Looking forward to reading it! How do I get a subscription again?