.C:!DW ..MEM: group second-column index and TOC markers at bottom of page, in order ..Why Are We Doing This? 1 .. Deadlines 2 ..Physical Form 2 .. Paper size and shape 2 .. Stack of sheets 2 .. Booklets 4 .. Two-sided copying 5 .. Imposition 5 .. Other formats 5 .. Paper color 6 .. Column width and type size 6 .. Paper weight 6 .. Justified type 8 .. Headings 8 ..The Jigsaw-Puzzle Bit 9 .. Nameplates, mastheads, and page numbers 9 .. Page-by-page layout 12 .. Simple linear layout 11 .. Grid layout 13 .M:1 .L:99 ..dh:--------------- ..dm:1 ..pb ..xl:4 ..xr:18 ..X:12 ..XB:7 ..L:66 .IF:Index2.man .KF:Content2.MAN L---P----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----T-#V-5----R----r----r----7--T-+--r 87cL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-C--9----+ ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C c/c V---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C V-- ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C c/r V---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R V-- ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R r/c V---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C V-- ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R r/r V---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R V-- 87rL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-R--9----+ ..$$Z:MI$$, $$Day$$, , $$D Mon Year$$ .HL:How to Edit Your Club's Newsletter...page $$$ .HL:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .HR:Why Are We Doing This?...page $$$ .HR:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 87cL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-C--9----+ ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙Why Are We Doing This?˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ .K:Why Are We Doing This? ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R The first step in editing a newsletter is to find out why you want to publish a newsletter. Having a clear idea of what you are trying to do not only helps you to do a better job, it saves work. You may be putting out twelve issues a year when six or four are plenty. You may be putting out a newsletter when when all you need is a press release. One local group realized that they didn't need a newsletter, they needed a letter that told the news. Immediately after the monthly meeting, the editor wrote a summary of what happened at the meeting, told when and where the next meeting would be, added a list of what else had happened since the previous meeting, put it all on both sides of one sheet of letterhead, signed it, and it was in the mail just as fast as he could run it through a duplicator and stuff it into envelopes. Any other format would consume time and money that could be spent in better ways, and would delay the news until it got stale. I have no idea why you want to publish a newsletter, so I'll use ours as an example. Bikeabout's purpose is to announce our ride schedule, meetings, and other club events to our members. The Ride Calendar Editor takes care of the rides, and the monthly meeting takes only a quarter of the front page, so that doesn't seem to leave me much to do. However, the treasurer allows us up to twenty-four pages and the ad manager usually turns in enough ads that we ought to run at least eight, so there is room for some subsidiary purposes. In order of importance, Bikeabout exists in order to: 1. Tell the members about MHW news and events. 2. Make the members feel like part of the club. 3. Tell the members about Non-MHW cycling news and events. 4. Inform and entertain the members. 5. Impress potential members and other outsiders. 6. Allow the editor to show off. Purposes one, three, and four compete for space, but the last two purposes are best served by doing a good job of fulfilling the other four purposes. You will note that #1 and #3 are subsets of #4. Many factors other than importance have to be taken into consideration when items are jostling for space. The decision doesn't always go to the most important. The size of a story and its perishability are major factors in deciding when and whether to print it. An event that happens in June may crowd an event that happens in July out of the May issue; an important story that will be just as important three years from now may be repeatedly crowded out by items of fleeting interest. As we all wish our contributors were aware, the amount of work it takes to prepare a story has a strong influence on whether or not I print it. Given the choice of gleaning information from a heap of brochures to write a story about an exciting and important event, or copying a pre-written and properly polished news release about a trivial and boring event _ at one hour to deadline, which do you think I'm going to do? Any club newsletter has purpose #2 on its priority list somewhere. Printing a member's name is the easiest way to get his attention; it takes very little space to change "three of our members" to "John Smith, George Brown, and Alice Applebury"; and it makes John, George, and Alice feel good _ unless, of course, John, George, and Alice were caught stealing chickens. Discretion is required; Robert might not like having everyone sympathize over his gall-bladder operation. When in doubt, ask. Opportunities to mention names are harder to come by than one would think, so when the Century Weekend chairman sends you five hundred registration cards, all scribbled in pencil, grit your teeth, rub a little glycerin on your fingers, and remind yourself that five hundred people are going to read this list with great interest. (You folks who work for twenty- member clubs should smirk a bit at this point, and remember the advantages of small scale when you are enviously reading suggestions that assume that you use a professional printer.) The names and addresses of new members are desirable in a club newsletter. It's better if you can manage to print introductions as well. .i:letters The best way for an editor to make a member feel like part of the club is to have him participate in the creation of the newsletter by writing letters, announcements, reports, and the like. This is easier to accomplish in literary clubs than in sporting clubs, but is never easy. In many clubs, providing communication among the members is an important function of the newsletter. If so, the editor must emphasize that it is for communication among members not for communications between members. In most situations, remarks of interest to only one member of the club should be edited out of locs; he'd get the news sooner if the other member sent him a personal letter. Remarks addressed to a single member may be of general interest. (Especially if most of the members know why Tom should bring a Presta adapter to the Malta Muddy and Gail should leave her frame pump at home.) Below is a list of reasons for the Princeton Free Wheelers, another bicycle club, to publish a newsletter:  The priority of what will appear in future  editions of "The Freewheel" on a space-available  basis is as follows:  1. The PFW Ride Schedule 2. PFW Sponsor Lists 3. PFW Activities, News, Business, Membership, Classified Advertisements, and any other club-related items. 4. League of American Wheelmen activities and applications. 5. Other area bicycle club rides, events, or activities.  6. Any bicycle-related activity.  7. Non-profit, public service, or recreational non-bicycling activity.  ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙Scott Dalton  editor of the Princeton Free Wheelers' "Freewheel"   2 87rL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-R--9----+ .HL:How to Edit Your Club's Newsletter...page $$$ .HL:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .HR:Deadlines and Physical Form...page $$$ .HR:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙Deadlines ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ .K:Deadlines ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R .N:+2 .. insert diagrams of the various formats on the page that was skipped You can't serve any of your purposes if your newsletter does not come out on time. The slickest job of editing and printing on record is not going to impress your readers if all the events that the newsletter invites them to participate in have already happened. Take the experiences of two national cycling organizations to heart: The L.A.W., during its abortive attempt to change its name to BICYCLE USA, found that it didn't have enough money to produce its magazine in the manner to which it had become accustomed. So it stopped publishing. Members in droves forgot that they belonged and failed to renew. Finally they got money to resume, but did they resume with current news? They brought out all the missing issues exactly as originally planned, with the result that in mid-summer astonished members were invited to events that had taken place in March and had had deadlines in January. Members in droves failed to renew on purpose, and the L.A.W. took many years to recover. On the other hand, one year the U.M.C.A. discovered that publications intended for late winter couldn't be mailed until spring. At the appointed time, every member did get an issue of the newsletter _ on a postcard. I kept that postcard as an example of good publishing that reflects favorably upon an organization. When it's time to go to press, you go to press. If the artwork isn't in, you close up the hole, stick a filler in it, or leave it embarrassingly blank. If the essay on bike repair hasn't arrived, plan to print it in some later issue. A shabby, slapped-together newsletter that arrives on time doesn't look one tenth as bad as a beautiful and literate invitation to an event that took place the day before the newsletter arrived. Suppose that there are no corners to cut and no way you can get the April newsletter out before May? Then change the date to April-May and kill the April announcements or re-write them to change future tense to past. Do not allow a late April issue to lead to a late May issue followed by a late June issue. If you fall behind schedule, skip an issue honestly. If people have paid by the issue, you can extend everyone's subscription a month or make the April-May issue double thick. One national club nearly foundered because the ill-health of its volunteer printer caused all publications to be several months late and this situation was allowed to persist for years. If you are getting your printing (or any essential service) done free or cheap, figure out what you'll do if your printer gets sick, takes his press apart for repairs, or takes up cycling; know how you are going to print the newsletter if the office that used to let you do it free gets a new copier that costs by the copy instead of by the month _ and make sure your back-up plan is in your budget. It's much easier to find constructive uses for money you didn't need than it is to print a ten-dollar newsletter on eight-dollar dues. Your back- up money won't be anywhere near enough; think ahead of time about which cuts will hurt the least. ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-C ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙Frequency ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R .K:Frequency The most common frequencies are "at the editor's whim" (appropriate for 'zines published solely for the amusement of the editor), annual, quarterly, bi- monthly, and monthly. It would be rare for volunteer labor to produce a bi-weekly or weekly 'zine for any long period, but conventions and other short-term assemblies often have daily newsletters. Usually, the less frequently you publish, the less you will spend on postage, and the less strain there will be on the editor. (I'm assuming, rashly, that contributors don't wait until the last possible minute to dump work on you.) You may even save on printing if you produce one thick issue instead of two thin ones. How far ahead of time can you nail down the data for your announcements? How seldom can you appear and still do a good job of fulfilling your purposes? An annual is scarcely an improvement over no newsletter at all for keeping your members informed of club events and making them feel like members of the club; most folks have to be reminded that they belong at least bimonthly _ but for a literary club, publication might be a big event to which members look forward all year, just as a cycling club begins in January to prepare for September's National Century Rides. Don't bite off more than you can chew. A quarterly that comes out quarterly beats a monthly that comes out bi-monthly. Your issues don't have to all be alike. You can emphasize different purposes in issues of differing thickness, on a regular schedule or whenever you have enough material to get out a good 'zine. You should not overlook the possibility of publishing two titles: a quarterly or bi-monthly bulletin, and a less-ambitious newsletter in the months that the bulletin does not appear. You may be able to devote a telephone line and answering machine to announcements and bring your newsletter out less often. (According to Parkinson's Law, though, what will happen is that there are more announcements and you end up publishing more often.) Make each volume correspond exactly to a year, and make each issue correspond to a month, bi-month, season, or whatever. If you skip a month, assign two issue numbers to the next issue. If you skip a year, take up where you left off. Do not skip a volume number or issue number _  assigning numbers to non- existent issues drives librarians and historians crazy. If volume numbers do not make sense for your publication, assign whole numbers instead of volume and issue numbers. Many semi-regular publications use both. ..Mem: a heading of this priority is normally centered at the top of a fresh page ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙Physical Form ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ .K:Physical Form Paper size and shape  .i:paper .K:-Paper size and shape Having decided what you want to do, the next step is to find out what you have to work with. The physical shape of the 'zine may or may not be under your control; format is as much the business of the publisher as of the editor, and the shape of small 'zines usually depends on what locally-available copying method is cheapest. Reproduction method must be taken into consideration when you choose type style, type size, and layout. If you use a mimeograph and type directly on stencils, you are not, if you value your time and sanity, going to do anything elaborate in the way of layout; if you don't fancy being lynched by would-be readers, you won't put wee tiny type on coarse wood-pulp paper. If you have inherited a format, use it. Don't change format without good reason. In addition to annoying long-time subscribers who want to keep all their back issues on the same shelf, a change in format prevents you from solving your problems by looking at back issues to see what the previous editor did. If you change format, change it at the end of a volume. (Coming out on time is a good reason to change your format, if an odd format can be brought out quickly. Remember the UMCA's postcard.) I have been told that in some foreign countries, the length of letter paper is equal to the width times the square root of two, so that it remains the same shape when it is cut in half; a document on such paper can be reduced to fit neatly on half a sheet of the same paper, and it can be folded into attractive booklets. This is purely academic for most of us Americans; even if paper this shape were available, it wouldn't run through our copiers. Your choices in paper size are probably limited to letter (8«" x 11"), legal (8«" x 14"), and ledger or "double letter", (11" x 17").  Stack of sheets  .K:-Stack of sheets The most common form for club newsletters is a stack of 8« x 11 sheets. There are various cute things you can do with them to make them more like a book, but for a monthly newsletter the traditional staple in the upper left-hand corner is as good as any binding method and better than most; fancy binding is more likely to annoy your readers than to impress them. Printing the newsletter on paper drilled for a three-ring notebook is helpful to the club historian and others who save their newsletters, but expensive. I have read a suggestion that you save money by printing guide marks to encourage people to punch their own holes! Even one staple is too many if you don't need it to keep the pages together. A stapled corner makes it difficult to read the backs of the sheets, and perfectly-aligned lumps make a stack of newsletters hard to handle. If you mail the newsletter, you will need something in addition to the staple in the corner to keep the sheets together _ so use that something instead.  4 87rL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-R--9----+ .HL:How to Edit Your Club's Newsletter...page $$$ .HL:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .HR:Physical Form...page $$$ .HR:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R Newsletters in stack-of-sheets format are usually .i:mailing mailed by folding them in half and putting one staple in the edge opposite the fold, so half the back page must be reserved for the address label, stamp, and return address. It is best to put nothing important on the outside page, which is often defaced in the mail; some clubs use a blank sheet as a wrapper. The .i:masthead masthead can be placed in an exposed location; though the information is important, it is repeated in every issue. Some newsletters use the exposed page to persuade recipients to open the newsletter, or use it to call attention to the most important item. Sometimes one line can do both: "Club dues rise 40% _ see page four." Other binding methods for stacks of paper: Some brief newsletters with short mailing lists come as two or three loose sheets in a #10 envelope, like a regular letter. Thin newsletters may be folded in thirds, with one staple near the free edge. Thick issues are sometimes secured by two or three staples down the spine; thickness is limited only by the length of your staples _ and by the strength of your reader's hands; heavy 'zines in stapled-stack format are a strain to read because they have to be held open, which prevents the reader from putting his hands in the best place to support the weight. To create a fussed-over look for a one-time issue you can, if you haven't access to a binder, put three staples down the spine and cover the staples and raw edges with tape. Bear in mind that if you are going to staple, drill, or glue the left edge, the left margins must be wider to allow for the paper trapped in the binding and wider still to avoid the sharply-curved part of the page. (On even-numbered pages, right margins should be wider.) Your printer and your stationer will show you all manner of binding gadgets. Those that I know of fall into three classes: those that are like ring binders but with more holes (plastic "comb" bindings, spiral bindings, etc.); those that are like long, fancy, multi- spiked staples; and stack-them-neatly-and-glue-the- spine machines. Some of those last will also wrap a sheet of paper around the stack to make a "perfect" cover like that on a paperback book. For your file copies, there are various report covers; some require holes in the paper, some have a clip to slide over the spine. I miss the "theme covers" of the sixties: a double-size sheet of cover stock folded in half, with die-cut tabs to show where to staple after you slipped your theme inside. (Maybe college bookstores still have them?) If 'zines are punched or drilled, paper nails hold them neatly. (Paper nails are really split cotter pins, and the package will noncommittally say "paper fasteners".) Ribbon, tape, or yarn woven through the holes makes a flat package that stacks neatly in the archive. I have a recipe book written on five-hole 5«" x 8«" which I laced together with cord elastic; this lets me open the book flat while I'm measuring and stirring. Elastic should not be used for archive copies, because it has to be replaced every few years. (Also keep rubber bands away from items in storage.) Notebook rings are good for temporarily holding things while you are waiting for the full set. There's a hard-to-find gadget called by such names as "craft book holder" and "magazine holder" that allows you to keep booklet-form 'zines (see below) in ring binders without punching holes. It comes in dozen lots in bubble packs. It's a strip of plastic an inch wide and either 11« or 12« inches long, with an eleven- or twelve-inch slot down one side. (If given a choice, take 11«" to fit your 11" paper.) The other side of the strip is punched for a three-ring notebook. To use, open the newsletter to the middle, slide it into the slot, and settle the holder into the crease of the book. If you decide to use these, buy enough to last you; stores never replace the stock after it's sold out. A mail-order needlework-supply house may sell them. Don't overlook the boxes you buy envelopes and paper in. A printer can sell you typing-paper boxes of the sort he uses for delivering letterhead, and some stationers have manuscript-mailing boxes. .K:-Booklets Booklets  The format I prefer is 11 x 17 paper folded in half to make 8« x 11 pages. This makes a handsome booklet, cuts the work of collating in half, and saves .i:mailing you from stapling the sheets together. (You still have to staple it closed for mailing, unless it has been saddle-stitched.) A booklet may be folded a second time before mailing, as if it were a stack of sheets, or it may be mailed flat. You should know which before you design the back cover. Mailing flat is preferred for thick newsletters, because crossed folds tend to wrinkle, but if the newsletter is thin enough to fold neatly, the second fold will make the package stiffer and reduce the area exposed to wear and damage. A one-sheet booklet may be folded in thirds. Like a letter folded to fit a #6 envelope, it comes out six layers thick and quite stiff. It will fit a #10 envelope. The price of booklet-form newsletters is that instead of having to produce pages in pairs, you must produce them in sets of four. Somehow multiples of four are more than twice as hard to hit as multiples of two. However sorely tried, do not put an 8« x 11 sheet in the middle. Half-sheets annoy the printer, the collators, the readers, and any librarians who may be preserving your work for posterity _ and they tend to fall out and get lost. Half sheets may be preferable to a jump from four pages to eight, particularly if some issues appear on single 8« x 11 sheets, but if there are two or more full sheets, there should be no half-sheets _ unless the half sheet is supposed to fall out and get lost. Even so, it's better, if you can manage it, to create application blanks, posters, and the like in pairs so that they can be printed on the same size sheets as the rest of the newsletter. The readers won't mind separating them, and they are more likely to arrive with the rest of the newsletter. Another disadvantage of booklet-form newsletters is that they become clumsy when too thick; the maximum number of pages depends on the thickness of your paper, the force with which you can press the fold, and whether or not you trim the edges. Bikeabout has run to twenty-four pages (six sheets) with reasonable grace. Since thick stacks of sheets are even clumsier, the usual solution is to divide a thick 'zine into sections or volumes. ..+++REVISION OF THIS ASIDE WILL BE REQUIRED (Aside: this book is a booklet folded from 11" x 17" paper. The cover was created by using an eight- pin dot-matrix printer and a cheap poster-making program {"Instant Press"}. By experiment, I found that one style of poster letters were only a little larger than the letters I wanted. I made a poster with the lines "How to Edit," "Your Club's," "NEWS," and "LETTER." I cut out these words and assembled them with correction tape on letter paper {See "How to Paste Up."}, had the nameplate copied at 85% {see "scaling"}, and correction-taped it onto a page created with the daisy-wheel printer. I have signed the inside back cover of all authorized copies of this edition with a #2 pencil.)  5 8«" x 11" paper can be folded into 5«" x 8«" booklets. This format is not as popular as legal paper folded into 7" x 8«" booklets because the short, fat page doesn't look any funnier than the tall, skinny page, and printing on legal paper is usually cheaper per square inch than printing on letter paper. The wide page is also easier to lay out than the narrow one. Pages 5« inches wide are too narrow for two columns unless they are typeset, and too wide for a single column unless the type is fairly large. Therefore, half-letter pages don't appeal much to those trying to get a maximum of 'zine out of a small budget, except in special cases. I have a typewriter- set book of poems which nicely fits a 5«" x 8«" booklet. A few of the poems have been set sideways, but poets can get away with it; the presumption is that you study each page separately, rather than reading one after the other. Our club's membership list, until 1990, appeared in reduced type in a letter-paper booklet. The 4«" lines work because extra space is left between the lines, and because the reader isn't expected to read more than one line per use of the book. One column on 8«"-wide pages would be too wide for fine type, and wasteful of space. Two 3«" columns would make every name occupy two lines. I've been giving the matter a lot of thought because the 1990 Membership List lists 1101 members; forty-four 5«" x 8«" pages make a clumsy booklet. Maybe by next year I'll figure out how to make my new word processor put half spaces between the lines instead of a full pica of separation, or decide that I can get away with single spacing if we give every member a ruler to read the book with. Further experience: we tried 8«" x 11" booklets for a couple of years. In 1993, because of complaints that the large booklets were inconvenient to keep handy, we reverted to letter paper folded in half. By this time, I'd learned how to use PC-Write (I'd also acquired an awkwardly-new 24-pin printer and was in the throes of learning a third word processor), so I got the membership list (including the by-laws and a quick-reference list of the active members) into forty pages. We had gotten wealthy enough to have the printer do the folding and stapling, so forty pages made a perfectly satisfactory booklet. Chris Drumm's chapbooks appear to have been made by folding legal paper in half lengthwise, then cutting it in half crosswise. Chapbooks could be made of letter paper in the same way; a 5«" x 4¬" booklet would be a good size for information you expect your members to carry in their pockets*, and .dd * Cycling jerseys have big pockets. .dq pages 4¬" wide are just right for a single column in most reasonable sizes of type. If reduced at 50%, illustrations intended for your original sheets will fit neatly on a chapbook page. Since there is a standard baronial envelope for letter paper folded in quarters, a letter-paper chapbook might be a good choice for a "welcome to new members" booklet which is mailed by itself. Make sure that you can buy baronial envelopes cheaply before committing yourself. Do not overlook the possibilities of letter paper folded in quarters; it's standard for greeting cards and notepaper, and might be just right for your flyer or whatever. (If you have an attractive design, a popular cause, and cute children to do the selling, notepaper is a good fundraiser.) Booklets have also been made by folding letter paper lengthwise. Use this format only if your subject matter screams aloud for vertical treatment. (I saw it used, for example, for a dress-pattern catalog in which each page was a single full-length sketch of a costume, with a description of the pattern under the figure's feet.) Half-sheets of legal paper can be folded lengthwise (i.e., parallel to the cut) to make a leaflet-size booklet that is good for enclosing in letters and handing out at events. This shape requires cover stock for the outside sheet, to make it stiff enough to read comfortably, and needs saddle stitching to stay together. Other formats  .K:-Other formats A small form more common than the chapbook is a leaflet made by folding letter paper in thirds or legal paper in fourths. Either leaflet fits a #10 envelope, can be included in a letter, is easy to staple inside a newsletter, and is reasonably cheap to produce even when professional appearance is important. Find out what sorts of folding are standard on your printer's machine before designing a leaflet. If you plan to have people folding them by hand while minding information booths, choose an easy folding pattern. For hand-folding, the easiest pattern is a legal sheet folded in half twice. Allow wide channels between a leaflet's columns; they are, in effect, two outside margins _ and they will look much narrower when you are trying to crease them down the middle. Legal paper can be printed as letter-paper-plus-a- coupon, which may be useful to remember when you want the recipient to keep part of the sheet and send the rest to you to be filed. It is considerate to put the tear line close to a fold, and three-fourths of a sheet of legal paper is only half an inch shorter than a sheet of letter paper. A one-sheet (four-page) booklet can be regarded as a double-size leaflet: Design the back cover as three panels, perhaps reserving the middle panel for address, return address, and stamp. This form is popular for advertisements, because the recipient does not have to unfold it to start reading it. It makes a good flyer when your application blank occupies a whole page. Another way to make a leaflet of ledger paper is to fold it in thirds lengthwise, then fold that strip in half crosswise. This is a flat fold that makes a good self-mailer, and provides you with twelve panes for forms, blanks, and coupons. Make sure that the pane with the address label is the back of the pane with the application blank, in case of semi-legible handwriting. Legal paper can be used for off-season issues that won't quite fit on one sheet of letter paper, but when you mix paper sizes, you make it difficult to file successive issues together. Use odd paper sizes only for throwaway issues.  Two-sided copying  .K:-Two-sided copying If possible, you should print on both sides of the paper to save postage. Two sided-copies look more professional than one-sided copies, and save on paper even if you have to move to a higher grade. With some copiers, it costs slightly less to print two sides once than to print one side twice. Any plain-paper copier that you are allowed to mess with will print on both sides: just run the paper through it twice. Experiment first to make sure you are putting the sheets in right end first and right side up, make extra copies of the first side to allow for mistakes, and give spirit or other liquid- process copies plenty of time to dry before printing the second side. If you use two different printing methods, use the dry method first. If you can change the ink or toner in a copier, you can do two-color work by running paper through twice. Make sure your register is loose. (Ditto could print all available colors in one pass -- but they were pale.) If it's your own copier, stick labels on it to remind you which end first, how far from the left, etc. The same goes for computer printers; my printer has arrows labeled "checks" and "paper" pointing to the guide notches on the rear feed. To remember which notch on the top feed to use, I put a note in the "ed.dir" file I use for printing. For processors without directories, a comment at the beginning of the document may do the trick.  6 .K:-Imposition Imposition  Imposition may be the editor's responsibility, the publisher's responsibility, or the printer's. "Imposition" is the arrangement of pages on the printing plates. In the stack-of-sheets format, it only means that you must make sure that page two is on the back of page one, page four is on the back of page three, and that the pages on a sheet are the same way up. When you use a folded format, fold paper the same shape as the paper that will be used for printing the newsletter into a mock-up of the newsletter. (I use pink paper so I won't forget what the mysterious sheets are for.) Number all the pages, adding "front cover" and "back cover" to the appropriate pages, then unfold the sheets and use them as a guide for arranging your reproduction copies. In professional publishing, "imposition" also covers the selection of the most economical paper size or combination of paper sizes to be folded and cut into the required signatures. The practice of folding huge sheets of paper and then trimming off some of the folded edges explains why the number of pages in a magazine is usually a power of two or the sum of powers of two. Paper color  .K:-Paper color The default is white. Yellow and pale blue can be bright enough to notice without making the print hard to read. If you use an extremely cheap paper (mimeo works best on cheap, absorbent pulp paper) it should be yellow, as this color best camouflages bits of ground wood and the like. Ivory, cream, and other shades of very pale brown got their reputation for elegance because only very expensive grades of paper look good in off-white. Newsprint should be ecru. If you decide to use an unusual paper as your trademark, make sure that you can get it year after year. White is safest, and the only color to use if you are to print photographs -- they look murky on any other background. You can use a bright color for the cover if you use only line art and extra-large type. Choosing a different color of paper for the outside sheet can make a 'zine look fancy at little or no expense. Of the booklets I've seen, most non-white covers the same weight as the interior are yellow, and the design is plain and formal; they tend to look like scientific journals. The covers of the "bluebooks" of my college days felt thinner to me than the lined pages inside, yet they gave a definite impression of being books, rather than stapled-together writing paper. Cover paper of other colors might have to be heavier than the rest of the pages to achieve the desired effect. Get a sample of the stock and try your ideas out on an office copier before having a thousand copies printed. Special cover stock is usually inappropriate for club newsletters, which resemble newspapers more than they resemble magazines. Newsletters which are printed on thin paper and mailed naked may stand up to the mails better if the outside sheet is a heavier paper than the inside pages. The leftovers of a ream of pink copy paper that I bought for some forgotten reason frequently come in handy for marking the spot where a page is missing and otherwise jogging my memory or grabbing attention. Paper weight  .K:-Paper weight There are two common systems for measuring the thickness of paper; each refers to the weight of one ream of standard-size paper. "Bond" paper came in smaller sheets than "offset" when the systems evolved; 20# bond is about the same as 50# offset. If the "substance" of paper A is a number twice as large as the "substance" of paper B, and if both papers are measured in the same system, then one sheet of paper A will weigh the same as two sheets of paper B. If you want to print on both sides, you are going to need thicker paper than you would need if you were printing on only one side. The question is complicated by such things as "high bulk" papers, which are thicker in proportion to their weight than other papers, and "opaque" papers, which have fillers to prevent show-through. Pulp papers seem to be more opaque than better papers _ you will notice that throw-away publications are often printed on paper that's almost as thin as tissue, and yet you notice show-through only where particularly bold lines are printed on the back of white space. White paper is less opaque than the same paper in other colors; this is another reason for cheap paper to be yellow. "Pocket Pal," published by the International Paper Company, lists basic sizes of bond, offset, and other papers, explains "basis weight" and "grammage," and contains a great deal of other information about paper and printing. Even an obsolete copy will prove useful and interesting. .K:-Column width Column width  Once you choose your paper, the next step is to decide how many columns you need and how large the type should be. One column per page is for people who use either narrow pages or large type and wide margins. I've heard people complain that a quarter-inch white strip down the middle of a page is a terrible waste of paper. I say unto thee, if you run teeny type from edge to edge of your paper, every square centimeter of it is wasted: nobody can read it. My preferred layout for 8« x 11 pages is two columns; three columns are fifty percent more work than two, and offer no improvement in readability. Some folks praise three-column layout because it offers more choices. Believe me, more decisions you don't need. If you mean to emphasize photographs, you may choose three columns to give yourself more sizes of holes to leave, but I've never had any trouble with photos that a three-column format would have helped with. Making one special column to fit around a photograph is less trouble than putting an extra column on every page. Besides, my columns are three-and-a-half inches wide, most of the pictures the members contribute are three-and-a-half inches wide, and horizontal photographs can sometimes be improved by cropping them to three-and-a-half inches. If you use typesetting, rather than typing, three- column layout has more to be said for it because typesetting packs more characters into an inch of line. Three columns become necessary if you use the teensiest-possible type. Very small type should be used only for very short 'zines, or documents to be consulted in short bits, so that peering intently does not strain the reader. If you have to cram the absolute maximum onto an 8«" page, here is one way to do it: type your columns thirty-seven tenths of an inch wide in pica type. Paste up three of them with three-tenths of an inch between them, for a total width of 11.7 inches. Copy at 66% to reduce 10- pitch type to fifteen pitch, the smallest type that one can reasonably expect readers to make out with the naked eye. The total width will be reduced to 7.72 inches. On 8«" paper, this leaves 0.39" outer margins, a hairsbreadth more than the minimum outer margin of 3/8" (0.375"). Note that most copiers cannot handle an 11.7" x 16" image; you may have to create the page in two or more parts and paste them together after reducing. For a booklet made of legal paper folded in half crosswise, an economical format is two 3.9" columns spaced three-tenths of an inch apart, reduced at 75%. Whether you choose two to a page or three to a page, pick a column width and stick to it until you know what you are doing. The first offset issue of the Bikeabout had three columns on some pages and two columns on others. Making things fit together in that issue was an experience I would rather forget. Every time I moved an item to another page, it changed its size and shape; it was like working a jigsaw puzzle made of Jello.  7 I've seen columns that almost overlapped, and columns so far apart that I felt that the editor had forgotten to paste in a border. You need at least three characters of space to keep the reader's eye from skidding off the end of the line into the next column, and more than three-eighths of an inch will make the columns appear to be unrelated. A quarter inch is about right. Outer margins of less than half an inch may look stingy, and are difficult to make appear equal: a sixteenth-inch of error in feeding paper will turn a pair of 3/8" margins into one 5/16" margin and one 7/16" margin: one will look half again as wide as the other. If the outer margins are less than 3/8", you may get complaints from your printer, and on most copiers you will have trouble hitting the paper if you don't have some margin for error. In two-column copy, outer margins of more than one inch have to be accounted for: if you don't present the reader with some immediate practical or ornamental reason for leaving extra-wide margins, your page will look as though your columns had shrunk in the wash. Type Size  .K:-Type Size Type size is intimately connected with column width. You can get away with longer lines if your type is larger. In fixed-pitch type, fifteen characters to the inch is about as small as type can be and still be read with the naked eye. Anything visibly larger than ten characters to the inch suggests that your readers are visually impaired or that your reproduction method is fuzzy. If either is true, of course, you must allow for it: twelve to the inch is minimum for most mimeograph machines, and ten-pitch type is better. In proportional-space type, the minimum and maximum sizes are nine points and twelve points. Default size is ten points. I recommend creating your pages on oversize paper with your largest available type _ probably 10- pitch _ and having it shrunk to the desired type size; larger pieces are easier to handle, mistakes shrink along with the type, and elite type is spaced on the same lines per inch as pica, which not only wastes space, but looks funny. However, extra space between lines improves readability when type is very small or the reproduction method isn't sharp. Shrinking improves the resolution of pin printers, and gives preformed-letter printers (typewriters, daisy wheels, etc.) more sizes of type. If you plan to shrink your pages, read the chapter on "scaling". You may be confused by type sizes because three different methods of measuring them are in common use. Typewriter types are measured in characters per inch, or "pitch". Pitch makes sense only for "fixed space" type in which every character is the same width. However, all the proportional-space typewriters and daisy wheels I've seen use the same size of type*, so "proportional-space typewriter type" is all the name necessary. A good typewriter PS has capitals much larger than typewriter Pica (10-pitch) and lowercase letters that average much smaller than Elite (12-pitch). It is 12 points high, which is just right for the standard typewriter spacing of six to the inch. If you don't set many words in all caps, well- designed proportional-space type takes up less room than type in which all characters are the same width, and it's easier to read than fixed-space type of the same height. There are a few 15-pitch typers out there somewhere, and these are sometimes called "microelite". Once I saw a 4- or 5-pitch typer; the owner called it a "kindergarten teacher's typewriter". Cheap rub-on letters are measured in inches or fractions of an inch. Inch sizes refer to the height of the capital letters. Typeset type and professional-grade rub-on letters are measured in points. There are twelve points in a pica and six picas in an inch. A point is one seventy-second of an inch. Suppose that you want letters a quarter of an inch high. You divide 72 by four, dash to the drafting-supply store, and buy 18-point letters. When you get them home, you put a ruler on the capital "I" and discover that it is only 3/16" high. What has gone wrong? Points measure type size, not letter size. A "type" was the metal block that bore an embossed letter on its face. It was a hairsbreadth taller than the distance from the lowest point on the longest tail to the highest point of the tallest letter. Nowadays you may define the point size of a typeface as the distance from the bottom of one line to the bottom of the next line when the lines are set without any extra space ("leading") between them.  Some twelve-point type is bigger than other twelve-point type. A style with tall, spindly ascenders and a small body is going to look smaller than type of the same height that has short, stubby ascenders and a fat body. (Carry that principle too far, and you'll have trouble telling "p" from "b".) "Body type" isn't mesomorphic, endomorphic or ectomorphic. It means the regular type you use for the body of your newsletter. The more common and ordinary your body type is, the better. People are to read your type, not look at it. Times Roman is always a safe choice; it is practically invisible in that people who see a line of Times Roman will notice what it says but will rarely notice the type itself. It's likely that you'll have to use whatever face is on your typewriter, but if you can pick from two or more typing elements, try to select a boring Roman typeface. However tempting an array of daisy wheels or software fonts may be available to you, select a size and style and stick to it, unless you want to .i :sidebar distinguish sidebars (articles that in some way belong to other articles, but should not be mistaken for a part of them), use smaller type for masses of unimportant information, or otherwise say "this item is different". Body type should vary in size or style only to convey information _ but don't get carried away. If you have a perfectly-good camera-ready item, don't retype it just to make it match the rest of the 'zine. Decide that "this item is exactly the way the author wrote it" is information. If the item takes up too much space, or if the print is too fine for your presbyoptic readers, your handy-dandy copyshop can help you. (See "scaling".) Be sure to get your copies before you commit yourself to using them, especially if you are having something enlarged. In a letterzine, one important piece of information that typestyle can convey is the identity of the author. When page after page of letters are all in the same style of type, it is hard for a reader to find the letter that he wants to respond to. The ideal is --------------- * In dot matrix printers, laser printers, etc. you will have to study the face labeled "proportional" for yourself. They range from "electronic typesetting", best measured in points, to faces that can't be distinguished from fixed-space without a micrometer. If a variable-space typeface is designed to use the same data files as a fixed-space type, the fixed-space version will probably be easier to read, and the variable version won't save much space.  8 to have each letter in the author's own typescript. Unless you are editing the newsletter of the Desktop- Publisher Operator's Association, it is unlikely that every letter can come to you camera-ready, but if you can get half of them pre-typed, you can alternate typestyles to provide a guide through the gray expanse. Note that even a manual typewriter can prepare a printable letter if you teach your readers the trick of saving a new ribbon for reproduction copies. See "Page labels" in "What Should You Put into Your Newsletter" for other expedients. "Headline type" is the type you use for your headings; you can use sans-serif and other advertising faces for headings if you want to, since only a few words have to be made out at a time. You can be certain that your headline type and your body type harmonize if your headline type is a larger version of your body type. If you can't match it perfectly, good old invisible Times Roman is the safest choice; you want the reader to see "L.A.W. President to Speak at Banquet" rather than "Futura Swash Medium Bold". If Times Roman doesn't look right, try Helvetica. Since I use monotype and only the most important headings can be set, I chose 18-point Times Roman Bold, which is half again as tall as my 10-pitch Courier daisy wheel. I've seen headlines as high as half an inch used with typing, and they looked fine, but 18-point type is plenty big if there isn't anything bigger close to it, and it's easier to fit in than larger letters. I got along for years with 14-point headings, only two points larger than my pica typewriter. If a heading is the biggest type on the page, it is big enough. If a heading doesn't occupy a whole bunch of space, it is easy to make all the headings the same size and spare yourself the trouble of deciding whether or not the banquet is two points more important than the ice-cream social. If you choose to make headings of different classes of items in different sizes, select a small number of sizes so that you can make them distinctly different without resorting to headlines that occupy half a page. With increasing experience, I find myself using typed headings more and monotype less, especially on the front page. Now that I have access to unlimited headlines, I'm beginning to see the point of the infatuation with sans serif heads. They let you economise on space. One of my subheads is actually smaller than my body type, but because it is strikingly different in style, it works. I alternate styles, flush left Lucida Sans for sub heads and group heads, and centered Times Roman (my body type) for main heads. A centered Lucida two points smaller than my body type was intended for by-lines, but because most articles are signed at the bottom, it's used more often for expanding a headline. (For example, adding place and time under a meeting date.) Since my contributors seem to be more comfortable signing their letters at the bottom, the by .K:-Headings Headings  The next question: do you want headlines or titles? Headlines are set flush left, only the first word of a headline is capitalized (unless some of them are proper nouns), and headlines are intended to summarize the article below. See any newspaper for examples of headlines. Titles are centered, all the important words begin with capital letters, and they are intended to attract the reader's attention. Neither type of heading has a period at the end, but exclamation points and question marks are permitted if they change the meaning of the words that go before them. You may choose headlines for some kinds of items and titles for others _ for example, you might give a long article a title and put headlines on its sections _  but make sure that articles of the same kind have the same kind of heading. You should also pick a size and style of headline type and vary it only to convey information. If the story is about an art-deco exhibition, and if you happen to have some art-deco type, by all means use it _ but don't use art-nouveau type by mistake! If you painstakingly assemble your heads from monotype, most of your headings are going to be whatever you find lying around, but matched headings should be your ideal. I've read newsletters in which the editor seemed to be determined to use every font at his disposal; they not only looked like ransom notes, they were hard to read. Headlines and titles may be set in all caps if your body type is all the type you have. Don't use all caps if large type is available. All-caps obscures such distinctions as the difference between a SWAT team and the Sultan of Swat. Another expedient is to underline the heading, and some wordprocessors will multistrike letters to give a bold effect. I use double-struck custom subtitles under my monotyped standard titles when I can. Simply centering or flush-lefting a heading which is otherwise the same as your body type may be sufficient distinction. There should be more white space above a heading than below it; that is, it should be closer to the item it is for than to the item above it. Headlines often have no space at all separating them from their articles, and some sub-heads are underlined or set in bold type to distinguish them from a body which begins on the same line. .K:-Justified type Justified type  Now that you've picked a column width and a size and style of type, you must decide whether the columns are going to be right-justified or ragged-right. That is, is the right edge going to be forced to be as straight as the left edge, or are you going to let each line end where it will? Do as I say, not as I do. I right-justify the Bikeabout, but I cannot justify my justification. Ragged-right columns are easier to read than justified columns, and time spent fiddling with lines to make them look halfway decent when stretched to fit is wasted time. If you do decide to push the button marked "justify" on your computer, you must inspect every line individually and make sure that it is as full of characters as possible. Your spell-checker's automatic hyphenate cannot handle this unless your lines are long enough to tolerate a great deal of variation, but some word processors help you by counting the spaces left at the end of the line. On a computer, the stretching of the lines is exaggerated by the computer's insistence that the last character on a line be a blank. On my old word processor, I over-ruled the machine by converting every space in the line to a "hard space"; this presented difficulties if the item was to be edited or reformatted later. My new program lets blanks and non-printing characters hang over, but I have still (inspired by the first paragraph in this section) switched to ragged-right margins for most of my work. I still justify the classified ads; a ragged-right classified doesn't look like a classified to me. Besides, it gives people who have paid by the line the impression that they are getting full measure. The narrower a column is, the harder it is to make all the lines equal in length. I justify columns as narrow as forty-two characters, but it's often a struggle. Lines sometimes look spaced-out despite my best efforts. On columns narrower than forty characters, it's best not to justify even if you have to put a hard return at the end of every line to prevent it.  9 87rL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-R--9----+ .HL:How to Edit Your Club's Newsletter...page $$$ .HL:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ .HR:The Jigsaw-Puzzle Bit...page $$$ .HR:________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 87cL---+----1----+----2----+----3----+@10-4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+-C--9----+ ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙The Jigsaw-Puzzle Bit ˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙˙ .K:The Jigsaw-Puzzle Bit ---L--P-----1----+----2----T----3----+@10-4-R .K:-Nameplates, mastheads, and page numbers Nameplates, mastheads, and page numbers  The first items that you have to find room for are your nameplate and your masthead. .i:masthead The nameplate is the design across the top of page one that tells people which newsletter this is. It usually consists of the name of the newsletter in large letters and the name of the club in letters which are smaller than the name of the newsletter, but larger than the headline type. If the name of the newsletter is "Newsletter" the name of the club goes above it; otherwise the name of the club goes underneath. (If it suits your design to put the name of the club below, you can make it "Newsletter of the Tri-Cities Square-Dancing Association".) Nameplates are often elaborate, with professional artwork and design, but with care, you can get an effect from standard letters as good as the effect I got from a calligrapher; see "scaling," "paste up," and "bits to paste in". I suggest that you emphasize the most distinctive part of the nameplate; when you look at "The Transportation and Recreation Newsletter" from across the room, you should see "Transportation and Recreation" rather than "Newsletter". If "Newsletter" is all the name the newsletter has, the name of the club should be the part of the nameplate that can be read from the greatest distance. If a newsletter is to be seen only by members of the club, the nameplate is purely ornamental and you don't have to worry about identifying yourself from across a room. Many a respectable newsletter simply has its name typed at the top as a title, then the next line contains the date, volume number, and issue number, and the newsletter begins. The date, volume number, and issue number are part of the nameplate. They may be worked into the design or typed below it. If your nameplate is pre-printed on your paper, or if you paste in a photocopy of it, typing on the line below is your only choice. Leave a blank space of appropriate width, type the numbers and date, then type a line across (or leave a space for a pasted-in line) and begin the newsletter. Other information, such as a phone number or an address, may be worked into a nameplate. The name of the publication, the date, and the volume and issue numbers or the whole number are essential; the name of the publisher (the club, that is) is desirable. If the newsletter is to be sold, the price is part of the nameplate. (This information can be split between the top and bottom of the page, printed sideways up the left edge, etc. See the bibliography.) I have tried fancy designs to separate the nameplate from the rest of the front page. They were not as attractive as a simple typed line, and some were downright confusing. Rub-on lines and sticky-tape lines are good, but pick plain, simple lines. A 'zine that showcases art may have a full-page cover design which includes the nameplate information. If you rely on volunteer artists, try to persuade them to so design covers that the date can be changed without mutilation when you get two Aprils and no July. If only your members will see the 'zine, you may leave the artists to their own devices, but if you want occasional readers to recognize it, the name of the newsletter must always be the same style and in the same place; it may vary in detail but should be ..insert photocopy of Bikecentennial flyer here. .N:+2 recognizable as the same design. The date and the issue number must be easy to find, particularly if the club members are in the habit of keeping back issues. The masthead is the part of the newsletter that .i:masthead tells how often the newsletter is issued, how you can be reached, what the club's purpose is, who you are affiliated with, how much the dues are, how to submit copy, who the officers are, and the like. If you decide that your newsletter is too trivial to include a formal masthead, at least make sure that you include a return address so people can send you contributions, inquiries, corrections, and changes of address. An anonymous newsletter is as despicable as any other anonymous letter. Bikecentennial has a good description of a masthead, which I've reproduced on the following page. Popular places for the masthead are down the left side of the front cover, across the bottom of the front cover, in a box on the back of the front cover, and the back cover. If you mimeograph your newsletter on paper with a pre-printed nameplate, I suggest that you put the masthead down the left side of the front cover, so that you can have the masthead printed in the same pass as the nameplate. It doesn't cost any extra, improves the looks of the cover, and saves you the trouble of re-typing the masthead every month. (If you use a folded format, the front and back covers always go through together, so if you are running the front cover through twice, you can gussy up the back cover at no extra charge.) It has been suggested that you have the masthead typeset by someone who will keep it on file for easy revision, because typesetting improves appearance and saves space (not to mention the time saved by not re- typing the same material every month). If typeset, a masthead should contain only material which will be good until the next club election. Since I use a word processor, I keep my own file for the masthead, include everybody I know about, and revise it several times a year. I print the masthead at 75% of its original size while the reading matter is printed at 83%; if we acquire still more committees to list, we could get away with as little as 66%. You can have nameplates and mastheads printed cheaply if you have three or four month's supply of paper printed at a time. This is often done to dress up mimeo, or as a cheap way to get two colors on the cover. Settle for black on white unless you have a definite purpose for the second color. Page numbers: The pages on the fronts of the leaves have odd numbers and the pages on the backs have even numbers. If the inside of the front cover has a number, that number is "2". If you don't number the front cover, don't number the inside front cover; make "page one" the first inside page, the one that would be "page three" if the cover were page one. If you use unconventional page numbers, you have to tell your printer. If there is a bit of unused margin (as there nearly always is when 'zines are to be reduced, since American standard papers aren't 1:1.414), one good way is to make up a second, conventional, set of numbers just for the printer and write them in the lower right corner with a dark blue pencil. Another way is to fold blank paper into a mock-up of the finished 'zine, and write a page number or other identifier on each page.  11 Each interior page of the newsletter should contain the name of the newsletter, the volume number, the issue number, the date, and the page number. The easiest way to accomplish this is to type all that information in a single line across the top and draw a line under it. I put "Vol. nn No. nn" on the left, "Month Year page nn" on the right, and "Bikeabout" in the middle. Others type "Newsletter Name Vol. nn No. nn Pg. nn" and center the whole mess or set it flush right. Still others put the page number in the outside corner, which makes it necessary to have one heading for odd-numbered pages and another heading for even-numbered pages. However you arrange this information, the page number must be in the same place on every page. If you play hide-and-seek with the page numbers, or omit them from an inconvenient number of pages, your readers have every right to beat you with rolled-up newsletters. One advantage of the linear layout discussed below is that it decreases your readers' interest in page numbers. Simple linear layout  .K:-Simple linear layout When you type directly on mimeograph stencils or ditto masters, I heartily recommend laying out your newsletter in the simplest way: count out the number of stencils you need for the number of pages the publisher tells you you may have, stack up the articles you have in the order that you want the readers to read them, with the most important on top and those you won't mind postponing or killing on the bottom, and start typing. When you reach the end of an item, type a line across the column and start the next item. When you reach the bottom of the first column, crank the stencil back in and type the second column. When you fill the second column, crank in a fresh stencil and begin the third column. When you run out of stencils, the newsletter is finished. (I call this, for want of a better term, "linear" layout: the material is regarded one-dimensionally, as one enormous column that has been cut into page-long segments to fit onto the paper.) If you continue the last item to the next issue, try to end at the end of a paragraph. It was two years before people stopped reminding me of the time I ran out of space in the middle of a sentence. Even when you are not working on stencils, the simple linear layout has benefits beyond getting you out of the pressroom and back to doing whatever it is you're writing about. Everything always fits, you don't need fillers, you make the most of your space, and you never have to jump stories to remote pages. If you are working on a word processor and haven't hardcopied yet, last-minute additions or deletions aren't any problem. Linear layout can be combined with page-by-page layout. Decide which pages are to be laid out one at a time, then lay out the remainder in simple one- after-the-other fashion until you have used up all the pages before the first of the dedicated pages; put "continued on page nn" at the bottom of the last column, then continue on page nn. Since the dedicated pages usually look different from the linear pages, the reader has little difficulty in following an article from page to page. In similar fashion, you can lay out around ads or artwork which occupy only part of a page. It is best to put such items at the top or bottom of the page to guarantee that they won't interrupt one of the "linear" items. Suppose that you want a photograph or a bit of art to accompany a certain story? It can be done easily by cutting the art to the same width as the columns and stacking it up with the articles. When you get to it, leave an appropriate number of blank lines for pasting it in. When working on a word processor, I number the blank lines that are left for the image itself (I keep a page of numbered blank lines to duplicate for this purpose), and use plain blank lines to allow for clearance between the image and the typing. This way I can fiddle with the clearance to to make the number of lines in a column come out right, and never lose track of what I've done. If you want an article to appear on a particular page (the center spread, for example) you need only to set it aside and insert it when you get to that page. You must look ahead when typing the previous page and exchange articles as necessary to make sure you don't begin an article that will use up too much of the desired page. With a word processor, you can type first and swap articles later to get the most important items into the most conspicuous places; you can even arrange matters so that the last article on the previous page ends at the bottom and the important article begins at the top of the conspicuous page. (It is best to begin with a file in which each article is on a separate page and none are on the pages that will compose the final document; that way you don't have to move two at once.) A supply of fillers of various lengths will help, of course, but adding or deleting half a line of white space here and there and substituting a narrow border for some of the typed lines can do wonders with items that almost fit. You can paste in borders, or design them from odd characters such as \/\/ and <>. Some characters fit neatly between two underlines. Do not mix borders on a page or on facing pages unless they identify the articles they are with, show different degrees of separation, form some sort of over-all pattern, or otherwise convey information. Another refinement is to pick a more-than-half- page article to be first, and center its title on the page as a whole; it will fill the first column and part of the next, and the layout described above begins at the end of the first article. Long articles can be arranged to occupy the full width of the page. That is, instead of regarding the columns as a long string on which to place the beads of your articles, you may regard the pages as a long string, and fold each article into a page-wide bead with the title centered on the page, and the sub-titles centered in the columns. Headlines will do for subheads in this arrangement, but are less emphatic than titles for separating the beads. (A line or a border across the page makes a definite separation.) One problem with page-wide beads is the inevitable presence of items too short to divide into two columns. One way to deal with this is to tack a one-paragraph article onto a longer one, separated by a line or some artwork, and fold the combination into a bead. This works much better if the two articles are related. Another way is to group short items under an over-all title. If you tediously monotype your headings, this is also a good way to get more mileage from standard headings. If you can't do better than to type headings for "Pensacola Wheelmen Hold Rally on August Twenty-third" and "Road Riders Sponsor Three-day Stage Race around Perimeter of Albany County", you can group them under "Other Clubs' News". When you get to feeling frisky, you can combine column-width beads with page-width beads. Reserve space at the top of conspicuous pages for important articles divided into two columns of equal length, with a title centered above the article and a line from margin to margin below, and let the string of column- width beads fill the space below as if this space were a short page. In effect, you are interleaving two  12 newsletters: one on the page-wide plan and one on the column-wide plan. Page-by-page layout  .K:-Page-by-page layout In page-by-page layout, you regard the pages as separate documents grouped together to form the newsletter. Do not attempt this layout unless you have some substitute for dummy type, such as a word processor, a desktop publisher, or a couple of photocopies of matter that's been set in cold type. (A "couple" of copies, because you are going to mess up the first one.) The first thing to determine is the relationship of the pages to each other. I draw a map: I divide a sheet of letter paper into sixteen equal parts by three horizontal and three vertical ink lines. I used to divide a sheet of paper into as many parts as I had pages, but for five or more pages it's easier to divide the paper into sixteen parts and ignore any extra. (For twenty pages I divide it into five rows of four fat rectangles, for twenty-four I resort to legal paper. Luckily, the post office charges extra for more than twenty-four pages and I can blame my refusal to type twenty-eight on the publisher.) Then I use ink to write a page number in the upper right corner of each rectangle that I plan to use, and write the month and year of the newsletter in the space where the nameplate belongs. (If there is more than one newsletter fluttering around your office, you may want more of the nameplate information on your map.) I also use ink to write "back cover" on the last rectangle. Other marks are made with #2 pencil. (#2 is the easiest to erase; harder leads don't fade much when rubbed, and softer leads smear.) Sometimes I use colored pencils to draw borders to code pages that will be on the same sheet; for example, one red rectangle might mark the front and back of the left end of the outside sheet, while another red rectangle marks the front and back of the right end of the same sheet. I need this information when laying out items that will be cut out of the newsletter. First I allot space for any item that must be on a particular page; for example, when we run an application blank or the election ballot, it goes inside the back cover, on the top half of the page, so that the address label will be on the back. The By-Laws occupy two pages, so when we print them, I put them in the center spread. The ad manager hasn't reported in at this stage, so I go through a copy of last month's issue and allot space for last month's ads to give myself an idea of what I have to work with. The reading matter is reduced and the ads are reproduced at 100%, so I try to fill ad pages completely. Since we rarely sell exactly eight eighth-page ads, it's a good idea to have one or two of the small ads that run all year blown up at the inverse of the ratio that will be used for reducing the reading matter, so that they can be pasted into a regular column and shrunk back to normal size. (See "Scaling.") It is also good to have an ad or two of your own to fill up empty spots; I used to use a reduction of the envelope in which we sold our map packet. National organizations with which you are affiliated sometimes send useful ad- page fillers. When placing the ads, I try not to rearrange things that are already on disk and ready to use as soon as I change the dates. I avoid the center spread and pages reserved for regular features. I prefer even-numbered pages for ads and, when these run out, the back of the book. If an ad has a coupon in it, due consideration must be given to what's on the back. I also try to put it on a leaf or sheet that's going to be cut into for some other reason, but watch that coupons don't end up back to back. Since I've been punching in for some time when I draw the map, I'm frequently able to complete one or two pages right away. I do not hardcopy at this time, however, unless my computer needs cleaning and I'm afraid it will erase the material before I can use it. (See "Backup" in the glossary.)* ..++ -------------- *Ain't modern computers grand? But I left this passage in, because somebody, somewhere, is still using my first computer. Keep your backups up to date anyway; sooner or later you'll be glad you did. --------------- ..++ The number of pages is likely to change after the ad manager reports in, and there is often a last- minute demand for space from some committee. Contributions are still coming in fast enough to keep me busy punching in, I can always occupy my time by jig-saw puzzling, and I can hardcopy and paste up on the same day if I absolutely have to, so I rarely hardcopy anything until everything is ready. To show where the ads go, I draw lines dividing the map of a page into eighths, quarters, and halves of the appropriate shapes and write the name or abbreviation of each advertiser in the space where its ad goes. I used to draw a colored-pencil line around the page just inside the perimeter, to show that the page was full but I hadn't done anything with it yet. Now that I have more experience, a question mark in unused ad spaces is enough. To show that a given page is someone else's responsibility (for example, the two pages reserved for the Ride Calendar), I draw an "X" from corner to corner and a horizontal line across the middle of the "X". For the reading-matter pages, I draw a vertical line to divide each page-map into two columns. When I place an item on a page, I write an abbreviation of its title on the map in the appropriate place, draw a horizontal line across the column to show about how much space it occupies, and below the line I write the number of the first available line below the article. (Now that I'm using a publisher, I have to eyeball how much space is left because lines vary in height. Progress ain't all progress.) When a column is full, I put a short diagonal line, like the second stroke of a check mark, at the bottom of that column. When a page is full and ready to hardcopy, I draw a line from lower left to upper right. When it's hardcopied, I draw a similar line from upper left to lower right. When it's pasted up and ready to be delivered to the printer, I draw a horizontal line through the middle of the "X". Each issue is created by editing the files of the previous issue. (I copy the old files onto archive disks first!) When I worked on a page-oriented word processor which allowed page numbers from ".1" to "999.9", I allotted page 1 to overall notes, pages 10-19 to page one, pages 20-29 to page two, etc. It would seem more straightforward to put page one on page one, but I nearly always used more than one "logical" page to create each paper page, and I found fractional page numbers a nuisance. A range of a hundred numbers is reserved for fillers that are out of season; a note on page one reminds me that next fall I'll find some good stuff on p. nnn. The next range of one-hundred numbers is for useful bits: the page of numbered blank lines, for example. The range after that is for short fillers, each one on a page such that the last two digits of the page tell the number of lines. The remainder of the document is for new material not yet assigned to a page. When my spelling checker still worked, I would type each day's receipts into a separate document, run that document through the spelling checker, and assemble it to the current Bikeabout. Now I type material at the end of the "Bikeabout" document or, if it is a regular feature, directly onto the page where it will remain.  13 This habit will probably continue with the new machine, which has an as-you-type spell checker. Some material remains in the depot at the end of the document until I think I have everything; other items find homes sooner. I know that the president's message is going to go on page three, for example. Except that for June 1989 I found that I'd forgotten to reserve anything for page one and had to move "pres. mess." and "V.P. Land" to fill the hole: this is why I draw my map in pencil. When I'm ready to "jigsaw puzzle", I first collect together material that should go together; a great deal of that has already been done during the punching-in. By now regular-feature material has usually been placed: President's message on page three, letters on page two, etc. I move the longest items into place, then shorter items are fitted around them. I try to fill out the page with items that harmonize -- committee reports under the president's message, for example -- but more often, placement depends on what fits. (The number of committee reports has increased, so I collect them on page three, then after arranging page three as best I can, I lay out the rest in simple linear fashion on as many of the succeeding pages as are required. Sometimes I have to decide whether to jump them over the center spread or let them slosh through it.) If I intend to paste in a clipping from the L.A.W. Bulletin or somesuch, it is in the depot in the form of numbered blank lines. Since I have a "comment" code, the numbers don't appear on the hardcopy, but the numbers are so useful that I'd use them even if I had to paint them out. (In the new system, the numbers print if the linefeeds print, but I don't paint them out: I bought a reel of correction tape. The name of the item to be pasted in is typed after or in place of one of the numbers.) (Still later: now I can use a blank box to reserve space for paste ins. I'm using fewer; pasting up seems like more work now that I don't have to paste in headlines and the occasional border doesn't get lost in the crowd.) If I intend to paste in an entire page, it is merely marked on my map. I may create a blank page with the page-number line on it and paste the page below it, or I may paste a page number onto the pre- assembled page. (I now include pages that read "reserved for xxx" in my files; the new system fusses over missing pages.) (And the still newer system simply doesn't allow them.) Space for pasted-in headings is reserved by typing the exact heading I mean to use in the space where it is to appear, with a hyphen on each side to draw my attention to it at paste-up time. Since all my headings are the same height, I don't need numbered lines to reserve their space; I know just by looking whether or not I've left enough. I try not to jump articles from one page to another; if I can't get everything in any other way, I try to pick an item that's naturally fragmented, such as the editorial. I will also try to jump an item to the next page, or to successive odd-numbered pages, so that the reader won't have to hunt for it. There is one exception to the policy of not jumping items: Sometimes it happens that you have twice as many front-page announcements as will fit. In this case, you put all the headlines on the front page, and continue each item on an interior page. Try to jump all of them to the same interior page, or to the same two-page spread. Another way is to use a little box that says "Ice Cream Supper May 10th: see page 11." I use multi struck type for the main line of an announcement of this kind, and put it between two typed horizontal lines; I don't think I'd use headline type for this even if I had it. In other newsletters, I've seen terribly important news in two-inch letters and leafed right past without noticing; I was perceiving it as graphics, rather than as something to be read. If you look at a page and there on a gray field of type is a little black spot, your eye jumps straight to the black spot without your conscious direction, and if the black spot turns out to be a few words, you'll read and under stand them almost without intending to. For this reason, I find it good to group such announcements if I can: this says, "Here is a list of important things; read all of them." If there is a black spot here and a black spot there, the reader might miss one -- or see polka dots and turn the page. Grid layout  .K:-Grid layout Do not confuse "grid layout" with "layout grid" (blue marks on paper or layout board), or with the desktop publisher's "grid" (non-printing lines which serve the same purpose as "dropout blue" lines). I have read about "grid layout" as something one is likely to read about; it is the practice of regarding a page as a number of cells arranged in lines and columns, and arranging the page by placing one item in each cell. Such an arrangement is rarely as good as columns for reading matter and art, but it's the only way to go with display ads. For ads, one actually draws the lines that define the cells, which we now call "boxes". If the lines are drawn on a stencil with a stylus, or marked out with rule tape, one may use single lines as if creating oversized graph paper. When I type them, I put a box around each separate ad; that gives the appearance of double lines between adjacent ads. I type mine on a word processor _ I wouldn't dream of typing boxes if I couldn't store them and duplicate them as needed. If you have to count and measure every time, it's much easier to use rule tape, or a ruler and a drafting pen. The corners of typed boxes don't quite meet. Don't worry about it; this is characteristic of typed lines and typed lines ought to look like typed lines. If you don't like typed lines, use ruler-drawn lines. Start a ruler-drawn line before the place that you want it to begin, and continue it past the place you want it to stop, then white out or tape over the fuzzy, widened parts of the line where the pen was speeding up and slowing down. I divide an ad page into eight boxes, each 3.7 inches wide and two and a third inches high. A tenth of an inch separates boxes that are side-by-side, and a twelfth of an inch separates boxes that are one above the other, so the whole page measures 7.5 inches wide and nine and seven-twelfths high; with the number-and-date line, that leaves half-inch margins. The advertisers must make their ads fit sizes and shapes that can be created by knocking out the walls between boxes. We don't mention options other than eighth, quarter-page vertical, half-page horizontal, and whole page; that way no-one asks for an odd shape unless he particularly wants it. Since our printing is done with negatives, any reproduction ratio is possible, so I don't bother full- page advertisers with details; I paste up whatever comes in, then mark oversized pages with appropriate reduction ratios. I'm sterner with people who buy fractions, as I have to make a trip to the copy shop before I can paste up an oversized eighth, and extra copying compromises print quality.