After running down a full list of potential problems, you realise that now, it’s a lost cause and your repair guy is going to get your panicked call and he won’t be available for hours if not days.

Sound familiar!?

It’s happened to a few of us and we are no exception.  In that hardware failure, you also start to wonder if all that work that you had on your hard drive is still good and all those files will still be there when you need them most.

The only way to reassure that you can rest at ease is to be sure to back up your files on an external hard drive.  External hard drive prices are coming down in price extensively and they can hold thousands of file with some drives hold up to 400-500 Gigabytes in memory.

Backup software such as GoodSync, can be set to auto back up your files on a schedule that keep you as up to date in your files as you want to be making it very automatic.  There are other softwares out there that are just as good, just do your research to see how versatile they are.

Remember, there is a big difference between backing up system files and doing data backups. Be sure you do both otherwise you might find yourself without some information that you needed. Data backups are the most important as that holds the information for your letters, pictures and so much more.

1. When using spaces, use one space after the period.  People from old school typewriters have had it ingrained into their brain for years that double spacing after a period or any other punctuation at the end of the sentence is needed. With computers though, there is no need to compensate for spacing with the font typeface
2. Computers and word processors of our time period give us much more versatility to our spacing and using hard returns for paragraph breaks are completely unnecessary.  Let the software do the spacing for you.
3. Fewer fonts the better.  The rule of thumb should be to keep your font type down to two, maximum.  This provides for easier reading, easier on the eyes and more consistency.
4. Find out if your newsletter should have full justification or left read.  Full justification of text is considered more formal than left-justified so depending on your target audience and your intentions will depend on which one you might wish to use.
5. Centering text is used sparingly and in very few areas does it work well.  Using it with short lines or with your headings is a good place to start.
6. Line balance is important as providing squished text on one line but space leading that is larger on another line below it is bad form.  There are many ways to play with settings in software so that you can show  good balance and structure to the text at hand.
7. Cap usages has been overdone.  Using full caps on a line of text can be determined as ‘yelling’ from behind your keyboard.  Use caps appropriately and you will get your point across just as well as if you had capped the whole line of text.
8. Punctuation is always something that you should elementally use properly.  Use of proper punctuation can make a whole sentence change meaning or essentially make it easier reading.  Make sure your comma’s, quotes and other elements are used appropriately and consistently.

Nameplate

• This is like your banner at the top of your website.  It should give not only the name of the newsletter, bu a publication date, volume information and possibly the company logo.

Body

• This is where the bulk of your text is.  Information and stories that are pertinent to your demographic.

Table of Contents

• No matter how small or how large your newsletter is, it is always good to have a small area to place a list of articles and where they can be found.

Masthead

• This particular element falls at the top of the page, normally the second page on and can include the page number as well as the publication date and volume information that is also listed in the nameplate area.

Headlines & Titles

• There are 6 types of headlines or titles that are elementally used,  Headline, Kicker, Deck, Subhead, Running Head and Continuation Heads. We will elaborate on these in an up and coming post.

Page Numbers

• I think self explanatory, however, make sure they are visual and easy to spot.

Byline

• Contains writer/author information.  It is crucial to give credit where credit is due.

Continuation Lines

• Jumplines are used when an article continues several pages over.  For instance, “…continued on page 4.”  This helps the reader follow the story to the appropriate page.
• Continuation Heads are used to identify where the story is continued to.  Both of these act as way to help the reader find their place in the article and in the newsletter.

End Signs

• As important as continuation indicators are needed it is always sensible to put into place an end sign.  These are a line, dash or bullet that will show the reader they have reached the end of the written article.

Pull Quotes

• These can be used when identifying quoted information that is important to the story.  Usually written boldly or in a larger typeface so that it can be found and the eye is drawn to it for interest sake.

Photos/Illustrations

• Most newsletters contain some type of visual representation.  There are two elements that help the reader identify the image and relate it to the story.  The mug shot, a head/shoulder picture of a person and any clipart such as graphs and tables should be accompanied by a caption.  Captions provide crucial information to tie the image to the article.

Mailing Panel

• With technology today, this is not always needed for the delivery of your newsletter, but planning for the newsletter to be mailed through the US Postal service requires there to be a space for not only the postage, but for addresses and return address labels to be used. To find out what the standards are, visit the USPS.com and locate the dimensions for cost of postage and for the requirements for addressing it.

Planning to incorporate and utilize these elements in your newsletter will give you positive results and feed back. Consistency and a good typsesetter alone with a great editing staff will provide you with an archive of information, an excellent way to keep in touch with your clients and staff as wel as educating new users and clients to your business.  Good news is always great news.

Still offering the same prices and the same excellent services!

We welcome and are open to addressing these concerns and questions because if you have them, ultimately you are probably not the only one.

Just click “Comments” below and drop us a line!