Easy software for desktop publishing?

Fruitbat · May 20, 2011

Not even sure if "desktop publishing" is the right word, but I am working on a nonfiction book that will kind of look like one long magazine article, lots of b&w cartoons, sidebars, tips, lists...

I would love to be able to write my next draft in this format. Not to send to a publisher that way, but just because having it in front of me in the same form I imagine it published would help me "see" things that I might otherwise miss.

(I did this before in a simpler way with a fiction manuscript. After I printed it out on half pages and slapped on a mock-up cover same size, shape an print size as a published novel, for some reason a lot of errors jumped out at me, that I had missed completely in regular manuscript form. If anybody knows what I'm talking about. Perhaps it activates a different part of the brain or something, who knows.)

Anyway, I am no computer wiz so I want something easy. Ideas?

Deleted member 42 · May 20, 2011

The market you're looking at as a potential publisher uses MSWord until the ms. is completely edited.

I'd use MSWord, or a similar word processor.

Wojciehowicz · May 24, 2011

As above, use MS Word, merely set it to the column size that your target market would use, or more to the point, what caused your errors to jump out. Yes, a lot of stuff is made more or less clunky depending on printed layout without being made more or less relevant. Good way to get in the feel for where your work is going.

Scour the Word sites out there through Google, for help on multi-column setup and so forth. MS Works can help too. I used to write newsletters in it directly long before adequate spell-checking much less grammar checking. Dictionary and thesaurus sat on top of the old typewriter next to my monitor, getting a lot more use than the typewriter.

Easy software for desktop publishing?

Fruitbat

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Deleted member 42

Wojciehowicz

Alien to My Own Planet