I am new to this VA business and a few of the people who have contacted me as me if I have any desktop publishing experience: they need help with designing a brochure or flyer... I have none. Can anyone suggest to me a good software to use or learn from? Thanks!

Hello, and welcome to the VA world. I'm also somewhat of a newcomer -- one day I will have to stop saying that!

I'm not sure my answer is what you are looking for, but I always use Publisher for brochures, flyers, and anything of that nature. You probably already have it installed on your computer.

I wish you the best of luck, and be sure to stop once in a while to enjoy the journey!

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Patty

Publisher is a great program to use. It comes with Microsoft Professional only, or you can buy it separate. You can play around with word templates too. They have a brochure template that can help you learn a little about it. Publisher is worth the money, and you can get like a 60 day trial on the Microsoft website. It would give you a bit too look at if you don't have the money to buy it.

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Jaidi Clayton
Imagine It Virtual Office Assistant - You imagine it, I'll get it done

I'm kind of partial to Print Shop. I have been using it since I was in High School. It is good for everything. I've made brochures, newsletters, photo collages, greeting cards, calendars, and so much more. I've never used Publisher, so I'm afraid I can't compare the two programs.

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~Rae J. Gallaher, VA~
Your "basics" are my business!

I use publisher as well, its perfect for such tasks.

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Amanda Mock
My Virtual Little Helper

Nellie,

As mentioned, Publisher and Word both offer templates. Office version 2010 has some wonderful templates.

You can also try open source software such as Scribus http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus and Gimp for photos and images http://www.gimp.org/

Janine

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Hi

I use both Word and Publisher and like them both. Google Docs does have some as well. You go into templates and search for brochures and there are a few.

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Nancy Lynch
http://www.virtualnancysbusinesssuppo rt.ca

I have both Publisher and PrintShop installed on my computer. I think that Publisher is a bit more user friendly, especially if you have no experience with desktop publishing. Good luck with your business!

I also use Publisher for all my desktop projects. I just bought and installed Adobe Photoshop Elements and I'm still working on this. Photoshop is great when working with images and clipart, and work great when you want to shadow, crop or take the background out of an image. I'm still learning this, but once I've got it mastered, I'm sure it will be my favorite. That being said, another VA I've recently connected with brought up a very good point. She indicated that we should not use ONE application for all aspects of our desktop publishing, but many different components so that when you put them all together you've got a more polished professional completed project!

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Tina Thelen
Virtual Office Assistant

I still use Scribus for things like that... I've worked with Publisher at my day job, and found it difficult to translate their files into .pdfs... And Scribus works across windows, mac and linux, three OSs i use... so it's comfortable for me, and the same goes for Gimp for graphics and photos...

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sharp office support
yeah, we can do that..