Creating Your Own Greeting Cards Using Microsoft Word

One question I am often asked in my computer classes is how to create persolized greeting cards. For people who are not too terribly familiar with Microsoft word and setting up colums, rows and margins I have developed a simple quick-start guide using greeting card design templates provided free for download. The official Microsoft Office website has several templates you can download that will best help you get familiar with creating your own greeting cards. In your web browser go to www.office.microsoft.com and search for Greeting Cards or go to http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT063472091033.aspx. The same information can be found at both places.

First find a greeting card design that you are interested in downloading and click on the picture of the design. This should open a new page from which you can download the template/design. You may be asked to accept a user agreement and/or download an "ActiveX control." You will need to agree to both in order to download. The template/design should open up in Microsoft Word for immediate use. It is also stored within Word for future use.

To access the template at a later date, open Microsoft Word and choose "New from Template" in the File - >New dialog box. The downloaded template will be listed here .

In the Microsoft Word window with the open template make sure you scroll down and to the right with your vertical and horizontal scroll bars in order to view the entire card. Also, take time to notice how the template's margins and columns are set up. (Becoming familiar with margins and colums in the page layout will help when you decide to start creating greeting cards on your own!) You may notice that for some templates the picture will appear upside down, this is because the card is designed to be printing on one piece of paper and then folded in quarters. A text box has been provided for you to type your message and should read: "Type personal message here." Simply click in the text box to add your message. It should increase in size as you type if needed. You can always change the font size and color as well.

If you find a template layout you like but you do not like to picture, you can always choose to insert your own clipart or picture.
Select the original picture in the template and delete it, then go to Insert - >Picture - >ClipArt to insert Clipart images stored on your computer or go to Insert - >Picture - >From File to choose a picture that you have saved to you computer. Re-size the picture to fit the template. Remember you may need to rotate the picture upside down!

Once you are familiar with the templates provided for download you can choose to create your own greeting cards from scratch. Remember to make notes of how to position any clipart or pictures!