How to Make Your Own Funeral Programs

Funeral directors and others who are in the business tend to charge quite a bit of money to make the funeral programs for your dead loved one. But did you know that you can actually save quite a bit of money, and even add those extra special personal touches you want to, by doing them yourself or by having a close and experienced friend do them? It's true, and here's just how.

First of all, you need to get an idea of what a funeral program is like. Look around online for examples, or pull out old ones from funerals you've been to in the past. Typically, they have a front view portrait of the person on the front, and wording like 'In Memory of So and So'. Then, inside, there is typically a listing of what is to take place at the funeral and the times, and then usually a set of family pictures along with the "obituary" that lists the close family and perhaps some other heartwarming information about the deceased person.

You want to be able to print this program on beautiful paper - not just the plain white stuff. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the plain white computer paper but you really want to give it a warm feel. Go to a store like Office Max and pick up some paper that looks almost "aged" or perhaps with texture.

Go ahead and use Microsoft Word or another favorite word processor on your computer to put the program together. Go to 'page layout', 'orientation', and click 'landscape'. Then, click 'columns' to create two columns per page. Work on adjusting your margins to make sure it prints out evenly and centered once you've folded the paper down the middle.

Indeed, the program is going to have single fold down the middle, so as you create your document you want to make sure the sides print out in the right way.

For pictures, you can use what you have on your computer, online, or have friends and family e-mail some to you. If you need to work on them in photo shop or another program, go ahead and do so. Use photos that are relevant and heartwarming. Then, when you are ready, you can copy and paste them right into the document, right click on them, and format them appropriately. So that you can drag them anywhere on the document, make sure to right click on the picture, and under "text wrapping" click on behind text. Now you can move these pictures anywhere you want!

It really is easy to create your own heartwarming funeral programs with these helpful hints. So take the load off yourself financially, or help take the load off of someone else, by doing the work yourself when it comes to funeral programs.