Looking for user-friendly newsletter software

July 26, 2006 6:13 PM

Looking for extremely user-friendly newsletter software...

A friend of mine is working for a non-profit organization, and her boss is looking for very user-friendly software for creating a newsletter:

"My director is looking to start his own newsletter, but needs something VERY user friendly to do so. He tried MS Publisher and was frustrated by it. So I was wondering if any of you have suggestions for easy to use, plop in the content, kind of publishing programs."

Any suggestions?

posted by ootsocsid to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Check out CitySoft's Community Enterprise email module .
posted by ericb at 6:40 PM on July 26, 2006

That would depend entirely on what your friend's boss plans on doing with this newsletter - will it be printed or published to the internet? If it is printed, will it be printed at Kinko's or by a professional printer?

I'm going to assume that your friend's boss is going to get it printed at a professional printing company. As such, they'll most likely need Adobe InDesign or Quark XPress. InDesign is good for beginners since it has the standard Adobe interface and is fairly intuitive, but it will require some getting used to. Some printers will take Microsoft Word documents, few will accept Publisher files.

Continuing on my assumption, your friend's boss might start by finding a printer, seeing what software they use, and asking for an hour, maybe two, of the prepressman's time for a crash course. I'm a prepressman myself, and I'm always happy to indoctrinatetrain clients on the correct way to do things. It makes life so much more pleasant for everybody involved.

One thing I cannot stress enough - they should by no means buy some $35 page layout program at Fry's or CompUSA and expect a commercial printer to support that software. I'm looking at you, Broderbund. Your friend's boss will be wasting everyone's time, not least of all their own. Good page layout software is worth every penny spent on it and can mean the difference between a handsome, professional-looking newsletter and a piece of garbage that is an embarrassment to everyone involved.
posted by lekvar at 6:46 PM on July 26, 2006

Check out CitySoft's Community Enterprise *newsletter* module.

Clarification: is it software for distributing a newsletter online or in print form (or, both)?
posted by ericb at 6:50 PM on July 26, 2006

Would Pages be good for this sort of thing?
posted by sourwookie at 7:53 PM on July 26, 2006

I (really) hate to say this, but I would be surprised if there's anything that's easier to use than MS Publisher. As an InDesign/Quark guy I railed at having to use it at my new job, but I eventually begrudgingly admitted that it does make many things very easy--automatically creating and tracking jumplines, for instance, and creating ink blends for 2 color newsletters. Our local print shops had no problem taking Publisher files (or outputted PDFs) although we all did a little jig of joy when I converted everything up to InDesign.

I have to *strongly* disagree with lekvar's suggestion of InDesign for this question--yes, in the grand scheme of things, it's marvelous and everyone SHOULD be using it, but if someone found Publisher too challenging they will get absolutely nowhere with InDesign.

It might be good to know what your friend's boss found challenging about the app. I've noticed people confused that they can't just "start typing" as if they were using Word, for instance.
posted by bcwinters at 5:39 AM on July 27, 2006

Seconding bcwinters' comment about InDesign; I do not know of any really easy-to-learn publishing software.

As a user of most of Adobe's stable, I found this humorous:
it has the standard Adobe interface .

I do not believe there is any such animal.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:44 AM on July 27, 2006

Since he's probably familiar with it, have you tried using MS Word? It has some kind of 'Newsletter Wizard', and from what I remember the output isn't *that* bad, as long as you stay away from the clipart. Something like InDesign would obviously be hopeless -- I don't think you could really make a DTP program that is more 'for dummies' than Publisher.
posted by reklaw at 6:54 AM on July 27, 2006

Suggestion: Hire a professional to design a template wirth very specific editable (text) areas. That will make things MUCH easier for everyone concerned. So, even if he does need to use InDesign he can learn only the most basic functions and not make himself crazt. And the non-profit will look much more professional.
posted by miss tea at 7:02 AM on July 27, 2006

I love InDesign with all of my heart.

One afternoon with the Classroom in a Book tutorial (or any tutorial that teaches measurements, master pages, and styles), and you'll be its lover, too.

But it's expensive. You could easily do a 2-column word doc with a nice header/footer and get the same result, if you don't care much about perfection.
posted by cowbellemoo at 2:06 PM on July 27, 2006

As a user of most of Adobe's stable, I found this humorous:
it has the standard Adobe interface .

I do not believe there is any such animal.

Open up Illustrator, PS, Indesign, ImageReady, or GoLive (PageMaker doesn't count - they inherited that mess frm Aldus) and look at where and what the menues are. Now try that with what used to be the Macromedia products, Fireworks, Freehand, and Flash. Or, for that matter, the Microsoft products.

I've watched it shape up over the last 8 years. Adobe has gone to great lengths to standardize their interface across their offerings. The benefits of a common UI or userspace is not something to be ignored.
posted by lekvar at 2:58 PM on July 27, 2006

Thanks for all the responses. My friend clarified that it's an online email newsletter, so if anyone has any email-specific advice, she would love to hear it.
posted by ootsocsid at 3:51 PM on July 27, 2006

lekvar, I had a swell rebuttal typed in, but we've derailed the thread enough; Adobe's vices and virtues don't relate to the topic beyond what we've already said.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:39 PM on July 27, 2006