Big screen for sale!!

May 7, 2008 4:17 AM

I need to print an ad but I don't know how to arrange it so the little tear off strips appear sideways on the bottom.

I need to print an add to sell my television. I want to post it on the cafeteria bulletin board at work with the tear -off strips at the bottom that would have my contact information, but I don't know what program to use or how to go about arranging that. I rarely ever use word processors for anything other than normal typing and printing. I suppose I could just write it in , but it looks kind of silly. Anyone ever done this before?

posted by Brandon1600 to computers & internet (14 comments total)

Apple's Pages program has pre-made templates for selling things with just the sort of tear-off strips you're talking about. You didn't say what word processor/operating system you have access to.
posted by leahwrenn at 4:20 AM on May 7

If you have MS Publisher, it's really easy to do. You could also do it with something like Power Point. Basically any program where you can rotate the text or choose the direction of the text will work. It would help if you told us what operating system you're running, and what productivity software you have. Word can probably do this, too, but I go to Publisher for things like this.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 4:22 AM on May 7

Sorry I forgot to mention my computer specs. I have win xp sp2. Its just a basic installation so I dont think i have all the bells and whistles some of you have. I think MS works is the best I got. I have power point viewer if that helps.
posted by Brandon1600 at 4:35 AM on May 7

I don't know how to do that in MS Works, but if you want to send me the details of what you want I'll email you a PDF. My Email address is in my profile.
posted by tomble at 4:45 AM on May 7

I think I'd have more instinctive trust for a hand-written one than a slickly-produced 'professional' looking version. Just saying.
posted by rokusan at 4:46 AM on May 7

I don't have Works, but in Word you'd create a table, type your text in the table then right-click and select Text Direction ...

If that doesn't work in Works, you might also consider just making the tear-off strips wide enough (and your font small enough) to print your contact info horizontally. You can always put a row of tabs at the top of the poster as well to get more strips in.
posted by zanni at 4:50 AM on May 7

Microsoft Word has dozens of templates for this. Create a new document and search for tear.
posted by k8t at 5:04 AM on May 7

The easiest way would be to create a text box and rotate it sideways. Check out Wingdings font for the scissor icon.
posted by semi at 5:23 AM on May 7

You could just have the tear-off strip down one side. (Or both sides.)
posted by krisjohn at 5:45 AM on May 7

If you can chuck the text into excel, it'd be a piece of piss. There's a fairly obvious 'text orientation' setting in the cell format dialog (ctrl-1 in windows).
posted by pompomtom at 5:54 AM on May 7

You can do it in Word easy.

Write your ad, hit enter a few times.
Table>>Insert Table>>10 columns - 1 rows>>ok
Put your curser in the first box and type your phone number.
Format>>Text Direction (and choose your textual orientation)
Copy and paste your number in the other boxes. If the phone number is wrapping (going over two lines instead of staying together), you can make the height of that row taller in a number of ways, the easiest I think is to select the row, and the run the cursor over the bottom border until it changes shape to a line with an arrow either side of it. Then drag and drop it in a suitable spot.
Final touches - select your table again and then format>>borders and shading>>choose a dotted line.

Or what zanni said
posted by b33j at 6:01 AM on May 7

You could also do it the old fashioned way. Just print out your information, zerox the tag information until you have enough, cut everything out and paste it up on a new sheet of paper to make one sign. Xerox that and voila!
posted by slowfasthazel at 7:34 AM on May 7

In MS Word (I have 2007, but it's similar in Office XP), put a table at the bottom of the page, with about 10 columns.
- Highlight the table. Right click on the highlighted area, choose Text Direction, choose the sideways text option.
- With the table still highlighted, Right click on the highlighted area again, choose Borders and Shading, on the Borders tab (default) choose None.
- Enter your contact info; it should be sideways, and you just have to fringe it w/ scissors.
posted by theora55 at 8:25 AM on May 7

or, what b33j said...
posted by theora55 at 8:27 AM on May 7