Better Safe Than Sorry Publications are meant to be printed; so it only makes sense to make sure that your document is “printer friendly”. This means that colors that you choose need to print well. So before you call it a “final draft”, always print it first and make sure that colors show up well and that they’re easy on your eyes. The best way to ensure this is to always use safe colors, meaning colors already pre-set. Never try to make your own custom colors unless it is a requirement in your specifications.

Keep Black In The Mix Though you’ll be tempted to abandon black all together in your publications, it is not a wise thing to do. Use your carefully selected text colors for your headings, subheadings, taglines, and other important phrases; but majority of your body text should remain black. After all, it’s still easiest color to read.

Changing Tab Alignment The tab stops we’ve discussed so far have all been aligned to left. You can change them from left tabs to either center, right, or decimal tabs (good for aligning numbers with a decimal in them). To do so, simply click on box directly to left of ruler bar that has an “L” in it; each time you click, symbol changes to a different tab alignment. However, this technique is hardest to learn and to manage. There’s a better to creating lists with different alignments.

The Best Technique – A Table Using a table is by far best way to create any type of list you want. You simply create a table with number of columns and rows that you need, adjust column widths by clicking and dragging column lines, and just type your text in each cell. You can change alignment by simply using alignment buttons you normally would for a paragraph. The added advantage of tables is being able to format them with borders and shading. Typically top row would contain your headings, which you could format with bold text and a gray background. If you don’t need any special formatting, simply highlight table and remove all borders and shading.

Either way, using a table will be easier to maintain than any other technique. But any technique is better than trying to use spacebar. If you haven’t already, for your own good … please break this habit!