Olin Family Society

This page describes some of the procedures and guidelines for producing the OFS newsletter, The OLINews.

Content

As Editor, your job is ... to edit. Your writing skills should be good, but they don't have to be perfect. If you feel someone's submission needs some clean-up, do it. That's your job. If you don't have total confidence in your own writing skills, have someone proofread each issue before you publish it. (I recommend this even if you are a good writer.) Certainly use your spelling checker, but you still need to proofread everything.

It is not your job to write the newsletter, although you are certainly welcome to add all you want. Instead, you need to hound other people who should be producing content for you. Send out reminders at appropriate times, the sooner the better. Be persistent.

Each issue has certain regular features:

• the masthead, listing OFS council members and information about the newsletter;
• vital statistics, provided by the Genealogist;
• a history article provided by the Historian;
• a schedule of upcoming reunions and other events (from the web site);
• reports of recent reunions, usually in the fall issue;
• minutes from council meetings;
• genealogy queries (from the web site);
• membership request form (see attachment below);
• vital statistics form (see attachment below);
• addressing section (on the last page); and
• other items as you see fit.

Several of the officers are regular or semi-regular contributors of columns with established titles:

• Historian's Journal (from the Historian)
• Between the Lines (from the Genealogist)
• From the President (from the President)
• For the Record (vital statistics, from the Genealogist)

You should encourage anyone who shows any interest to submit something for the newsletter, even if you can't use all of it right away. It's better to have too much content than not enough, and you can save leftovers for later issues.

Don't forget to update things like dates, issue numbers and so on, from one issue to the next.

Formatting

The newsletter is printed on 11x17 (ledger) paper, folded in half and stapled, resulting in a finished size of 8.5x11. This means that each issue will have some multiple of 4 pages. With typical paper stock, ten 8.5x11 pages will weigh in at nearly an ounce. Therefore, if you limit the newsletter to 20 pages (5 tabloid sheets of paper), it can be mailed domestically at the 2-ounce cost.

The inside gutter -- that is, the margin on the inside of each page, next to the fold -- should be at least 1/2 inch, allowing for collectors to punch holes for binder storage without destroying any of the viewable content. Otherwise, margins may be more or less than 1/2 inches, but they should be consistent from page to page. (Odd and even pages may mirror each other.)

You may use any page layout program you like for producing the newsletter, but most people will use Word, simply because that's what most people use. The rest of this section assumes that Word is the tool being used. Attached to this article is a Word template you may use as a starting point.

Unlike a simple report, where the document flows sequentially from the top of the first page to the bottom of the last page, a newsletter is constructed in page layout mode. That means that each piece of content is placed in a particular place on the page. For that reason, a text frame should be used to hold virtually every piece of content. Otherwise, you will have great difficulty getting things to line up where you want them to. Frames also make it easy to continue long articles on non-sequential pages.

Avoid using spaces and multiple tabs to line things up. Instead, use paragraph and tab formatting to specify exactly where you want things to be. Better yet, define styles for different page elements -- headlines, article text, subheadings, etc. -- and let Word do the formatting for you. One of the great things about styles is that you can change the look of the entire newsletter simply by modifying the style definition once.

Production and Distribution

Once you have gathered all your input, edited everything, laid it out on the pages and spellchecked and proofread everything, it is time to get it printed. For now, you can simply send me the final Word document or a PDF version of it. (I prefer PDF but will accept Word. Word often reformats things slightly on different computers, but it also lets me correct any errors I find, so the choice is a toss-up.)

Here's what I do with the document when I get it, in case someone else needs to do this in the future:

1. Once I'm satisfied that all editing is finished, I generate a PDF file, if necessary.
2. I use a program to reformat the PDF file to print on ledger paper in booklet format.
3. I use Staples to print the newsletters. 75 20-page copies cost approximately $100. Fedex Kinko's is considerably more expensive.
4. The reformatted PDF file is submitted to a Staples print center via their web site. See the attached PrintSettings.png file for the settings to use. Be sure that Staples prints the final copies directly from their computer instead of printing a master and then duplicating that. Second-generation copies simply do not look as good!
5. The newsletters must be folded in half (to size 8.5x5.5) in order to avoid extra postage per the recent changes in U.S. postal regulations. Tape 2 corners to keep it closed during transport.
6. I print the labels and affix them to the newsletters.
7. Add postage and drop off at the post office.