Is Microsoft Publisher worth it to me?

Publisher does make the job easier and offers a wider range of graphics and formats without a lot of reformatting. If you already have Word, you don't have to pay the full price for Publisher but can purchase the software as an upgrade at a much more modest price. You're right though that you can do most tasks with Word if you don't want even the modest additional expense.

Sure, you can do it with Word, if you want to spend five times as long!

Basically, Word is just what it says...a word processing program. Publisher is a page layout program. Write your articles in Word for the spell-check, word count, etc., then copy and paste them into Publisher where you can click and drag them anywhere on the page you want them. AND you can link text boxes (very simple) so the articles flow from one column to another. When you make changes, it automatically adjusts all the remaining columns. AND you can set up style sheets labeled "body text" or "headline" or "photo caption" or whatever you like. Then you just highlight the text you want, click on the style you want, and it automatically sets the font type, size, spacing, indents, etc. for you, keeping everything consistent throughout the publication.

Don't get too carried away with borders and artwork. They can make a publication look cheap. Photos are better. Just use Google images. And if you're printing in color, limit the number of colors you use. Remember, the photos will be in color as well, and you don't want too many things to compete for attention on the same page.

Okay, I've said enough for now. If you want more tips, just ask. I'm teaching 6th through 12th grade students to use Publisher for school newspapers. They absolutely love it and don't like Word anymore!

Publisher comes as part of the MS Office suite (some packages), but even if you have to buy it separately, it's less than $200. That's MUCH less than professional programs like InDesign.

Foxfyre - Amazon's price is $148.99. I went to the online Publisher Trial run, and it looked rather daunting, probably beyond what I need, especially since I wouldn't be using it for anything but the newsletter.

I couldn't find any reference to Publisher as a lower price upgrade with Word 2003 - all references to Word were to Word 2007. I think MS doesn't support 2003 any more.

I'm going to check other sources for a possible lower price than Amazon, but I suspect that Publisher is in my future rather than now.

Have you looked into what's available as a newsletter template on the Office Online site?

Here's a link to the various newsletter templates. The link includes templates for Publisher and for Word. You have to look to see which versions of Word they are intended to be compatible with. It will also give you an idea of what types of things can be done with Publisher. I have Publisher 2002 and Office 2007. Both are handy for differing purposes.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT101043281033.aspx

Those will be helpful to your existing set up. If you find one that works well for you, you won't need to upgrade your software so soon.

Well that could be. I did my upgrade (for Word 2003) a couple of years ago and it seems like it was $30 or $40 or so. I haven't looked into it since.

You might check Ebay and some other sites like that were there might be some old bootleg software for Word 2003 still lying around somewhere. Otherwise Butrfly's suggestion is a good one.

Thank you everybody!

It's 3:30 am so I'm not digging too deeply into all this yet, but I did take a look at the individual templates site; they have over 100 choices and I'll give them a better look later on.

As for the clip art and borders, people seem to like the little drawings at the head of each article; I've had good feedback on that, but I do see that too many frills would be cluttered and distracting. Borders set off sets of scores, and contributors seem fussy about that; each group wants its prominence...but I know I must be sparing with such.

Anyway, I'll give a more thorough look at the choices, and may very well find something that will fit in with our present very simple production.

The whole thing is lots of fun, and one of the fun bits is experimenting!

Tom, it sounds like you have good instincts about how to format your newsletter!
It's often hard to balance what your readers want with your ideals of good design and readability. I hope you find some software (free or cheap!) that helps you put the newsletter together -- and gives you plenty of enjoyment!
Keep on keepin' on!

Well, the powers that be definitely won't spring for Publisher, so I'll have to make it up as I go along, but so far so good.

You might like to try a free open source offering called scribus.
It is professional and not as easy aspublisher and is also fussy about fonts.
Go to http://www.scribus.net/?q=taxonomy/term/36 to download and try.