The PowerPoint Publisher Design Book By Patricia Martin, Suzanne Meyer and Peter Pappas For more resources visit our website: Read > Think > Write > Publish www.edteck.com/publish
Copyright 2006 Patricia Martin, Suzanne Meyer and Peter Pappas All rights reserved under international and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Edteck Press, New York, U.S.A.
Table of Contents Introduction Why publish student work? The writing process Why use PowerPoint as your book design software? Manage your book in slide sorter view Page layout and size Using a slide master to set fonts and graphic elements Creating a PDF file Creating your book cover Using Lulu
Introduction This book is designed to show teachers and students how to use print on demand technology to publish their work in a paperback format. It uses two software programs, PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat, and Lulu.com, an online publishing service. Although it offers how-to tips for PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat, and Lulu.com, we assume you can, and will, click on the program Help tab if you need more assistance. Most importantly, this is a handbook to encourage teachers to publish student work. It is not a book about writing, writing process, writing across the curriculum, 6+1 traits of writing, content area writing, writing to improve learning. Those elements are all present in the thinking behind this handbook but there are already hundreds of resources available to the classroom teacher detailing those topics. This book was published using PowerPoint as the editing and design software and it serves as an example of what you can do. For more information on publishing, visit our website Read / Think / Write / Publish at http://www.edteck.com/publish/. This site offers additional description, writing prompts, PowerPoint templates and and links to sample published books of student work. ~ Patricia Martin, Suzanne Meyer and Peter Pappas
This book will enable you to design a book with your students and utilize the print on demand services at Lulu.com. There are other print on demand websites, but many require you to pay additional money in advance of printing your first book. At Lulu, you pay only for the books as you print them. The quality of the books is excellent. Books can be perfect bound, saddle stitched or spiral bound. Most texts are printed within three days of placing an order. They can be shipped as quickly via USPS. Production costs are $5.81per book Plus.02 per page b/w or.15 per page color Example: 50 page book with color cover B/W pages - $5.53 Color pages - $12.03
Why Publish student work? Student publishing provides an authentic purpose and audience for creating a written message. Student publishing provides a motivation for the writer to create, revise and edit their thinking. Student publishing provides a powerful model for emerging writers. Student publishing records/documents student learning and achievement. Publishing As Audience and Purpose All teachers know the writing process. Yet, in many classroom the writing process remains elusive and artificial for the student writers. The first distinct possibility is that the writer does not have a personal connection to, stake in, choice about the writing. Therefore, the writing does not serve a purpose for the writer. The writing is not authentic. The second possibility is that the writing has no audience. The written word will be handed in to a teacher, possibly marked all over by the teacher and finally delegated to the student s writing folder for the remainder of the school year. At some point in time the student may be required to revisit the writing selection for some teacher imposed purpose. Publishing As Motivation How can students think like writers if the ultimate goal is not publication?
Publishing As A Model One of the most powerful and effective characteristics of the whole language movement was that students generated and published their own texts. Emerging, developing and sustaining readers and writers must engage with a wide variety of models; if every model is created by a recognized, literate adult it does not pose an attainable goal for the student. Published work reflects the varied forms that thinking and learning can take; it allows for differentiation and diversity. Published work also models what the organization values both in terms of quality of student work, quality of thinking. And quality of expression. Publishing As Recorded Achievement Families and teachers proudly hang student work on classroom and corridor walls and refrigerators. These informal galleries pay tribute to students efforts and achievements. Are these scattered fragments enough? Are they enough to promote student metacognition, reflection and growth? The process of publishing takes the student on a journey beyond the creative process. The student must think about their thinking in their effort to communicate their purpose to the audience and in order to revise and edit work for publication. The student must reflect on their thinking and the thoughtful responses of their collaborative partners. Educators frequently hear how tests/exams are insufficient measures of student learning and achievement. For all the reasons critics give, publishing remedies the criticism.
The writing process - Step One The writer must first capture their thinking their ideas, thoughts, impressions, reactions this is the CONTENT and IDEAS. What is the writer s purpose why are they writing? Who is the intended audience to whom are they writing? What does the writer know about the subject what ideas, thoughts, impressions, reactions does the writer personally have? A writer must have personal knowledge, experience with or connections to, insights in or impressions of the topic. This enables the writer to have VOICE a necessary trait of writing. Step one takes place in the writer s head. Conversation with classmates and a teacher about the writer s thinking adds depth and clarity to the writer s ideas; a lack of interaction at this point greatly thwarts growth and insight. Possible Writing Formats How To Definitions and explanations organized around a subject or topic Summaries of significant concepts Collection of student thinking/responses to a topic or experience, memoirs Collection of poetry, fiction Collection of positional or persuasive arguments Summary of experimentation, research or exploration
Step Two: Revise: Revise (look at again) comes before edit (correct the grammar and punctuation). It is a waste of time to edit text that does not match audience and purpose in content and ideas - Does the text carry the message that the writer wishes to communicate to the reader? Revision made simple: look right, sound right, make sense. Organization: Is the content and ideas arranged in a fashion that helps the reader understand the message? Does the organization aid or hinder comprehension? Can the audience follow the thinking? Sentence Sense: Is the message clear and understandable to the audience? Do the sentences flow logically? Word Choice: Do your words help the reader understand and hear your voice? Clarity of expression is supported by comparisons (metaphors, similes, analogies) and illustrations Revision is extremely difficult for every writer. It requires a critical friend and trust. When students can share their writing in a nonjudgmental environment that applauds the effort, poses clarifying questions and celebrates some positive attribute, that teacher s classroom has indeed created Atwell s writing workshop. Revision needs to focus on the writer s goals and be based on a rubric that the student understands. Revision should focus on specific criteria from the rubric based on traits of writing. Revision can only happen through conversation. Revision does not happen when a teacher makes marks on a student s work and the student fixes the writing. The revision process must preserve the writer s VOICE.
Effective process for student revising Read the work aloud and listen for meaning. Meaning drives organization, sentence sense, word choice and voice. Pose questions that require reflection more than response. Provide mini-lessons (small group or individualized) so the writer understands can decide what revision is appropriate. Make revising collaborative. Effective process for student editing Read the work aloud and listen for meaning. Meaning drives organization, sentence structure, grammar and word usage. Pose questions or an editing checklist to focus the editor s attention and support essential details. Provide mini-lessons (small group or individualized) so the writer understands the convention. Use editing symbols so the writer knows there is an editing need but must take personal responsibility to make changes. An editor should only call attention to an area of concern. Make editing collaborative. Writers seldom can locate problems without a collaborative critical eye.
Why you should use PowerPoint as your book design software If you intend to produce a book that is entirely text, then you are better off composing the entire book in Word for upload to Lulu.com. Word has a better spell checker than PowerPoint and also allows you to track changes and check readability statistics. These are all powerful tools in a writing project. However, Word does a terrible job when you try to include images. Most likely your students will wish to publish with a combination of text and images. If you intend to include images, you will find that PowerPoint is easier to use because it gives you greater control over mixing text and images. Its slide sorter view also allows you to easily re-arrange pages or blend pages from different PowerPoint files. Blending slides from different PowerPoints is especially useful if you plan to have your students working in small teams on individual PowerPoints with the goal of combining them into one book. As a compromise you may wish to use Word to compose your longer text passages. They could be spell checked and you may even check readability statistics. Once the text is just the way you want it, you can copy and paste into the PowerPoint.
Manage your book in slide sorter view In the slide sorter view, you can easily re-arrange pages. Don't forget to include blank pages where needed in the back to back published version. You can also merge slides from different PowerPoint presentations. This will be useful when student collaborate on a book. The next page explains how to merge slides.
Merge slides from different PowerPoints Insert / Slides from files Navigate to the other PowerPoint Pick just the slide you want. You can even keep the original formatting
Page layout and size Lulu can publish books in a number of layouts and sizes including: 6" x 9" - Novel 8.5" x 11" - U.S. Letter 7.5" x 7.5" - Square 6.625" x 10.25" - Comic Book 9" x 7" - Landscape 6.14" x 9.21" - Royal 7.44" x 9.68" - Crown Quarto 8.27" x 11.69" - A4 4.25" x 6.875" - Pocket size When using PowerPoint we ve found the easiest size is 8.5" x 11 - a portrait format. Since Lulu charges the same price per page regardless of page size, 8.5" x 11" gives you the most page for your money. Lulu requires.5 top and bottom margins and 7/8 gutter for binding (which we need to apply to both left and right margins because of back to back printing.) Don t use bullets when writing in paragraph style. When not using the bullets, tab to move over and align the left border and eliminate the hanging indent. See example below. Example: Typing without tabbing the first line. Typing and tabbing the first line.
How to set page size in PowerPoint for 8.5" x 11 portrait format 1. Select File / Page Set Up 2. Size for letter paper and choose orientation as portrait for both Slide and Notes. PowerPoint will automatically set width at 7.5 in and height at 10 in. This is the size you ll need to publish your work. 3. Click OK
Using a slide master to set fonts and graphic elements 1. Click on View tab 2. Select Master / Slide master 3. This will open a Master Slide that you can format. All new slides will follow that format
The Master Slide View In the Master slide view you can select font, colors and sizes. You can also insert clip art or shapes. They will then be common to all pages in your book When done with slide master click Close Master View
Don t forget to reduce file size PowerPoint files with multiple images can grow to a large file size. To control file size you should change the resolution of images; this compress the image and reduce the PowerPoint file size. To begin, click on picture. The picture tool bar will appear. Choose compress picture from picture tool bar Change resolution to Print a resolution of 200 dpi You can apply to the selected picture or all pictures in the document. Note: For web / screen only use 96 dpi Click OK
Creating a PDF file Lulu uses PDF files to create your book. If you are working on a textonly book, you can upload your Word file to Lulu and they will convert it to a PDF for you. It is more likely that you will be working in a text / image book in PowerPoint. You will need to create your own PDF to use Lulu as your printing service. One choice is to work with your school s technology department to convert your book files into PDFs. If you plan to do that you can skip most of the next section. If not, then read on The most popular PDF creation software is Adobe Acrobat. This is different from Adobe Reader, which is a free download. Remember that you only need this one computer, since you can create all your PDF's from the same workstation. Here are other PDF creation software programs you might consider. ABBYY PDF Transformer http://www.abbyy.com/ Jaws PDF Creator http://www.jawspdf.com Beware of free PDF software you might find on the internet. They could contain viruses and be harmful to your computer.
Using Adobe Acrobat to convert your PowerPoint to a PDF file Lulu requires that you upload your book as a pdf file. You can convert a variety of file formats to an Adobe PDF file quickly and easily. Once Adobe Acrobat is installed on your computer, it appears as another printer. Therefore one of the easiest ways to turn your PowerPoint into a pdf is to open your PowerPoint and print it to an Adobe PDF file.
Printing to a file in Adobe Acrobat Adobe acrobat turns your entire PowerPoint into a single PDF file which you can upload to Lulu as the text portion of your book. Note: the cover of your book will be a separate file. There are a few settings that you will need to use when printing the PDF file. Print all Slides Color Check your work with preview When you click OK, you will be asked to save the PDF file as.. Give it a file name and remember where you put it!
Embedding fonts in your PDF file You may use a variety of font styles in your PowerPoint book. Especially if you are assembling material from a variety of students. Adobe Acrobat needs to be set up to Embed All Fonts in the PDF file it creates, so that Lulu can properly read your file. The best way to avoid a problem is to set up Adobe to do that every time you print a PowerPoint to a PDF. Here s a way to set that up in Adobe Acrobat. Follow these steps to set up Adobe Acrobat to embed all fonts every time you create a PDF. 1. Open Adobe Acrobat and choose Edit / Preferences
2. In Preferences choose: Convert to PDF / Microsoft Office / Edit Settings
3. Click the edit button and create a new setting for all your Office documents
4. Create a new setting you can call it Lulu-upload Set resolution: at 300 that s Lulu s preferred resolution Width: 8.5 Height: 11 Units: Inches
5. Click on the Fonts Tab Highlight all the fonts on left and click the Add button This will add the fonts to the Always Embed list on right Click OK All highlighted fonts will then appear on this list
6. Now you can save your new Adobe PDF settings as Lulu-upload. Every time you convert a PowerPoint to PDF the settings will be just right All that work will pay off!
Creating your book cover When you upload your book project to Lulu you will use two files. One will be the text portion of your book in PDF format. Lulu can create a cover for you from their cover library at no cost. If you want to design your own cover you can choose to do just a front or front and back. Front and back covers are two separate files. While Lulu uses a PDF for your book pages, it uses a different file format for covers JPG, GIF or PNG. You may wish to use another way to create a JPG, GIF or PNG. But you can still design your covers in Word or PowerPoint, then use Adobe Acrobat to create a JPG file. Your first step is to convert the cover to a PDF using a Adobe Acrobat. Then use Acrobat to convert your cover to a JPGby using File/ Save As
Turn a PDF cover into a JPG Then choose JPG from the drop down menu. Give it a file name and remember where you put it!
Using Lulu Go to Lulu.com and register for a free account. Once you have a login, publishing is as simple as starting a new project. You will start by filling out a page like this with book title, author, keywords and description. Don t worry about the details, you can always go back and finish them later.
Uploading your book The next step is uploading your book to Lulu. Let s assume that you have already converted your PowerPoint book to a PDF file. This is the point where you will upload that PDF file from your computer to Lulu. 1. Click this tab to browse to your PDF file on your computer. 2. Click this tab to upload your PDF file to Lulu
Once your file has been successfully uploaded you ll see this screen. If you decide you want to make any future changes to your book, you can always just send up a new version. Typically its best to upload a book and print one draft copy to review of edits, then you can revise and send up a new copy.
Page colors and bindings for your book In the next step of Lulu you select black (at $.02 per page) or full color pages (at $.15 /per page). Note that you cannot mix color and black and white pages in the same book. You also select bindings - perfect-bound, coil bound or saddle stitched, at this point. They are all the same price.. Note: these costs are based on 64 page full color
Uploading a cover The front and the back covers are two separate files. You can design your own or use the Lulu supplied covers with your title and author added to them. Remember that your cover must be a JPG, GIF or PNG file.
Price and Finish In the last step you get to decide the price of your book. You also get to decide if you want to make it available to the public on the Lulu website. When you are logged into your account at Lulu, you can buy as many copies of your book as you choose for the production cost plus shipping. You can offer the book for sale to the publish at cost. If you wish to sell your book at a profit, Lulu will let you set what ever price you wish and they will keep 20% of the mark-up of the book. You will keep 80% of the markup. Note: this print cost is based on 64 page full color
Selling your book at Lulu If you offer your book for sale to the public, Lulu will create a storefront to sell the book. They host the store front at no cost to you and handle all the credit cards. If you are selling at profit, they will issue you a periodic royalty check. Below you see a sample shot of the store front. This book is being sold at cost to buyers. It can also be downloaded as a PDF file for free
The finished books Lulu.com produces beautiful books in a variety of layouts. The production costs are reasonable and there is no minimum order. Thus you might consider having your class collaborate on a book and then ordering just a few copies one for the classroom, one for the school library and another for the community library.