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I LOVE free printables! I love making them, I love giving them, I love using ones that other bloggers have made! The thing about printables, though, is that it’s hard to make one that’s “one size fits all.” Everyone has different schedules and needs, and so I know there have been numerous times I’ve found a super-‐cute printable and just wished I could tweak it a bit to be more “me.” I definitely plan to continue to offer free printables on my blog, but just in case you wanted to try your hand at making your own {it's actually easier than you think!}, I thought I’d help you figure it out a bit. So open up a document in Microsoft Word, and here we go! {Note: Since the majority of my readers seem to own PCs and I generally use a Mac, the screenshots in this tutorial are done on my old PC which runs Word 2007. If you are a Mac owner or have a newer version of Word, you will have the same options, they may just be in a slightly different place.} Step 1-‐ Push the Enter Key…a Lot This may seem like a silly step, but I promise it will make your life easier later. Before you do anything else, just hit “Enter” until your cursor gets down to the bottom of the page.
Then simply use your up arrow key (not the backspace/delete button) to bring it back to the top.
Step 2-‐ Set Your Margins I like to use ½” margins when I’m making printables because it lets me have a lot of space to create without cutting off my information when I print. You can do this under the “Page Layout” tab by clicking the “Margins” button and choosing “Narrow.”
Step 3-‐ Make It Pretty with Shapes I usually begin my organizers by making a pretty heading at the top. I do this by using a combination of shapes and text. Let’s start with the shapes. Go to the “Insert” tab and click “Shape.” You can choose any shape you want, but I’ll demonstrate with circles.
Draw a circle, then use the “Drawing Tools” toolbar to make it the way you want it. You can change the size in the upper right corner. Then change the shape fill and outline. I left the “Shape Fill” white. For the “Shape Outline,” I chose a teal color then went down to “Weight” and chose 2 ¼ point to make the outline a little thicker.
Then I went one step further: still under “Shape Outline,” I clicked “Dashes” and chose one of the options to make my circle dashed rather than solid.
But I wasn’t done yet! I wanted to make a total of 3 layered circles in my heading, so I chose “Insert” again, clicked “Shape” and picked the circle. I drew a circle slightly smaller than the first one. This time, though, I was sure to set the “Shape Fill” to “No Fill” so that I could see the first circle behind the second one.
For the “Shape Outline,” I repeated the same steps as I did with the first circle—I changed the color, made the weight 2 ¼ point, and made the outline a slightly different dashed pattern. I made a third circle the same way, and I was done with that part!
Just to give you an idea of some other shapes and patterns you could use in your header, here are some others I’ve used in the past:
This header was made using a row of hexagons with a long rectangle on top.
This header uses three arrow shapes in different colors. Step 4-‐ Add Your Words Next we’ll add a title using WordArt. Go to the “Insert” tab and choose “WordArt.” You can choose any style you want; we’ll change it later.
When the box pops up, type in your title and choose a font you like. {My font is called “Sacramento.”} Click “OK” and your WordArt will appear. It will probably be behind your shape and might look a little squishy, but that’s okay! We’re going to fix it. With your WordArt selected, go to the “Format” toolbar, click “Text Wrapping” and choose “In Front of Text.” This will bring your wording to the front and allow you to move it around the page.
Then you can change the shape of your WordArt. Staying under the “Format” tab, click “Change Shape” and pick the one you like. I’m boring, so I just chose the straight line. :)
You can then move the words where you’d like them and use the “Shape Fill” and “Shape Outline” choices {found right above the “Change Shape” option} to change the colors of your words as we did with our shapes.
Now that we have our pretty header, we can move on to the organizer section. I usually create my organizers two ways: (1) shapes + text boxes or (2) tables. We’ll start with shapes + text boxes. Step 5-‐ Add a Box Organizer As we did with the circles, we’ll go to the “Insert” tab and click “Shapes.” This time, though, pick the rectangle.
Draw the rectangle the size you’d like it {mine is 7.5” by 1.37”}. Then use the “Shape Fill” and “Shape Outline” buttons again to get the look you want. I left my “Shape Fill” white and made my “Shape Outline” teal with a weight of 1 ½ pt.
Now that you have your box, let’s put some words inside of it. Under the “Insert” tab, choose “Text Box” and select the “Draw Text Box” option.
Draw the text box to your desired size. {You can always make it bigger or smaller later.} Then you’ll want to get rid of the fill and outline. Under the “Format” tab, click “Shape Outline” and choose “No Outline,” then click “Shape Fill” and choose “No Fill.”
Now you’re ready to type! Add your words and change the font, size, and color just like you would in a regular Word project, under the “Home” tab.
I usually like to have lines to write my information on, and these are easily added using the “Shapes” tool once again. Go to the “Insert” tab, choose “Shapes,” and click the first option in the “Lines” category. Draw the line to your desired length.
Repeat the process of drawing lines until you have as many as you would like. (Insert> Shapes >First option in the “Lines” category> Draw it.)
Step 6-‐ Add a Table Another useful tool when making organizing printables is the table. It helps you create columns and lists quickly without having to draw each individual line. Remember when I promised that pressing “Enter” to take your cursor to the bottom would come in handy? This is where that happens. Simply use the down arrow to move your cursor to the line where you’d like to start your table. {If you hadn’t pressed “Enter” before, you would have to do so now, and it would move all of your work down the page.} To add a table, go to the “Insert” tab, click “Table,” and select the number of columns and rows you would like. I chose two columns by eight rows.
The columns will automatically be equal width, but you can change their widths by dragging the middle bar where you want it.
You can type in your words and again, use the options under the “Home” tab to change the color, size, and font. Want to add more rows? Under “Table Tools,” choose the “Layout” tab and click “Insert Below.” You can also use the “Insert Left” or “Insert Right” buttons to add additional columns.
Step 7-‐ Make It Your Own Now that you know how to do shapes + text boxes and tables, you can combine them in any number of ways to create the type of organizer you need. On our example, I repeated Step 5 a few more times to add some boxes with text to the bottom of my organizer.
This is certainly not the only way to make your own organizer; there are literally endless possibilities. These are the basic building blocks, though, and the more you work with them, the more you’ll figure out your own tips and tricks along the way.
But how do I know what to include in my organizer? When I am about to start an organizer, I will sit down and brainstorm a list of everything I might possibly want to know about my topic. When you have your whole list, you’ll be able to see what things can be grouped together in categories and what type of organization would be appropriate for each. Do you need a long list? Use a table. Do you want a bunch of different categories on one page? Use a shape with a text box. Need both? Combine the two like we did in our example above. Like everything, the more you work with it, the better you’ll get! Without seeing your computer, it’s difficult to troubleshoot in detail, but if you’re having trouble getting something to work or want to know how to do something I didn’t cover, feel free to send me an email at [email protected], and I will be happy to do what I can to help! Thank you so much for reading my blog and for all of your support! It really means the world to me!