A flyer is read in about two seconds by someone walking past. That means big words, few words, and a lot of empty space. The most common mistake is filling the page — the second most common is fighting with a picture that jumps around when you type.
Set the page up
In a blank document, go to the Layout tab, click Margins, and choose Narrow.
Narrow margins give your headline room to be genuinely large.
Leave orientation as Portrait unless your picture is very wide.
Portrait suits noticeboards and posts through letterboxes.
Headline and key details
Type your headline in five words or fewer, select it, set the size to 48 and click Center on the Home tab.
Forty-eight point is readable across a room. If your headline will not fit on two lines at that size, it is too long.
Press Enter and type the what, when and where on three separate centred lines at size 20.
Separate lines beat a paragraph. The eye can grab three short facts without reading sentences.
Select those detail lines and use Line Spacing then Line Spacing Options to add 12pt Space After.
Spacing between lines is what makes a page look designed rather than crowded. Never press Enter repeatedly to fake it.
Bold only the single most important word — the date, usually.
If everything is bold, nothing is.
Add a picture that behaves
Click where you want it, then Insert then Pictures, and choose your image.
Word drops it in at full size, which is normal — you are about to fix that.
Drag a corner handle (never a side handle) to resize it.
Corner handles keep the proportions. Side handles squash faces.
With the picture selected, click the small Layout Options button beside it and choose Top and Bottom.
This is the fix for a picture that leaps around while you type: text now sits above and below it, not around it.
Tear-off strips at the bottom
At the bottom of the page, go to Insert then Table and pick a 6-columns-by-1-row table.
Six narrow columns become six tear-off tabs, so six people can take your number.
Type your name and phone number in the first cell, then select it, copy, and paste into the other five.
Identical strips mean it does not matter which one somebody takes.
Select the table, and under Table Design set Borders to All Borders, then drag the table's bottom edge down to make the strips taller.
Visible lines tell people it is meant to be torn, and a taller strip is easier to grip.
Press Ctrl+P and check the preview shows one page only.
The preview is the only reliable test before you print thirty copies.
Check yourself
If you can say yes to each of these, you have finished.
- The headline is readable from across a room.
- What, when and where each sit on their own line.
- My picture stays put when I type.
- It prints on exactly one page.