Journals and Fanzines

NightDragon · Post by **NightDragon** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 9:37 am

Any of you out there produce League Journals of Club Fanzines? If so which programme is best to use and how easy is it? Laters DD.

DaImp · Post by **DaImp** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 10:47 am

I use Freehand, but this is a professional product and expensive to buy so I am sure there are guys out there with a cheaper option. That said, I don't think you can get a better DTP programme.

CyberHare · Post by **CyberHare** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 11:03 am

I, along with the great volunteers who write for the mag, produce House Rulez Magazine www.house-rulez.com. The Magazine is released in PDF format which, in my opinion, is the easiest format to work with.

Issue 1 of the magazine I did with Quark Express and I used a 3rd party plug in to convert the Quark file to Acrobat format. Quark Express is a great program for page layout but if your also using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, or any of the other Adobe programs they arn't amazingly compatible. That's why for issue 2 I switched over to use Adobe Indesign. It is a little more complex to learn than Quark. Quark I figured out on my own in about 2 hours, Indesign I had to call a few friends who work in graphic design to get a nudge in the right direction. If you have any experience with illustrator though it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

As for how easy it is well I guess that depends on how involved you want your league to be and how elaborate you want your mag to be. Putting together House Rulez Magazine is a fair amount of work and I have help, a lot of great writers, and myself and other league members have graphic design experience. All that and it still takes months to put an issue together. Now if you worked only on the mag it would probably take about a week, but this is just a hobby, and people have real lives, right

I tried to do a league newsletter in the past and it never worked. But that's a byproduct of my league. Members just want to play games and have litle interest in keeping stats or being involved beyond that.

good luck,
-Brian

Acerak · Post by **Acerak** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 12:37 pm

Back in 1997, I used Pico, e-mail, and a lot of imagination. It worked very, very well.

These days, I'd use MS Publisher, but that's because I'm very familiar with it and I got it for nothing. (No, it wasn't pirated! Came with the job.) But I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

I hear Quark is great. I ordered a demo copy at my last job to explore its possibilities as a replacement for PageMaker. And then I was told we wouldn't have money in the budget, so I shouldn't bother :-\

GW uses Quark, I know that much. So it may come with a "typo toggle" that you can't switch off

Cheers!

-Chet

NightDragon · Post by **NightDragon** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 1:55 pm

I have just recently got a Packard Bell which came with Publisher, so I shall look in to that, any advice would be gratefully received. Being a neanderthall when it comes to computers I have never heard of Quark. Is it a CD you load in to the machine? Cheers boys. DD.

GenoNBBL · Post by **GenoNBBL** » Thu Jun 06, 2002 2:19 pm

I use Publisher 2000 to write our weekly newsletters, check out the downloads page on fragalot.com for examples.

And yes, it's easy to use. Our newsletter is a template I slightly altered, anyone can do it.

Warp Fiend · Post by **Warp Fiend** » Fri Jun 07, 2002 5:22 am

Acerak wrote:Back in 1997, I used Pico, e-mail, and a lot of imagination. It worked very, very well.

These days, I'd use MS Publisher, but that's because I'm very familiar with it and I got it for nothing. (No, it wasn't pirated! Came with the job.) But I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

I hear Quark is great. I ordered a demo copy at my last job to explore its possibilities as a replacement for PageMaker. And then I was told we wouldn't have money in the budget, so I shouldn't bother :-\

GW uses Quark, I know that much. So it may come with a "typo toggle" that you can't switch off

Cheers!

-Chet

Pico, the text editor of the gods!

Longshot · Post by **Longshot** » Wed Jun 12, 2002 3:43 pm

I do a mag for the league and i use Word for the moment.
this is called: TD BLOODY TD!!
does it reminds you something.

Venomous Breath · Post by **Venomous Breath** » Thu Jun 13, 2002 4:24 pm

I work for a Printing Company here in the UK and we use Quark XPress for the PC and Macs. It is very good for magazine style publishing, and IMO, much more powerful then Pagemaker and Publisher, especially with the recent release of version 5.

Unfortunately it is an industry based software package, and therefore the price is quite prohibitive.

Simon