Notebook
You might notice that most of the notebooks in the market are quite dull with blank pages or lines which is the most practical for all users. There are some notebooks with background images on every pages but most probably with pictures of Donald Duck or Mickey Mouse and would not really suit you because you are not a kid anymore. So how to have an interesting notebook that suit your style? The answer is to make it by yourself. You can customize everything and then all your friends will ask where do you get that nice notebook.
Here’s how to do it:
- Start your Microsoft Word and a blank page is created automatically.
- A notebook is usually smaller in size so you would want to change the size to A5 or any other size that you want. Click on the Page Layout > Size > A5.
Changing document size
- Next is to make the cover page and the back page. I’m going to make a cover page with background image and some texts. If you want to be very artistic you can customize the cover page using Photoshop or other graphic software. To do add background image you can select Page Layout > Page Color > Fill Effects and then select the Picture tab. This method however only suitable if the picture you want to insert have the same dimension as your paper. If your image is larger or smaller than the paper size you can use Watermark. Select Page Layout > Watermark > Custom Watermark. In the Watermark pop-up box select the Picture Watermark button and then select your picture. Then adjust the scale to fit the size you wanted. Deselect the Washout button if you want your picture to be at full opacity. Note that using the Watermark tool will make all your pages to have the same background image. You’ll need to create a new document if you want different image for your back cover.
Adding background image
- Next step is to add some texts to the cover page. Create a Text Box (Insert > Text Box > Draw Text Box) anywhere you want to place the text and then type onto it. Use the WordArt tool to customize the appearance of the text (Insert > WordArt). Remove the fill and stroke for the Text Box to make it invisible.
- Once you done with the cover page it’s time to customize the inner pages. Create a new document with the same A5 size. Add background image using the same method as before but I would prefer to check the Washout button to dim the image so that it will not interfere with any writings on it.
- Some people would prefer notebooks with lines so here is the trick to add lines to your paper. In Microsoft Word 2007 the insert horizontal line function is hidden in the Page Border properties box. Select Page Layout > Page Border. When the Page Border properties box has appeared, click on the Horizontal Line button at the bottom left corner of the box. Then Horizontal Line box will appear and select the most basic line and press OK.
Adding horizontal lines
- When the horizontal line is already on the page, double-click on it to change its color or other setting. Then you can just Copy and Paste the lines to fill the rest of the page. If you have an A4 size printer you might want to create another page so that it will be easier for your to print the document.
Pages with complete lines
- When all done you can print the document by yourself or go to a printing shop to print the cover page on thicker paper and add plastic front and back cover.
- Bind them together with ring binder and you’ll have your own custom notebook.
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Great description on how to make your own notebook, thanks! I create custom pages all the time but now I’m finding that I want something a little more portable and smaller. I’ve been ordering a custom notebook from http://www.bookfactory.com and it goes everywhere with me. Great quality and they allowed me to make many modifications to the standard template.