Making Greeting Cards in Pages

Hi Roberta,

Don't let your frustration wear you down. Pages works great for greeting cards. It seems from your discussion that you're producing either tent or book fold cards. Neither is a problem.

First for your text. I recommend using the Layout view from the view menu. then click somewhere off the page (but still in the Pages window) so that the text cursor is no longer visible. Once that is done click the Objects icon in the tool bar and select Text. You will notice that a text box shows up on your page with the cursor blinking inside. Open the Inspector and click on the third icon from the left at the top of the inspector. This is the Wrap Inspector. Click in your text box to make sure it is selected, then click "fixed on page" in the inspector. You can then move the text box anywhere on the page you wish (by dragging) and you can rotate and resize it any way you want using commands in the various inspector panels.

Inserting images is similar. Simply click on the insert menu, and click on choose. Then find the image you want and click on insert. Bingo, the image is on the page. Select the image by clicking anywhere on it and then go to the inspector and make sure "fixed on page" is selected in the Wrap Inspector.

You can do the same basic operations as many times as you like and once each object is "fixed on page" you can move it or reorient it at will. Another poster in this group advised reading the manual and practicing. I entirely agree and think you will find Pages to be rather straight forward to work with.

One other thing you may want to consider is creating a template of your cards to save time each time you want to create a new one. The manual (or help system) provides excellent guidance on template creation and saving.

Andy H.

Well, the only thing I can advice is to read the manual and practice a lot.

Moving you Graphics and text around is explained in the manual.

You can read it in chapter 6 (Working With Graphics
and Other Media) where it is explained what the difference is between Fixed Objects Versus Inline Objects.

You can downlaod the manual here.

What is the recommended template to use for a birthday card?

I've looked at all the Pages templates, and none of them seem to be set up to do a Hallmark-like greeting card. I'm looking at printing the cover on one side of the sheet (the bottom half side 1), and the "greeting" on side 2 (the bottom half of the other side of the paper) so that when I fold the paper in half, it looks like a regular greeting card (well...except that it'll be large, 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper).

Is there a good template for this?

G-Rex,

I created my own template.

1. Set top, bottom, and side margins to .50 inches
2. Divided 8 1/2 by 11" paper in half both vertically and horizontally like this
+ using guidelines I drug down from the top and sides of the rulers there
3. Drug two additional guidelines from the top and sides to give me a 1/2"
margin on both sides of where I divided the page in half both vertically
and horizontally like this l l l. The same thing was done horizontally.
4. This gives you perfect margins for your cards
5. You can print two cards on it at a time or only one if you want to
6. The front of the card is typed in the right hand column
7. The created by is typed in the left hand column
8. Print this out
9. Create another template for the inside of the card ( you can just delete
what you used for the front and back of the card) and type your verse or
whatever on the right hand side of the card
10. You will need to flip your printed page over to do so. I do not know how
your printer works in order to tell you how to flip the card to print out
right. What I ususally do is print the card on a blank piece of paper doing
the front first then flip it like I think it should be printed out and print the
inside. Then if I have made a mistake on how it should be flipped I can
see it without wasting cardstock.
11. I usually use the Avery Note Cards. They come two cards to a sheet. You
can also make your own by just cutting your cardstock in half.
12. I have created two separate templates for both the front and inside of the
card. All I have to do is just change what is on them and I am good to go.
13. The same thing can be done if you just want a big half card.

I hope this helps.

I have made the one page fold it two times greeting card since my Print Shop days. I kept growing out of Print Shop and wanted more of my own images. Most any WP or paint or drawing program that you can have multiple pages in the same document works. I did a lot on AppleWorks WP and especially usint AW Drawing. Pages works fine too. Start with a piece of paper and fold it twice. Then number pages 1,2,3,4. 1 being the front and 4 the back. Sketch out your idea and open up the paper. Pages 1 and 4 will be on the top of the paper up side down. Make four pages in your program and put them all on the screen at the same time. AW and Pages do this well. I use very small or zero margins. The font size needs to be larger too. Adjust as needed to the size of the full page. Text blocks are a must. Info on pages 1 & 4 need to be flipped both H and V before printing. The easy part is printing. Adjust your printer settings to print 4 pages on 1 piece of paper. Always do a print preview - it saves a lot of paper and ink. Save your print settings or you will have to adjust 4 pages to 1 piece of paper each time you print. Natch you save a Template. Enjoy. Works great for me.

G4 QuickSilverr Mac OS X (10.4.3) All the way back to the II+

Excellent. Thank you for going through all the trouble to post that. I will give this a try.

Much appreciated!

G-Rex,

You are very welcome. I hope it works for you like it does for me. If you have any questions once start setting up the template, just post a message and I will see if I can answer it.