Newsletter - Best program to use?

[west end lane]

Hi,

Sorry if this is in the wrong section mods, not sure where else to post it.


OK, I have been asked to produce a quarterly newsletter for a friends workplace. Only needs to be 2 sides, printable etc.

At first I was going to knock one out with inDesign, but I'm not that clued up with it apart from a few youtube tuts. The other option I was looking at is Mailchimp. Would be free, has templates, and I believe you can create a .pdf so it can be printed out (would need a separate program for this I believe?).

Are there any downsides to using a program like Mailchimp over an inDesign or quark? Just didn't want to get so far and realise I've made the wrong choice.


Thanks for any pointers for which to use.

Rob

[ralph.m]

Hm, there isn't really a place for this, as it's a web forum. Anyhow, as far as I know, MailChimp has a totally different purpose from programs like InDesign or Quark. InDesign &co. are for creating print layouts—that you send to a printer to be printed on paper etc. MailChimp is a service for sending out HTML email campaigns—a totally different animal ... and thus it's really not a program for creating layouts for print.

So it really depends on what format this newsletter needs to take. Is it an email newsletter, or something that will be printed?

[west end lane]

Hi ralph,

He actually wants a bit of both. A few copies to dish out to workers and an online version which will prob go out to customers. This is why I was leaning towards something like mailchimp as it would take care care of the online side and I could also print out a .pdf version. I also like the ease of use it appears to have/templates etc, as opposed to learning inDesign from scratch.

I can't see much in the way for inDesign newsletter templates (that are free anyway) in my google searches just now.

Cheers

[ralph.m]

I was leaning towards something like mailchimp as it would take care care of the online side and I could also print out a .pdf version.

Unless MailChimp has some special feature for this, be aware that saving a web page / HTML email as a PDF isn't like saving other layouts to PDF. Saving to PDF is the same as printing, and often a web page will lose all or most styling when being printed ... unless the designer has specifically created a print style sheet. You will probably lose background colors and other features that you see on screen, so be aware of that. It's also hard to get page breaks right.

Anyhow, if you need both email and print formats, I guess this is the way to go ... assuming the printed copy for the workers doesn't need to be the ant's pants.

[west end lane]

Thanks for the heads up on that ralph. I will do a quick mock up, print that off and see how it works out.

Cheers again.