Newsletter process

Reducing the size of a picture for the newsletter

Pictures add a lot of value and appeal to the newsletter. Pictures should be encouraged as much as possible.

Most pictures are taken at a screen resolution that is far higher than is needed or even noticable once the picture has been inserted and sized in the newsletter. Nevertheless, the full electronic size is still there, badly bloating the size of the newsletter and making it difficult or even impossible to deliver by email and clogging up the website. Before inserting a picture into the newsletter, please reduce the size of the picture.

For most newsletter pictures, a screen resolution of 300-400 pixels (width) is sufficient.

• If you have Microsoft Office 2010, it has a built-in picture management tool.
  1. Double-click to open the picture file.
  2. Select Picture/Resize
  3. Check 'Percent of original height & width' and start dropping the size.
     • You should see a 'Size setting summary' in the bottom right showing the original and new sizes. Keep playing with the percentage setting until the new size is where you want it. Click OK to see the new size.
  4. Click File/Save (or Ctrl-S) to save the file at the new size. Now you can import it into the newsletter.

Other picture management programs work pretty much the same way. Irfanview is a very good example (and is free for non-commercial use). Look for the command to "Resize" or "Resample".

Converting the newsletter to .pdf

We usually create our newsletter in MS Word, Publisher or some other word processing software. While many people could read the resulting document, Adobe's .pdf format is more universal.

There are many conversion tools available. Our current recommendation is a tool called BioPDF. Download BioPDF from their website and load it to your computer following the instructions in the program. (It is free for non-commercial use.)

1. Open the newsletter in your word processing program.
2. Click File/Print (or Ctrl-P) and select BioPDF as your printer, then click OK.
3. A second pop-up will appear asking you where to save the .pdf and under what name. You can allow all the other settings to default. Save it to your computer.

Loading the newsletter onto the website

Once you have the newsletter in .pdf format on your computer:

1. Log in to the MCBA website and click the 'Upload file' link (bottom left on the screen - right-click and open in a new tab so this page stays open as well.).
2. Click the 'Browse' button next to Source Filename and navigate to the saved .pdf.
3. In Description Filename, type BeeHerderYYYYMM.pdf (where YYYY and MM are the year and month of the newsletter respectively). Note: capitalization matters.
4. In Licensing, select 'Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0' (or other license if that's not right)
5. Click 'Upload File'. The system will spin for a few minutes as the file uploads. When complete:
6. Click the 'Newsletters' link (top left) and then click the 'edit' tab.
7. In the line that reads '''Read the [[Media:BeeHerder201110.pdf|Current Edition]]''' (Oct 2011), update the month both in the filename and in the parentheses.
8. In the table lower down, copy the row for the most recent month and paste it over the next blank row (with a   comment). Update the month both in the filename and at the end of the link.
9. In the 'Summary' field (near the bottom of the page), type something like 'added November' and click the Preview button.
10. If everything looks good (in particular, if the new links are blue, not red), click the Save Page button.

Time permitting, you can also look at the content in the newsletter to see what other pages should be updated. Most often, that's the Calendar page and sometimes the Announcements section of the Main Page.