Using page parts and building blocks in Publish by Zaweba

A pull quote, a coupon or a little calendar can take ten minutes to build by hand: a box, a shape, two or three text frames, the right colours and some careful lining up. Insert > Page parts in Publish by Zaweba drops a finished one onto the page in a click, and you spend those ten minutes on the words instead.

The menu holds a heading with a rule, a banner heading, a pull quote, a sidebar, a coupon, contact details, an attention getter, a speech bubble, a table of contents, a calendar for the current month, an advert and a signature line. Each arrives centred in the page margins, grouped so it moves as one, and coloured with the document's own colours, so it looks as if it belongs from the start.

Choosing the right part for the job

Think of page parts as the furniture of a publication. A newsletter leans on headings with rules to divide its stories, a pull quote to break up a long column, a sidebar for a short box of dates or tips, and a table of contents on the front page so readers know what's inside. A shop flyer wants an attention getter for the big offer, a coupon to cut out and a contact details block at the foot. A certificate or a letter needs a signature line. A noticeboard poster for a club might use the calendar for this month with the meeting dates written in.

The speech bubble and the advert block are the playful ones. A speech bubble coming out of a photo of the team captain livens up a sports club newsletter, and an advert block gives local sponsors a tidy, consistent space.

Making a part your own

Once a page part is on the page, it's made of ordinary objects: text boxes, shapes and lines. Click into the text and type over the placeholder words. Drag the group to where you want it and resize it with the handles. If you need to change one piece, such as the colour of a coupon's border or the size of a pull quote's text, ungroup it, make the change, and group it again so it keeps travelling as a unit.

Because the colours come from the document palette, they follow the publication. Change a named colour and every page part using it changes too, and picking a different colour scheme from the Format menu restyles them along with everything else. That's the main reason to use page parts rather than copying a box from another file: they stay in step with the document they're in.

Fitting parts into a layout

Page parts arrive centred in the margins, which is rarely where they'll end up. Drag them into position and let snapping to guides and margins line them up with your columns. A sidebar usually sits against an outside margin; a pull quote looks best between columns of a story, with text wrapping round it so the reading flow carries on. Check the wrap setting of the shapes and frames in a part if text isn't flowing round it the way you expect.

Don't overdo it. One attention getter on a flyer is eye-catching; three of them shout over each other. A newsletter page with a pull quote, a sidebar and an advert all competing can feel crowded, so pick the one or two that help the reader most and let the stories breathe.

Saving time across issues

If you produce something regularly, such as a parish newsletter or a monthly menu, page parts become the quickest way to keep each issue consistent. The heading with rule you use for story titles today will look the same next month, because it's built the same way in the same colours. The calendar for this month is especially handy on a regular notice sheet: insert a fresh one each month rather than redrawing a grid of dates.

Templates and page parts work well together. Start a publication from a template, then add the extra pieces the job needs from Insert > Page parts, and you have most of a finished layout before you've written a word. Publish by Zaweba is built for exactly that kind of quick, tidy work, and page parts are one of the clearest examples of it.