Create a Web Banner in Microsoft Word

I’ve reviewed some of the things that can be done using Word 2007 – but it is not a web tool.  Well, it’s not necessarily a web tool.

What if you are stuck and need a simple web banner?  You can actually create web banner ads directly in Microsoft Word.  The following tutorial shows you how to do just that.

Step 1

Open up Word 2007.  You will automatically have a new blank document.  Go to the tab Page Layout, choose Size  and choose More Paper Sizes at the bottom.

Step 2

From the pop-up window Page Setup, choose Paper, Paper Size and then Custom Size.  There enter 7in by 2 in. This gives you approximately 195px by 680px. You can turn on showing pixels when shapes or boxes are inserted. Simply go to the Office button, choose Word Options and then click Advanced. There you have to scroll down until you see Display, then tick the Show Pixels for HTML features box.

Step 3

Next click on the Margin Tab and set all margins to zero.

Step 4

Then click on the Layout Tab and set the size for the header and footer to zero as well.

Step 5

Go back to the Page Layout Tab and set the Page Color to a blue.

Step 6

Now we want to add some visuals. Since the background is blue, let’s add some clouds. Go to the Insert Tab and select Shape and insert round shapes filled with white and no outline color.  Align those along the bottom of the banner.

Step 7

Let’s add an easy gradient to the background. Go back to the Page Color in the Page Layout  Tab and  select Fill Effects from the drop down.

Step 8

Choose your gradient from the pop up window. You have tons of choices here. I chose a horizontal blue to light gradient.

Step 9

Go back to the Insert Tab and insert a Simple Text Box.

Step 10

Add some text, give it a styling and make it stand out. Place it to the left, or wherever you think it would be noticed.

Step 11

Now you will notice that the text gets aligned to the top in the text box. To change the vertical alignment, right click on the text box and choose Format AutoShape.

Step 12

Now you can choose top, center or bottom alignment from the pop up window.

Step 13

I’ve added more shapes (e.g. a speech bubble – cloud shape) and added more text. You can also change the transparency of shapes and their fill color. To do so, repeat the previous step and  play with the transparency slider. It works kind of backwards in Word, meaning 0% is opaque and 100% is transparent.

Conclusion

The end result is your very own web banner. The only way to get a gif, jpg or png is to either export it as a PDF or hit the PrintScreen button on your keyboard and paste it into MS Paint. There you can crop and change it and save it as an image.

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