Recently a coworker asked if I could help revise a handout she made.  Her handout was fine and the information was good, but she was looking for a more graphical representation.  She also didn’t like that the handout spanned two pages:

notetaking1

While we were discussing the updates needed, she mentioned that she really likes the way that Consumer Reports formats their product comparisons.  Since this is a handout comparing different tools for note taking, I tried to mimic their style and came up with this:

tools for notetaking2

I pared down some of the information to fit it to one page and kept the logos.  But it still wasn’t quite right.  I couldn’t get the chart to size like I wanted it to in Word, so I copied it to Publisher, which allowed me to customize my colors and stretch the margins for spacing so that the chart was more eye-catching and easier to read:

tools for notetaking3

How do you guys feel about handouts–should they be one-page only?

For the Publisher file of this document, contact April Aultman Becker.

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