I was able to get some time this week to finish the latest iteration of the downloadable version of the postcards, at least to a decent beta. Here’s the link (right-click, and choose Save As)

Ok, instructions.

As I have been getting a lot of traffic / interest / requests from folks an ocean or a border away from me, I tried hard to make the form as language-neutral as possible. There are, however, a couple things that need to be said about the form, so here goes:

PAPER SIZE:
This form was created for a standard 8.5″ x 11″ size paper, as that’s what I have to experiment with. If you are dealing with A4, which is slightly narrower and longer (I think), you might need to trim off a bit at the bottom. If you are using other world standard sizes, I would be delighted to get feedback on how it works (or doesn’t work) and make adjustments accordingly.

PAPER WEIGHT:
Although it is sort of usable when printed on standard text-weight copy paper, drawing and writing do show through. To combat this, I recommend printing on something slightly heavier that offers greater opacity, like white cover stock. You should be able to get it in small quantities, often by the sheet, at the local office supply, copy or art/craft supply store.

PRINTING:
Turn off page scaling, auto-rotate and center, and any other settings that move the print area around. It should print at 100% scale, and I left plenty of margin to accommodate print area restrictions.

This form is designed to be printed on two sides. If your printer duplexes, great! If not, remove all but one sheet of paper from your printer (or if it has a manual feed, use that.) Print side one, then flip the page left to right, and feed it back into the printer for side two. This can get confusing if you don’t do it often, so I added in an alignment function to help. Locate the little pink dot on each side. If the sides are printed correctly, you should be able to hold the sheet by that corner between your thumb and forefinger, and be able to touch both dots. If you hold the paper with two fingers, and can’t cover both pink dots because one is in some other corner on the page, it’s not correctly duplexed.

DRAWING:
The mile project will be screen printed in one color, and that color will be black. So, when drawing, I recommend using only a dark pencil, or better yet, a black pen or marker. The darker and bolder the lines, the better it will look.

MAILING:
The form is designed to be drawn on, then fold up (with relative ease, I hope) into a handy self-mailer. If you do it right, no envelope is required!

Enough explaining. Download, print, and have at it. Just follow the numbers, use your eyes, have fun, and you should hopefully get through it without too much trouble…

Be Sociable, Share!

•