34 Creating article templates in Word

Although doing article design and layout in Microsoft Word may not seem like a professional approach, there are significant advantages to using it:

• Design features: Word features Themes that configure design elements such as font family, colours, and styles so that the articles won’t look like default Word output. You can also customize and create new Themes for your journal. Learn more about Styles and Themes and about customizing Themes in Word.
• Templates: You can create article templates in Word that you can apply to your submissions and that you can share with your fellow editors. Templates include Theme and Style information, and allow you to lay out standard elements such as journal information, article metadata, and copyright/licensing info. Learn more about working with templates in Word.
• Accessibility: Word includes many features to help you make documents accessible. Tools include title, sub-title, and heading styles, easily editable alt-text for images figures, and an Accessibility Checker. You can preserve many of these accessibility features in your galley PDF by using the option to save a file as a PDF (not printing as PDF). Learn more about creating accessible documents in Word more generally, and see also PKP’s guide on creating accessible journal content.
• Sustainability: Word is widely used and most editors already have some experience with it. The learning curve for features such as Styles, Designs, and Templates will be move quicker than for more specialized software. Because it is so widely used, you can easily search the web for help and ideas. In addition, many universities provide students and faculty with free or discounted access to the Word. Other software such as InDesign is difficult to learn, requires significant work to make its outputs accessible, and may be prohibitively expensive.