This month's Publisher web roundup includes a Web cast on creating marketing materials, a short review of the history of Publisher, tips for creating greeting cards and to use and configure the "nudge" distance, and a set of brochure, flyer and newsletter templates.

 As always, if you know of a great Publisher tip, story, or post that we didn't list here, please post a comment below.

The cropping tool got a significant upgrade in Publisher 2010 with the ability to pan your image inside the crop window. First, a couple of definitions to be sure that I'm being clear:

• Crop: To trim vertical or horizontal edges of an object. Pictures are often cropped to focus attention on a particular area.
• Pan: To move the image around in the cropping window. This helps you to focus the attention on a particular area by moving the image.

Let me show you how this can work to help you get the most from your images.

Publisher is a great tool for creating and printing business cards, address labels, name tags. Here's five tips to help you print your cards, labels, or tags with a minimum amount of time and frustration.

Calendars are always a hot search term for Publisher users. You want to create yearly calendars, school calendars, insert calendars into newsletters, and put calendars on business cards. Here's how you can do all those things.

Greeting cards offer an excellent way to reconnect with old friends and thank loyal customers. You can send cards for birthdays, to congratulate a client, or just to let friends or colleagues know you're thinking of them.

Publisher has lots of greeting card templates, from Valentine's Day to thank-you cards. To help you create cards you'll be happy to send out, here are five quick tips for Publisher 2007, and of course the concepts work for Publisher 2010 as well:

Oh yeah, the NFL pre-season is over, the college season started last weekend, and the NFL season starts tomorrow when the New Orleans Saints travel to Green Bay to play the champion Packers. No doubt you'll want to have a party tomorrow or maybe this weekend. Office can help.

At the end of July I asked you in a poll what author you'd like to see next in my "Famous Authors Write Help" series. Jane Austen was the winner with 50% of the vote.

So, here's my take on Jane Austen explaining the difference between printing multiple copies and printing multiple pages.

I'm back from dropping my son off at college and thought it was a good time to roundup Publisher stories and tips from around the Web, giving you a look into articles on troubleshooting, some tips and tricks for creating great looking publications, and some quick reference cards available through Amazon.com. Be sure to look for my next roundup next month, too.

I'm about to drive my son to Fresno, California, to start college. Of course I've already bought him a copy of Office 2010 Home & Student. But Home & Student doesn't have Publisher. Ah, fortunately for him and for college students and their parents, there are up grades available from Home & Student to Professional Academic  that offers Publisher, plus Outlook and Access for free! 

Here are the eligibility requirements. In the US, Canada, and Iceland, you have to buy Home & Student between July 1 and September 25^th and redeem the upgrade by October 21^st 2011 (other countries have other eligibility dates). You also have to validate your student status online. You then get a product key for downloading Publisher, Outlook, and Access 2010.

-- Bob deLaubenfels

When a text box, or AutoShape for that matter, in your publication contains more text than it can display, Publisher stores the extra text in overflow. You can manually move your text out of overflow and back into your publication by autoflowing the text into another linked text box. This way you can start a story on the front page of a multipage newsletter or other publication and have the story continue on another page.