Free image editing software: GIMP

From contributor: Jane McGookey http://www.key-web.net | mcgookey@key-web.net A great open source image editing program is GIMP it has as powerful at photoshop but it is free (download from http://www.gimp.org). I highly recommend it for anyone doing web or newsletter graphics/images

Templates from Chuck Green

http://www.ideabook.com/ Source of fantastic template sets from the incredible designer, Chuck Green, for PageMaker, Quark, and InDesign. Each CD set, for each program, costs $59. This website also has lots of great resources and training for church communicators.

Christian Computing Magazine

www.ccmag.com This is a free, distributed-online publication. Most of the magazine deals with aspects of computing in the church other than communication precisely, e.g. hardware, church-related software, the latest in technology. On the website you can download past issues. Very helpful if you want to keep up on ways to equip your church. Yvon Prehn [...]

Templates: Stock Layouts

http://www.stocklayouts.com/ Professional, very well done templates. Not inexpensive, but the quality may be worth it. Templates work for all graphic design programs from Word to Publisher to the Adobe and Quark programs.

Templates: Microsoft website

www.microsoft.com From the Microsoft home page, go to downloads and from there to the template section. There you will find lots of good, free templates in many categories including business cards, brochures, postcards and many others that can be adapted to church use. New ones are added continuously, so check back often. The templates are [...]

Software training: Lynda

http://www.lynda.com/ To learn how to use your software in step-by-step lessons that you can access on line and take whenever you want. You can do a few lessons at a time (they are only a few minutes each) or the entire series for a software title at one time. You can repeat what you want, [...]

Great prices for software: Consistent Computer Bargains

http://www.ccbnonprofits.com/ A wonderful company and the best place to get the best deals on software for church communicators. They can help you get the charity license prices for MS Office and MS Publisher.

Software for communication creation: Adobe products

www.adobe.com The premier collection for producing high end, professional publications. Software includes InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat, plus others. In the future, I would like to have detailed sections for each one of these programs. For wonderful training that goes into depth on each program and that costs only $24.95 a month for unlimited classes [...]

Software communication creation: MS Publisher

www.microsoft.com This is one of the best, all around programs for church communication creation. If you are used to using MS Word, this will give you lots more flexibility. It is also great for sharing templates and publication creation skills among a church communication team. Consistent Computer Bargains (see their entry) can help your church [...]

Image, clipart editing: WMF Image Editor

http://www.companionsoftware.com/ Source for WMF Image Editor, a great little program that allows you to edit clipart that is in the WMF format—Windows Metafile Format. It allows you to break apart clipart, delete parts, rearrange parts, recolor parts. Most of the clipart you download from the http://www.microsoft.comclickart/ site is in the WMF format.