TrestleBoard

What it does

Five things make up a trestle board: the page it sits on, the words, the lists that come back every month, the photographs, and the PDF at the end. Here is each of them.

The page

Blocks go anywhere, and the body text flows around them. This is the whole reason the program draws its own pages instead of borrowing a word processor's: a photograph dropped into the middle of an article pushes the words aside, and they close up again behind it when you move it away.

A close view of a newsletter page where the paragraphs break around a photograph, leaving a clean margin down the side of the picture.
The paragraphs break around the picture and leave a clean margin down its side.

The words

Click into any box and type. Everything can be undone — including the things most programs will not let you take back, such as moving a photograph, replacing a whole list, or changing the typeface of the entire newsletter.

Choosing a typeface shows you the typeface rather than a list of names, and every sample is drawn by the same engine that will draw the PDF. Twenty families ship inside the program.

The fonts and text styles window. On the left are the kinds of writing in this newsletter, such as Body text and Cover title; on the right a list of typefaces, each shown in its own face, and a preview of the user's own words.
On the left, the kinds of writing this newsletter has. On the right, the faces available for them — each drawn in itself, with your own words in the preview. Sizes are a − Smaller and + Bigger pair on a fixed ladder, never a box to type a number into.

The lists that come back every month

The officers table, the birthday list, the committees and the district calendar are not typed as tables. They are filled in by a wizard that asks one question per screen, in large type, and lays the answers out for you.

A wizard screen asking for one lodge officer's name and telephone number, in large type, with big Back and Next buttons underneath.
One question, one screen. Back and Next are the only ways to move.

Every wizard ends by reading back what it is about to write, so nothing lands on the page unseen.

The last screen of a wizard, listing back everything that was entered so it can be checked before anything is put on the page.
The last screen of every wizard: here is what I am about to write. Nothing is written before you agree.

Once a list exists the wizard is not the only way back into it. The same information can be edited all at once, in rows big enough to read.

The list editor, showing every lodge officer at once in large rows, with Add and Remove buttons beside them.
Every officer at once, when that is faster than being asked one at a time.

Photographs

Your original file is never altered. It goes into the newsletter untouched, and every change — crop, straighten, brighten — is a recipe applied when the page is drawn. That is why a picture can be re-cropped from the original months later, and why nothing you do to it here can spoil the photo on your computer.

The photograph adjustment window: three large sliders for brighter or darker, more or less contrast, and more or less colour, above buttons to turn the picture a quarter turn or start over.
There is one Fix photo button for the common case — a hall shot that came out dark — and these three sliders behind it for everything else.

The PDF

One command produces the file you email to the lodge. It is drawn by the same code that draws the screen, with the fonts embedded and the text selectable, so it opens the same way on whatever the brethren read it on.

Three pages of the finished newsletter side by side as they appear in the exported PDF: the cover, the officers page, and the birthdays and committees page.
The cover, the officers page, and the birthdays and committees page, as they come out.

You can see all of this without making anything. Install the program and open Help → Show me an example newsletter. It is a finished issue for a lodge that does not exist, and you can take it apart without harming anything.