Remedy for boring church bulletins? A free service you should know.
Your church bulletin? Pretty boring. You can spice it up.
Meet Calaméo, a FREE service that takes your boring publications and (with your help) adds that spice.
As Easy As
- Create a free account.
- Upload your Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, Text or PDF document.
- Done. Your document now looks fancy, and we can “turn” its virtual pages.
Grab the link, and anyone can read it from Calaméo’s website. OR you can grab the HTML code that Calaméo generates for you, and embed the document onto your own website.
Want Sugar With Your Spice?
“But,” you say, “other services do this for me. Why use Calaméo?” A couple of weeks ago, our ministry’s digital “Spiritual Pilgrimage” project compelled me to seek such a service. I’d experimented with similar tools (including the popular Issuu), and was growing discouraged.
All of a sudden, I discovered Calaméo, which sold me on its ease of use and features:
- Did I mention free?
- Compatible with Apple devices (iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, etc.)
- Unlimited documents
- Embed document onto your website
- Embed videos within document
- Create a Table of Contents
- Link to pages within your document
- Link to outside websites
- Customize the document reader
- Add background music
- Custom background image
- Daily viewer statistics
- …y mucho más
Adding interactive content
Can My Parish Secretary Work This?
Yes. Let’s call her Martha. At bare minimum, if Martha just accomplishes those 3 simple steps listed above, your parish bulletin automatically gains The Nifty Factor and can be accessed online.
If Martha is willing to put in five extra minutes and can draw a square, she can add links or even YouTube videos to the bulletin. (It’s really that easy.)
The Possibilities
Imagine taking full advantage of & promoting interactive bulletins. If your pastor records a video version of his weekly reflection, Martha could add it to the bulletin. She could link to your parish PayPal account for online donations. She might link announcements [diocesan, parish group, outside apostolate] to the accompanying organization’s webpage. Your sponsors could even pay a bit more to have their ad turned into a hyperlink that directly connects readers with their website or Facebook page! Bottom line: Your bulletin can become more interesting, interactive, and accessible.
Nerd Alert
Calaméo’s cutting-edge. It’s the first service of its kind compatible with Apple devices. Now, its team is Beta testing a new reader which allows you to track views using Google Analytics, easier sharing via Facebook and Twitter, and overall cleaner design. Testers are excited. (So am I!)
Resources:
- [Video] 5 Minute Simple Tutorial
- Publish Magazines and eBooks Quickly with Calaméo
- Inserting Calaméo into WordPress.com Hosted Blogs
3 Comments on “Remedy for boring church bulletins? A free service you should know.”
Add to the Conversation:
Street Cred
This is so cool. Thanks for sharing! I’m definitely going to try to get my parish on board with this.
Thank you for finding this. I know some people who will quite a bit of use out of this service.
Thanks Angela! I’ll be converting our Newsletters into the forma!