Some ideas for a memory book or family reunion book

I've just finished the memory book for our 55th anniversary reunion and am so pleased with the results that I want to share it with you.

I've done the memory book for our reunions for many years (25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55) and have tried various ways of composing and printing it. The book this year is 116 pages with lots of pictures. I use WordPerfect as I've never mastered Word well enough to feel confident with it! After getting it completely finished and ready to be printed, I printed it in a PDF file - saved it to a disk and took it to the printer. The results are much better than the pasted up type I've done previously. Those were copies of a copy so it left a lot to be desired as to the clarity of pictures.

The original files (no matter what program you use) must be converted to PDF files with Adobe Acrobat. It's a spendy program but well worth the approximately $200 if you use it very often. Once the pages are converted (all as one document), they won't move around - the margins, photos, etc. stay as they are. The printer can print them directly from the CD you furnish them.

I used a small shop in the Vancouver area called Copy Express on NE 117th Avenue at 99th Street. The final product, with a colored picture of our school on the cover, came to approximately $5.06 per copy for the 170 copies I had printed. We also had the expense of some pictures from the disposable cameras which had to be developed. Mailing the books cost us $1.42 each for Media Mail. Envelopes for the books cost about eight cents each from Costco.

We charged $7 for each book and had a luncheon get-together when the book was ready. I was able to "deliver" about 35 books then. This made the price for each book average out so the $7 covered the expenses.

Last modified on Wednesday, November 01, 2006