Puzzles and a Picture

I'd be the editor of the Hull church bimonthly (i.e. once every two months) rag. It needs to be of a format and appearance for the outsider. I did a working out of 12 pages that observed the rule of odd number pages primacy and some facing pages features. Page 1 (cover) I'd have a local map and service time, simple as that. On the back page I'd put a map of the remaining eight Yorkshire Unitarian Union churches - doesn't include Doncaster and Sheffield. That's page 12. I can fill every page; indeed I could do it monthly.

Problem is, I'm too controversial. It needs a safer pair of hands, although recently one issue had some words scrubbed out and the last one was pulped because of unusual events - why it was late and a bit filled-up with web chat. I didn't know that, and it was why I offered.

So instead I've offered content. Plus I was asked to contribute an autumnal picture as a cover. I've done that, and provided various forms of content. Two of these pasttime pages have been put on my website.

First is a crossword, which outsiders via Facebook Unitarians have found too hard. That's because it relies on local knowledge, or an online map for around Hull, and perhaps read my more historical pieces in Learning / Religion / Unitarian via the menus on my website. But it relies on wider denominational knowledge too. Surely these are bleeding obvious, and if you don't know the first minister at Hull (Presbyterian then) you know the heir. One is a surname and one a first name...

1. No priest he and to Jean Michelle Jarre's countryman with discovery.
2. House bird - no! of Hugenot 'dissent'.
3. First minister and heir.

You can find out about Melsa online - via a very significant Latin and English book. And this minister at Nottingham had a first name Gerald.

So the crossword is one item. It's using software installed, not a website. Also using software is a great maze-maker Amaze and by processing the picture result I can make it into bendy tipsy images. The result in a .PDF incorporates a sign from the old chapel building that I have processed to be correctly horizontal and the verticals to be parallel. That sort of processing used to be expensive but now is available free and plugs into a free Irfan View. A maze is really filler. I do have some old word searches software that actually does them within shapes.

The final product of the magazine editor is 12 pages in .PDF format. The present editor does things in MS Word and then makes it into .PDF, but my .PDF would come from many software directions and then be plugged together either in page order or in 12 page booklet order, which I'm guessing here now is 1, 2, 11,12, 3, 4, 9, 10, 5, 6, 7, 8. That'll be the professional printer's order. If they're done at A4 then the conversion to A5 is easy at the printing stage, but I think one has to consider the reader's ability to see. I would thus have all text at 14 point arial to make it easier to read.

Recently updated was a piece on Liberal Catholics that was in The Inquirer but became out of date. This is an example of  adding .PDF pages to others and making a new document.