Mirror Printing (MS Word)
for Hand-cut Letters

A Tutorial by Kerri Russ
Originally published at Pages of the Heart

I love the look of handcut template or diecut letters on my layouts. Unfortunately, I cannot afford all of the Sizzix alphabets much less the wonderful Dayco diecutting machine with the wonderful Chelsi or Cherry alphabets. Coluzzle and EZ2Cut make some great alphabet templates too, not quite as easy as diecutting machines and fairly affordable, but at $20 per template in most cases, it would still take awhile to have a wide variety. Templates are affordable but still limited in variety.

So... what’s a gal to do? Use the tools she already has at her disposal and if you’re reading this, you do have at least part of what you need. You can type your letters in MS Word, print them on cardstock or patterned paper and cut. Yes, you still have to cut but at least you have an almost unlimited variety in fonts! And preprinted cardstock letters are very easily portable when you go to a crop.

BUT... if you print it on the front of the patterned paper, you’ve got black letters and not the pattern (unless you scour the web for “open” fonts) and if you print it on the back, the letters are backwards.  Even if you do find an "open" font and print on the front, you have to be hyper careful about trimming off all of the printed letter.

Here is your solution: Type the title letters in Word and either print them in a Mirror Image using your printer settings or rotate them on the screen to print on the back and then cut.

Printing with a Mirror Image

1. Open Word and in a document, type the letters or words you’d like to cut out.

2. Click File > Print (not the print button).

3. Click the Properties button, in the upper right of the print dialog box.

4. If your printer allows mirror printers, you should see a Features tab. If so, click it.

5. In the upper left is a section called Orientation. In that section, click the checkbox for Mirror Image. (NOTE: If you don’t see a Features tab, look on all tabs for a Mirror Image box.)

6. Put a piece of 8.5x11 cardstock into the printer paper tray.

7. Click the OK button to print.
    

Using WordArt for Reverse Images

1. Open a new document and make sure you are in Print Layout (in Word versions after 2000, click View > Print Layout).

2. Activate the Drawing toolbar (View > Toolbars > Drawing).

 

Step 2 - Select the Drawing toolbar.

3. Type the word or words you want to cut out

4. Highlight the word(s) by selecting them.  If there is only one word, point to the middle of the word and double-click to select it.  If there is more than one word, point to and double-click on the first word then drag across all of them to the end.  You'll notice it will select each word separately.

Step 4 - Highlight the word(s).

5. Click the Word Art button on the Drawing toolbar.  It looks like a tilted blue A.

Step 5 - Click the tilted blue A on the Drawing toolbar.

6. The WordArt window will open displaying all of the WordArt style options.  Click the open letter option in the upper left then click OK.  NOTE:  For this process, you are only interested in the open letter option (upper left) but feel free to explore the other options at another time.

Step 6 - Select the open letter WordArt style.

7. Next is the Edit WordArt Text window.  You will see the word(s) you typed and highlighted already in the box.  This is where you can format the text.  Leave the word(s) highlighted and click the Font drop menu to choose the font you want.  It doesn't matter what font you choose... WordArt will automatically make it an open letter font in the finished WordArt.  Don't worry about the size right now; you you can resize the text in the next step.  When you've chosen the font you want, click OK.

Step 7 - Format the text.

8. Click the word(s).  Now you should see something like this:

Step 8 - WordArt text with controls, ready to resize.

9. To resize your word(s), click and drag one of the 8 sizing controls around the text.  You'll see some dotted lines appear as you stretch it.  These indicate the size of the text. 

10. If you drag the controls in the middle of the sides, the word(s) will stretch tall or wide.  Drag the Controls on the corners to size in any direction (up, down, and diagonally).  As you stretch the text, watch the rulers on the side and top of the document for the size of your words.

Step 8 - Stretch the word(s) to the size you need.

11. Time to Mirror the letters!  On the Drawing toolbar, click Draw > Rotate or Flip > Flip Horizontal.

Step 10 - Flip the word(s) horizontally.

12.  Your word(s) is now mirrored!  Feel free to resize it further by clicking and dragging the circle controls.  You can also drag the green circle on the top or the yellow diamond on the bottom to give your letters a slant.

Step 11 - Ready to print!

13. Put a sheet of 8.5x11 cardstock, vellum, patterned paper or any other paper your printer can use into the paper tray of the printer.  Click the Print button.

14. Cut out your letters!  To cut out the open parts of the letters (e, A, B, p, etc.), use a knife cutter, such as Xacto.  To make them look fun, try using eyelets, brads, buttons or other embellishments as the open parts, too.

Have fun printing your letters with Word.  With so many fonts available online and with art programs, your options for lettering are endless!

Kerri Russ, Independent Scrapbook Designer
March 1, 2004