When your band has finally produced its debut album or you've compiled that great road trip mix CD, make sure you capture listeners' attention by creating a vivid and eye-grabbing CD cover. The CD cover may be the first introduction a new potential fan has to your music. Microsoft Publisher offers quick and simple templates to help you create CD covers. The program's jumping off point lets you instantly transform and customise the cover to suit your style of music and personality.

  • When your band has finally produced its debut album or you've compiled that great road trip mix CD, make sure you capture listeners' attention by creating a vivid and eye-grabbing CD cover.
  • The CD cover may be the first introduction a new potential fan has to your music.

Open Microsoft Publisher and click "Publications for Print." Click the "Labels" option and scroll to "CD/DVD Labels." Browse the different "Insert" designs, which are preset template CD covers for both the front and the back of the jewel case. Double-click a CD cover, which opens in the Publisher workspace.

Click your cursor into the headline on the front of the CD cover, which becomes highlighted. Replace the text with your own, such as "Max's Jam Band Jam Tunes" or "Goin' to California Trip Mix." Highlight the new words and use the text toolbar at the top of the page to change their font, size, position and colour.

Pull down the "File" menu and click "Picture." If you have your own photo or image to use for the cover, such as a photo of your band, click "From File," browse to the image and double-click it, which opens it on the cover workspace. Resize it and drag it into place. Otherwise, select "Clip Art," type a word or phrase, such as "music notes," "guitar" or "microphone" into the "Search for" box, click "Go," scroll through the results and double-click an image. It appears on the CD cover.

  • Click your cursor into the headline on the front of the CD cover, which becomes highlighted.
  • Otherwise, select "Clip Art," type a word or phrase, such as "music notes," "guitar" or "microphone" into the "Search for" box, click "Go," scroll through the results and double-click an image.

Repeat the process on the back of the CD cover, changing the text to include your song list, band members' names, description of your music and a way to contact you, such as your fan club website, manager's phone number, e-mail address or upcoming tour dates.

Click the "Color Schemes" link on the "Label Options" pane on the left side of the screen. Give the CD a new colour look by double-clicking one of the colour groups, which automatically changes all of the colours on the CD.

Pull down the "File" menu, click "Save As," name the CD cover and save it to your computer.

TIP

Microsoft Publisher also makes it easy to set up labels for the CDs themselves, so you can customise your blanks. The label templates are found in the same location as the covers; double-click a circle and you'll be able to easily position your text and graphics to avoid anything being cut off from the CD's hole space.