Page layout program for non-designers?

[MrMook]

I am the graphic designer for a nationwide non-profit group that recently re-branded prior to my arrival. We have a lot of different offices and programs around the country, and they all need regionally specific forms and documents along with our standard promotional materials.

My dilemma is this: I want to maintain control over these regional materials, to ensure they are aligned with our new brand, but I also want to allow these regional offices to edit these with their own information, which can change on a daily business.

To solve the brand-continuity aspect, I've been laying out each document, and sending them PDF's. Then they send me corrections/changes, and so on. Its time consuming.
Everybody has Word, but Word is terrible, and everything comes out clunky, and there's no guarantee that the logo I place in the template won't end up squashed to make room for more copy. We dont have the resources to get every office hooked up with InDesign, and teach them all how to use it either.
Is there any other program that I can use to create modifiable document templates? Is it easy for non-designers to use?

Thanks for your help!
-MrMook

[Kool]

There's a lot of non adobe pdf programs. I'm not sure if one of them can give you the option of locking certain aspects of it and leaving others editable. If there isn't there ought to be. Do a search on pdf editors. :)

[Broacher]

In a word: No. That's why we have printing.

There have been many attempts, some valiant, some horrible enough from a prepress side to be considered hallucinogenic to some people.

The thing is, the problem isn't so much technical as it is behavioural. No matter what you throw at a large, diverse, physically separated group of people-- as soon as their is the SLIGHTEST possibility for them to have any kind of creative input into a branding effort, they will pounce on it and immediatley discover new ways (some you would never, never imagine) to send all your brilliant branding strategy work down the toilet, toot sweet.

PDF forms, are about as close as I can think of in terms of a non-print solution, but even there I would never underestimate the ingenuity of a closet-creative who's feeling scorned. Some people see ANY kind of file as a challenge. Maybe it's that whole 'files are free game' attitude that's cultivated in our culture-- who knows. But as soon as you move that file to paper-- it becomes, at least in a perceptual way, the property of the organization-- and as such, it has a lot more built-in protection against brand vandalism.

Well, I mean-- we'd call it vandalism, they'd call it 'self-directed innovation'.

[fredrich]

If you make a PDF form, people can edit and write text however they want from Adobe Reader, without being able to move around the logos and stuff?