Microsoft Publisher is a much underrated tool for text publishing. Publisher can be used for business cards, newsletters, brochures, flyers, certificates, labels, menus, programs - inshort anything you want to print. It comes with layouts and themes preset, which can be editied. This site shows how to manipulate the basic elements of Publisher. 

This site takes you through the basics of designing and publishing with this software. It uses pictures all the way through to illustrate the points made.

Topics covered start with opening Publisher, tools, pop up menus, text frames, text formatting, picture frames, word art, backgrounds and tables to name a few. It compares Publisher with Word 7 the whole way through, so you get two packages for the price of one!

This tutorial looks like a good start to using Publisher as it covers all the basics.