The Print Shop Pro Publisher Deluxe 15 Review From Greeting Cards To Business Cards Eric Grevstad
Mon 10/21/02 -- Way before Windows, let alone PageMaker or Microsoft Publisher, there was The Print Shop -- a primordial desktop publishing program that let Apple II owners customize and create greeting cards on dot-matrix printers. Since 1984, millions of families have used Broderbund's classic creative package to produce millions of birthday-party banners and soccer-team certificates. But did you realize The Print Shop is not only still around, but aspires to produce brochures, presentations, and Web pages for your small office?
It's true. The latest version of The Print Shop is available in more CD and DVD variations than we suspect even Broderbund executives can count, with The Print Shop 15 ($30) joined and jostled by The Print Shop Essentials 15 ($20), The Print Shop Deluxe for Broadband 15 ($60), and others on up to The Print Shop Pro Publisher Deluxe 15, a $100 package billed as "the complete printing solution for your business."
The differences involve the accessory programs or other Broderbund titles bundled with the main module -- Deluxe includes the MovieShop Express video editor, while Pro Publisher piles Calendar Creator Special Edition on top of The Print Shop's own calendar templates -- and how many clip-art and photo images and project templates are provided, from Essentials' measly 1,000 templates to Pro Publisher Deluxe's 10,000-odd templates and 40,000 images plus online access to another 6,000 and one million, respectively. And while the consumer versions stick to greeting cards and certificates, Pro Publisher projects include more grown-up office printouts such as four-page brochures and sales presentations.
In terms of value for money, The Print Shop Pro Publisher Deluxe gives you everything from a friendly yet artistically versatile photo editor to a Windows-Explorer-alternative image, audio, and video file manager, from freehand drawing tools to the ability to export your creations as Adobe Acrobat PDF files or executable e-mail attachments.
In terms of ease of use, as long as you're happy to browse through a busload of templates or sample layouts, choose one, and customize it with your own text and images, you'll get good-looking results with minimal effort. But if you push The Print Shop beyond what it does best -- trying to create fancy documents from scratch, or to use it as a substitute for a "real" presentation package or Web editor -- the program changes from a pleasant surprise to a frustrating fizzle.
Ready, Set, Project
Like other desktop publishing and image editing programs, Pro Publisher Deluxe is happiest on a powerful PC -- it limped along on our 550MHz Pentium III desktop with Win 2000 and 128MB of memory, and we had to keep the program CD in the drive to load most of the provided templates and galleries even after supplementing the "typical" (800MB hard-disk space) installation with the "install art CD" option after foolishly choosing, so you'll want to proceed directly to the "full" (1.4GB) installation.
Normally, the program greets you with a "project picker" screen or menu of publication types, with kid- and family-oriented banners, cards, and certificates mixed alphabetically with business-based labels, menus, and presentations. A handy "create stationery set" option offers various mild and wild designs for matched letterheads, business cards, fax cover sheets, and envelopes; you can store and retrieve several "profiles" or sets of name, address, phone, and e-mail info plus a company logo or other graphic if you like.
After picking a project, you can begin with a blank page -- already set up as a tri-fold brochure or whatever -- or modify one of thousands of "QuickStart Layout" templates. These range from handsomely trim to jarringly, amateurishly wacky or colorful, and choosing among them is a mostly trial-and-error job of scrolling and previewing oddly named templates (such as the newsletters Talkin' 'Bout Green, Travel Via Water, Sinclair Realty, Fiorini in April, and I'm a Guru for You).
