Genealogy Books - The Print Shop Deluxe 15

Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Great design software
Comment: I have used this program for almost a year and find it the easiest program I own to create a variety
of print projects. I also have Microsoft's Office Suite Professional version which includes
Publisher, etc. I can't do nearly as many creative things with that extraordinarily expensive suite
of programs as I can with The Print Shop. Try designing a greeting card as an example. In most
programs you are limited to the format of the particular template, whether quarter fold or half
fold. In Publisher I had to design my own template to do a top fold half fold card. Moving
graphics or text in Publisher or Word is a nightmare of formatting, etc. In The Print Shop, I can
place anything I want in any position I want. I can rotate text or images any direction I like. In
addition, if the many images that come with the program are not enough, you can simply go to the
Microsoft clip art page online and either copy/paste any clip you like or just drag any clip right
into The Print Shop project you are working on. Not many other programs are that easy to get along
with. I don't use it to do my photo editing and I don't believe it is marketed as a photo editing
program. However, there are some effects that can be applied to photos that I don't know where else
I could find. This program, for a few dollars, has put hundreds of dollars of software on my
computer out to pasture. It really does it all and does it well. Worth many times the price they
charge.

Customer Rating:

Summary: great for some, not for others
Comment: Even though there were a lot of negative reviews I bought this product mostly because PC Magazine
rated it one of the best (5 stars) and the price can't be beat with the discounts. Here's my take
if you read the other reviews like I did.

This program tries to make it easy to start a project
(with a walk through wizard) but with any publishing software, you have to know what you are doing.
That includes understanding your printer settings, etc. Yes, printer settings can be changed with
the program (as with most any software) so it will take some time for inexperienced users to
understand how to use it properly.

I must say, this program offers a ton of nice clip art, photos,
etc than most other programs in this class. It has 2 CD's full of clipart but you'll need a lot of
disk space to install it all. The broadband version of PrintShop accesses the clipart from the
internet but with big hard drives available these days, save yourself some headache and buy the
regular software, not the broadband one. If you don't have a lot of harddrive space (a few gigs to
spare) I wouldn't suggest buying this.

There is no user manual included and the help files are not
as in depth as I would like. I find it hard to believe that a complicated program such as this does
not have at least a printable copy of a user manual. So be warned, if you not an experienced
software user this product might not be for you.

I also saw some negative reviews on photo
editing/printing. I haven't tried it so I can't compare. (I use other software for photo editing
and printing). There are a lot of great photo editing software packages available. If you're
purchasing this for that reason, you might want to look somewhere else. This thing is for printing
out greeting cards, postcards, and things of that nature. I guess you can be thankful that there is
photo editing features with this at all.

Final take - For someone who has used software since they
were young and does for a living, I could figure most things out on my own. If you are
inexperienced, you may find this product frustrating. But for the price, you get a lot of nice
clipart and wizards to help for most basic home desktop publishing needs (greeting cards, postcards,
calendars, etc).

Customer Rating:

Summary: Very passable for what it is.....
Comment: Anyone buying this product with the idea of competing with higher end products (Photoshop,
Coreldraw, etc..) will be bitterly dissapointed. If you buy it for relatively simple graphics
applications you will love it. I do all our company's fliers, memos, and counter stands with this
program. It is quick, it's easy, and I don't have to spend a great amount of time to get simple
projects done. I use this in conjunction with the Works Portfolio and have had great success. It
is also really nice to be able to "save as" in .pdf format. Good Job Broderbund!

Customer Rating:

Summary: Not a lot of bang for the buck
Comment: I have previous versions of the Print Shop and thought it was good. I purchased PrintShop Deluxe on
DVD, Ver. 15 because I couldn't get my old program to work on my new computer with WinXP. The new
version seems to rely only on its built in graphics, photos and templates. There are not a lot of
tools to do your own thing. I also had immediate problems with the software in scrolling through
the fonts -- the program freezes. This is apparently a well-known problem to Broderbund as their
"fix" on the web page is to delete several of the fonts. When I asked why (through their customer
service site) there was no fix and they thought it was acceptable to delete fonts, they blamed it on
XP and then invited me to buy their newest version. I guess I thought that's what I was doing when
I was at CompUSA. Now I know...they keep the old [stuff] out there until it's sold out.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Overrides you printer's settings!
Comment: I installed this without any problems on my XP run system. Tried printing envelopes on my brand new
Canon i950 ink jet. The Print Shop overrides your printer's settings, so I had to keep the printer
set on "Paper" mode, but there's a lever in the printer carriage that must be changed when printing
envelopes. If it this doesn't match what the software settings are, it won't print! I tried going
along with the settings recommended by The Print Shop, and didn't switch the carriage to "envelope"
mode, and the ink came out in splotches. It also prints about 2 inches down into the envelope, so
if you want to add borders or art in the corners, it ain't happening. I didn't have this problem
with Works. According to the self help section on the Broderbund website, this margin is not the
fault of the software, but is a printer problem. I called Canon (who answered immediately and were
very helpful BTW), and I determined that I was setting the printer correctly according to Canon's
instructions. The problem goes back to the fact that The Print Shop overrides your printer's
settings. The link to the website in the software works intermittently, and I'm using a broadband
connection and it's always on. Sometimes I click on it and nothing happens. So, I've uninstalled
it and I'm sending it back to Broderbund this week (they have a 90 day money back guarantee). What
a hassle!

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