by Laura Katz
To fairly decide which product is the easiest to use I decided to make three items, a greeting card, a poster and a banner. Each one of the products gives you three choices when you begin. You can use a predesigned card, change a card or start from scratch. For all three I choose to start from scratch. For all three I could choose pictures, text and fonts. Only the Printmaster had a cartoon face that I could alter. All of them had many different pictures for various subjects.
The Printmaster had the best variety when it came to different types of designs that looked painted or highly textured. Each greeting card was very nicely made. All three will make very nice greeting cards.
The second thing I chose to make was a sign to use outside of my classroom. Again all three had school type pictures. Again all three were very easy to use. The Printmaster has a talking voice that can walk you through the project. The Greetings workshop has a little dog that can assist you. It is kind of confusing when you are finished, as there seems to be no exit when you are done. The Print Shop has a tutorial to help get you started..
The last thing I wanted to make was a banner. I wanted to make a banner to hang outside my classroom. This is where I had a major problem. I wanted my banner to hang vertically (that is, up and down) not across the wall. I could only use The Print Shop by Broderbund. One of the things I liked best about Print Shop was that I could extend the banner for as long as I liked. I could also put text the opposite way on the banner by adding text and rotating it. Print Shop also has backgrounds for each of your designs. Print Shop wins hands down for making banners..
What do I recommend?
Well I admit I am biased, I have been using Broderbund’s Print Shop since I had an Apple Iie. (Which I still have and use at school). Print Shop has many more features than either Printmaster Gold or Greetings. You can change the text, add headlines, clocks, Initial caps, photos and do many types of special effects. They even have a seal maker for certificates. In fact the only complaint I have with Print Shop is that it has too many variations. They have so many types of borders to choose from it takes hours to try each one. The same problem is with the fonts as well. It’s like being in Baskin Robbins and choosing just one flavor. It takes me hours to go through all the different pictures just to find the right one.
I would not hesitate to recommend all three products. My favorite is Print shop by Broderbund, but all three will meet your needs.
Microsoft Greetings Workshop
Microsoft Greetings Workshop 2.0 is a home desktop publishing application from Microsoft and Hallmark Connections.
Hallmark-quality projects. Choose from more than 10,000 ready-to-personalize projects designed by the experts at Hallmark or create your own from scratch. Personalized Projects with more than 10,000 graphics, 500 photos, 125 fonts, backgrounds, borders and more.
Printmaster Gold
Printmaster Gold 4.0 is a collection of over 40,000 high quality graphics and photos, 4,000 professional templates, and powerful tools for all your print creativity needs. Also includes American Greetings® CreataCard™ Special Edition™ CD.
The Print Shop Publishing Suite
Broderbund’s The Print Shop Publishing Suite gives you the power to create Newsletters, Signs, Greeting Cards, 3M’s Post-it® Notes and Pamphlets. It features: Dozens of versatile project types, 26,000+ graphics and photographs, Powerful Graphics Browser, Over 180 TrueType fonts, 1,200 Quick Start Layouts, 2,000 quotes & verses, Import your own graphics or photos (JPEG,TIFF, BMP, PCD, WMF), TWAIN support for scanners and digital cameras, Internet Access and Online Greetings, Name and Address Lists, print labels for a list of people .
Laura Katz is a HAL-PC member and a third grade teacher at Milne Elementary School. She can be reached at laurak@hal-pc.org.