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Printfolio and The Print Shop for Mac Version 2

Susie Ochs — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:23:10 -0500

The main Printfolio window launches the appropriate app for the project you choose.

The Print Shop lets you search for the proper accessories for your dog’s fake ID.

Printfolio and The Print Shop for Mac can both help you design and print your own greeting cards, business cards, stationery and envelopes, brochures, disc labels and sleeves, newsletters, postcards, banners, and chicken cacciatore. (Well, maybe not that last one.) And the nice thing about these apps is that you don’t have to be a graphic artist to make good-looking projects.

Printfolio. BeLight Software’s Printfolio is really a suite of apps: four print-projects titles and the free version of Image Tricks, an image editor that uses Core Image filters (the effects in Photo Booth).

Printfolio’s main window contains four categories of projects, each category covered by a dedicated app. The disc-related projects (labels and case inserts) are handled by Disc Cover. Desktop publishing tasks (newsletters, brochures, certificates, flyers, catalogs, letterhead, menus, and postcards) get Swift Publisher. Mail Factory tackles the mailing projects (labels, envelopes, postcards). And you can probably guess what Business Card Composer does.

Selecting a project from the Printfolio window launches the assistant for the appropriate app, but Printfolio doesn’t close, resulting in two open applications in your Dock. If you aren’t sure whether to use Mail Factory or Swift Publisher for a postcard, you can launch both and see which would better suit the project. You may even decide to use a template from Swift Publisher to design your postcard, and then use Mail Factory for the addresses (it can import contact info from Address Book, Entourage, Excel, FileMaker, vCards, Eudora, text files, and others). All the apps are integrated with each other, and with Mac apps like Address Book and iPhoto - Disc Cover can import info from iTunes, Toast Titanium, iPhoto, and iDVD. Each app saves projects in a proprietary format but can also export them to PDF, JPEG, or TIFF.

All the titles in Printfolio have similar interfaces with a main window to work in, an Inspector, and Text and Color palettes. Mail Factory’s interface is a little different, but it’s more about working with mailing lists than straight-up design. They’re all easy to use, with intuitive controls and menus, and good on- and offline help resources. The plentiful clip-art and design templates didn’t wow us, although the intuitive controls make it easy to tweak them, or to start from scratch. Business Card Composer had the best prefab designs, and options for folded cards and CD cards too (which The Print Shop lacks).

All of the apps included in the Printfolio suite are available separately (Business Card Composer and Disc Cover for $34.95, Mail Factory for $39.95, and Swift Publisher for $44.95), so if you know you’re only interested in one, you’d save money going à la carte.

The Print Shop for Mac Version 2. This one launches as a single window of projects arranged in a color-coded grid. “Celebrations” projects include cards, gift tags, banners, and certificates. “Stationery” has the normal letterhead, envelopes, and labels, and also business cards and Post-It notes (which require a 3M Personalized Note Kit, available at www.no1network.com at $79.50 for 100 sheets of six, or www.cdw.com at $199.99 for 500 sheets of six). “News” has signs, postcards, newsletters, booklets, and pamphlets. And the “Projects” section covers disc labels and case inserts, calendars, quick prints (for printing multiple copies of a photo in various sizes), photo pages, and the ubiquitous blank canvas. The photo pages let you print album pages, collages, or funny spins on your photos, like a Wanted poster or a driver’s license for your pet.

We appreciated the ability to search the abundant clip art by size and shape, and the workspace is totally customizable. Another nice touch is the comprehensive iLife integration, including templates for DVD labels and cases that match the themes used by iDVD. Projects are saved as PSF files, but The Print Shop can also export them as PDF, JPEG, PICT, PNG, TIFF, HTML, or BMP at 72 to 1600 dpi. Most projects offer QuickStart Layouts, which are ready-to-go templates; a Help Me Design option that gets basic project info from you and then generates a basic design for you to tweak; and a Blank Page option. Right-click an image and choose Photo Workshop to crop your photos, adjust colors, and apply artistic effects. The Print Shop also includes templates for specific media from Avery, Fellowes, Memorex, and others. (Printfolio’s apps use standard sizes, which you can adjust, but it’d be easier to just choose the correct paper type from a list.)

The bottom line. Both programs are easy enough for kids about 10 and up to get into, but still let you create some pretty sophisticated designs, although we liked the prefab designs and clip art better in the cheaper Print Shop. Printfolio is a capable bundle, but the apps can be purchased separately as an alternative. Either way, you may never set foot in a Hallmark store again.

> THE PRINT SHOP FOR MAC VERSION 2
COMPANY: Software MacKiev
CONTACT: www.mackiev.com
PRICE: $59.95
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2 or later, 192MB RAM
Lots of possibilities, choices still easy to navigate. iLife integration. Universal binary.
Almost too many choices.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

> PRINTFOLIO
COMPANY: BeLight Software
CONTACT: www.belightsoft.com
PRICE: $84.95 standard, $89.95 retail
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.3.9 or later (Mac OS 10.4 required for Image Tricks)
Suite of four apps plus Image Tricks. Saves money if you’re interested in more than two of the apps. Universal binary.
Standard version has fewer templates and clip art items. No iDVD themes in Disc Cover. Some templates and clip art are a little corny.

Adobe InDesign CS3

John Cruise — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:42:00 -0500

You can now import multiple images at once. What a time-saver.

While there's much to like about InDesign CS3, the latest incarnation of Adobe's page - layout application, overall its new features are much less awe-inspiring than in previous updates. That's not to say the new feature list is short or unimpressive. A bevy of productivity enhancements make InDesign CS3 a significantly better program than its predecessor. But as for must-have new features, there aren't many.

Let's start with the sexy stuff. Designers will like the addition of several Photoshop effects: Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Satin, Directional Feather, and Gradient Feather (which lets you fade an object from opaque to transparent). All of these effects are available in the new Effects panel that replaces the Transparency palette (palettes are now called panels). Also new is the ability to apply effects independently to an object or its fill, stroke, or content (text or picture). For example, you can apply a bevel effect to text and a drop shadow to its frame.

Importing text and picture files is easier and more efficient thanks to the ability to select multiple files in the Place dialog box. When you place multiple files, you can place them in whatever order you want, and instead of displaying a generic graphic or text icon, as in previous versions of InDesign, the pointer displays a thumbnail of the graphic you're placing or the first few words of a text file. You can also specify the default fitting behavior of graphic frames (for example, Fit Content to Frame), as well as a default crop amount and reference point. Double-clicking the handle of a graphics frame fits the frame snugly to the graphic within.

The ability to place InDesign files into InDesign layouts is a major addition that is helpful for placing ads, cover artwork, and the like. The feature obviates the need to save InDesign pages as EPS or PDF to use them in other layouts. You place InDesign files in the same way as other graphic files, and once placed, an InDesign file is listed with other graphics in the Links panel.

Although previous versions of InDesign offered powerful table-formatting capabilities, table styles and cell styles were conspicuously absent. Now that hole is filled. Because table and cell styles are implemented exactly like paragraph and character styles, users of previous versions of InDesign will have no problem getting up to speed with them. For convenience, the Control panel now provides more table-formatting controls.

The Find/Change feature has been beefed up with the ability to find and change object attributes such as fill color, stroke width and style, and transparency effects. The Query menu in the Find/Change dialog box includes several useful default find/change operations (such as double hypens to an em-dash, or straight quotes to typographers' quotes), and you can use GREP (General Regular Expression Parser) searches to run pattern-based find/change routines and consolidate multiple searches into a single operation. Also new is the ability to save any find/change criteria as a query for future use. On the downside, a new set of unintuitive icons and the additional options in the Find/Change dialog make a quick search-and-replace of text cumbersome.

More...

You can apply any of several new Photoshop effects independently to objects, fills, strokes, text, and pictures.

While we would've liked to see a cross-reference feature in InDesign CS3, long document production has been improved with the addition of text variables and additional options for bulleted and numbered lists. Text variables let you place and automatically update repeating text elements such as headers, footers, boilerplate text, and date stamps. Bulleted and numbered lists can extend across multiple stories and documents, and numbered lists can have multiple levels, as in an outline.

At first glance, InDesign CS3 doesn't look much different than its predecessor - not counting the new program icon and a revamped Welcome screen. However, the behavior of the palettes - or, rather, panels - has changed slightly, and the app includes new options for customizing the interface. We're not convinced that the new panels are an improvement over those in previous versions, but at least they're the same as the panels in Photoshop CS3 (where they're still called palettes) and Illustrator CS3. Oddly, you can open only one panel at a time from a stack of docked panels, and instead of collapsing down into thin, vertically labeled tabs, docked panels collapse into square icons that take up more space than the tabs did. The new Menu Customization dialog box (Edit > Menus) lets you show or hide individual menu commands and assign colors to commands, and you can customize the Control panel by showing or hiding various controls.

In addition to the aforementioned new features in InDesign CS3, many previously available features have been tweaked for the better. Examples include the ability to loop sequences of nested styles, the option to prevent master objects from being selected or modified on document pages, thumbnail previews in the Pages panel, the option to organize paragraph and character styles into groups, and the option to specify the resolution of exported JPEGs.

The bottom line. Although InDesign CS3 lacks the glamour of previous updates, it makes up for it with the addition of a broad range of useful features that will make users more productive - if not ecstatic. We can understand why Adobe is reluctant to cannibalize its other applications when adding features to InDesign, but given that the competition (read: QuarkXPress) has closed the feature gap, Adobe might want to reconsider for the next update and let the InDesign developers cherry-pick some of its siblings' juicier features.

COMPANY: Adobe
CONTACT: www.adobe.com
PRICE: $699 a la carte, $199 upgrade, available in three CS3 bundles ($1,199 to $2,499)
REQUIREMENTS: G4 or faster or Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4.8 or later, 256MB RAM, 1.6GB disk space
Additional Photoshop effects, table, and cell styles. Ability to import InDesign files. Variable text. Customizable interface. Universal binary.
Lacks dazzling new design and typographic features. Some features (text variables, GREP searches, nested style looping) are hard to use.

Quark Interactive Designer

Rob Buckley — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 21:53:01 -0500

Quark Interactive Designer lets you pretend you're a Flash programmer - without the heavy lifting.

QuarkXPress has been around for nearly two decades and has a fantastic array of tools for creating print layouts that nearly every designer in the world can use. So how about giving those designers a tool for making their layouts interactive? Better still, why not allow them to export that interactive content as standard Flash movies? That's where Quark Interactive Designer, an extension to QuarkXPress, steps in.

After you install QID, a new Interactive layout is available in QuarkXPress, as well as a new Interactive palette and several minor new menu options. The Interactive palette is key, since it contains almost all of QID's tools. All you have to do is select an object in an Interactive layout, give it a name in the palette, and then choose an action to assign to it (and when that action should take place) using one of the pull-down menus or one of the palette's other tabs. The usual range of event options, such as double-clicks, mouse-overs, and mouse-outs, can trigger actions. Using the Script options, you can string together multiple actions into a single response to these events. You can also arrange for actions to occur as soon as the finished project displays, in response to key presses, or when the user exits the project. You can even customize the cursors used by the project. The upshot (and main selling point) is that you don't have to write a single line of ActionScript, Flash's programming language, or use Flash's timeline to orchestrate the actions.

Getting a grip on QID is surprisingly easy. Experienced Web designers, particularly those who are used to working with tools like Adobe's Dreamweaver and GoLive, should grasp QID quickly. That's not to say you'll get the most out of it immediately. Many little options, such as image sequences and buttons, are tucked away, and you may need to study the manual to fully fathom how to use them. But an experienced QuarkXPress user can put together relatively simple interactive designs with QID in just a small amount of time.

As a coding tool, QuarkXPress 7 with QID is surprisingly versatile. With the composition zones in QuarkXPress, for example, it's possible for multiple designers to work simultaneously on the layouts, whether that's the interactive version, the Web version, or the print version. You can also use the image-editing tools and all other layout features in QuarkXPress, making QID a far more versatile design-creation tool than Flash. But it's no real competitor to Flash, which Quark itself admits. While getting rid of the timeline makes it easier for users to create projects and to learn how to use the program, it also makes it impossible to create complicated Flash movies. The lack of ActionScript also makes QID less powerful.

QID's make-or-break point is the output. You can include the interactive content as Flash movies on the Web pages that QuarkXPress can export, or you can export them as pure SWF movies. The SWF option also allows you to export the movie with an embedded Flash projector for either OS X or Windows. Disappointingly, embedded videos can only be exported in Flash 6 or 7 format, not Flash 8, and they're exported as separate files, not kept within the main SWF file. Also, you can't tweak the HTML code from within QuarkXPress - you have to export the project first and access the HTML in another app.

The bottom line. QID is easy to learn and to use, although it has a few kinks - something to be expected in a 1.0 release. If you know QuarkXPress but aren't interested in becoming an expert Flash designer or coder, QID could be for you.

COMPANY: Quark
CONTACT: www.quark.com
PRICE: $199
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later, 32MB RAM, 130MB disk space, QuarkXPress 7.02 or QuarkXPress Passport 7.02
Features the same layout power and simplicity of QuarkXPress. No programming skills required. Designers can work on the same projects. Universal binary.
Slightly limited range of Flash.

Acrobat 8 Professional

John Cruise — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:29:45 -0600

The new Combine Files wizard lets you combine different kinds of files into a single PDF or a PDF "package."

Acrobat 8 Professional is Adobe's tool for creating PDF (Portable Document Format) files, but it's much more than that. Acrobat Professional 8 is a versatile and complicated application, so on top of our own experience, we asked two other regular Acrobat Pro users to weigh in for this review: Don Fluckinger from PDFzone (www.pdfzone.com) and Duff Johnson of Document Solutions (www.document-solutions .com). If anyone knows Acrobat, it's Don and Duff.

The most noticeable change is a revamped user interface. "The average user will appreciate the streamlined interface and more accessible help and step-by-step tutorials," says Fluckinger. "Perhaps the most important single change," adds Johnson, "is the effort Adobe has put into helping new users get more out of Acrobat than just the very basics."

The other important new feature is the ability to bless PDFs so that the free Acrobat Reader can save a user-completed form before printing or submitting it to a server. "That's a big deal to a niche group of users and the software developers who serve them," Fluckinger says.

One somewhat surprising new feature of Acrobat 8 is Acrobat Connect, which you can use to hold browser-based Web conferences. The base version costs $39 per month or $395 per year for individual users, while Acrobat Connect Professional, which is scalable and includes additional features, has a license-based cost structure. Using Connect is easy, though we had to fiddle with settings to see each other.We were also able to share each other's screen, although the display was choppy even with high-speed Internet connections. Connect has room for improvement.

The bottom line. Acrobat 7 users will want to upgrade to Acrobat 8. Eventually.

COMPANY: Adobe
CONTACT: www.adobe.com
PRICE: $449, $159 upgrade
REQUIREMENTS: G3 or faster or Intel processor, Mac OS 10.4.3 or later, 256MB RAM, 1GB disk space
More user-friendly interface. Several incremental enhancements. Ability to save forms using Reader. Universal binary.
Even with a streamlined interface, Acrobat 8 is an intimidating app. Long (if not as steep) learning curve. Minor bugs.

QuarkXPress 7

John Cruise — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 19:53:10 -0500

QuarkXPress 7 finally has soft drop shadow support.

Adobe's InDesign has been pummeling QuarkXPress with a superior feature set and aggressive pricing. But finally, with QuarkXPress 7, Quark has landed a solid counterpunch directly on the chin of its adversary. Quark has released an update to its flagship page layout app that has several useful new features, many improvements to old features, and raises the bar in the battle for page layout supremacy. QuarkXPress 7 close the features gap with InDesign and, in some cases, include options unique to QuarkXPress.

The ability to make objects translucent (opacity control) and to apply soft drop shadows to text and objects are among the most appealing InDesign features that previous versions of QuarkXPress lacked. QuarkXPress 7 has not only implemented both of these features, it has embellished them with options that aren't available in InDesign. For example, you can apply opacity to anything that has color applied to it - box backgrounds, pictures, frames, and even individual characters. When creating drop shadows, you have the option to synchronize the angle of all drop shadows in a spread, to specify a scale and a skew (slant) value, and to wrap text around a shadow. While we're on the topic of transparency features, it's worth noting that unlike InDesign, QuarkXPress 7 does not let you apply blending modes to items.

Although QuarkXPress 7 doesn't include much in the way of new typographic features, it how has full support for OpenType fonts (previously, you could access only 256 characters within an OpenType font.) Also new is the Glyphs palette, which lets you choose a font and displays all of its character forms or subsets of characters; you can also save favorites. Typographic improvements include the option to apply ligatures as character attributes, plus cross-platform ligature support.

The ability to share specified areas called Composition Zones within a layout among multiple QuarkXPress users is one of the most touted new features in QuarkXPress 7. Think of a Composition Zone as a picture box whose picture is a QuarkXPress layout. Composition Zones open up interesting workflow possibilities; for example, an art director could use composition zones to assign different sections of a magazine to several layout artists. While the art director works on the master layout, the layout artists can simultaneously work on their sections. Whenever a layout artist saves a composition zone, the composition zone is immediately updated in the master layout. Unfortunately, when you create a composition zone, the resulting QuarkXPress file doesn't include a page picture, which means the layout artist who works on it can't see the surrounding page.

While it's a relatively simple concept, the implications of Composition Zones are huge, and implementing Composition Zones into a workflow is not trivial. For example, a Composition Zone could contain a layout that, in turn, includes a Composition Zone that contains another layout with an EPS graphic created elsewhere which uses several fonts and spot colors, and so on and so on. In such a scenario, file management could become a nightmare. For workgroups, Composition Zones offer tantalizing possibilities, but we're not convinced this feature will have the impact some are predicting.

Job jackets are QuarkXPress 7's answer to the preflight feature in InDesign. A job jacket is an XML file that contains detailed information about a project's anatomy, including such data as colors, style sheets, color management settings, print settings, page size, page count, contact information, and so on. A job jacket surrounds a QuarkXPress file with information used by the various people who interact with the file, from art directors and layout artists on the front end to prepress personnel on the back end. Unlike preflighting, which usually occurs at the end of the design process, a job jacket can be implemented when a project begins, helping ensure that the project stays within predefined parameters during the design process. Designers, be forewarned: Creating and using job jackets is not easy - the feature is aimed at art directors, production managers, and service bureaus. That said, the ability to standardize all aspects of a project from initial creation to final output is extremely useful.

Quark has done a nice job of updating the user interface. The most significant improvement is a retooled Measurements palette that obviates the need to open dialog boxes when you need to modify objects. When you move the pointer over the Measurements palette, a row of icons pops up along the top of the palette. Clicking an icon changes the controls displayed in the palette. For example, when you're working on text, you can not only apply character and paragraph formatting, you can also modify tab settings as well as text box settings such as frame, text runaround, and drop shadow. When a picture box is active, you can use the Measurements palette to make almost all of the modifications available in the Modify dialog.

Also new is the ability to create palette groups and palette sets. A palette group is a collection of palettes that works like a single palette. You can drag the title bar of a palette group to move it, double-click the title bar to collapse it, or click the close button to hide it. It's easy to add and detach individual palettes from a group, and you can alternately expand or collapse any palette within a group by clicking the arrow next to its name. The Palette Sets feature lets you name and save the position of all open palettes and libraries. For example, you can create a palette set for working with text and another for working with pictures. You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to a palette set for quick display.

The synchronization concept, introduced in version 6, is expanded to include all text or pictures, formatting, and box attributes. This feature, however, remains hampered by the necessity to synchronize all the text in a box rather than just selected text. Tables are improved in QuarkXPress 7 as well. You can break tables across columns and pages, add synchronized header and footer rows, rotate tables, and make quick selections for easy formatting.

The bottom line. If you've remained loyal to QuarkXpress, you now have many more reasons to stick with it. However, it's unlikely that former QuarkXPress users who have jumped ship for InDesign in recent years will feel compelled to switch back. The battle between QuarkXPress and InDesign is forcing both Quark and Adobe to improve their products. It will be interesting to see how Adobe responds to QuarkXPress 7 when InDesign CS3 is released next year. Jab or haymaker?

The Measurements palette offers significant improvements.

COMPANY: Quark
CONTACT: 800-676-4575, www.quark.com
PRICE: $749, $249 upgrade
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.4 or later
Many new and improved features, enhanced interface. Less expensive that previous versions.
QuarkXPress Passport is required for multilingual hyphenation and spell checking. No blending modes. Steep learning curve for some new features. Performance is occasionally sluggish.