To Publish, or not to Publish? (MS Publisher 2000)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	MS Publisher 2000
Date:	16/08/00 (48 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good help, loads of fonts and clipart

Disadvantages: loads of fonts

A friend of mine gave me a box last Christmas - in it was Microsoft Office Premium 2000. Nice I thought - I'd been using Office 97, and while not a big Microsoft OS fan, the rest of their stuff is usually top drawer.

I was comfortable using all the mainstream stuff -Word, Excel etc. but DTP was something I was never really into. My dad, on the other hand, needed a lot of DTP type stuff done for various charitable events he was running, as part of setting up a new fund raising organisation, and as the only computer literate person in the family, it fell to me to do the donkey work. Beforehand, I'd always used Word for this, as I'd never owned a DTP program before, but now as I had one, I decided to give it a whirl.

Opening the package for the first time presented lots of different templates for lots of different kinds of publications, so there's no need to be Tony Hart in order to create decent looking presentations - simply take an existing one and modify to suit your needs.

There are all sorts of wizards available to help you get your project looking the way you want it with the minimum of fuss, but as with most software, if you want to get your hands dirty, you can, and create from scratch.

The layout of the toolbars is similar to other Office products, so anyone with Office experience shouldn't be too much in the dark. The online help system is excellent, if you need it, and you'll be up and printing in no time whatsoever!

As you may expect, it also comes with a load of clipart and fonts which should improve the look of your projects no end, although it has to be noted for those less experienced that installing too many fonts will seriously slow down your boot up times.

It's an excellent program with lots going for it. If you're in the need for some DTP, then there's no reason why you shouldn't do it with this.

Summary: