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As a general rule, makers of desktop publishing software try to ensure that new releases are both more powerful and user-friendly. But using professional software for the first time can feel like cliff diving in the fog and many of us want a more simple application for our creative endeavors. Software Mackiev's Print Shop 2.0 for Macintosh includes several product enhancements for impressive page layout—that won't give you a headache.
There are four types of publishing activities from which you can choose: Celebrations, Stationery, News and Projects. Each one offers a variety of print and electronic projects, including greeting cards, banners, certificates, letterhead, business cards, newsletters, postcards, calendars and photo pages. MacKiev's new edition will even open projects created by Print Shop for Windows (versions 6-20). Similarly, users of Print Shop for Windows can open projects created with Print Shop 2 for Macintosh.
Print Shop 2 boasts over 19,500 stock images and photos, more than 9,500 templates, 240 typefaces, 2,000 quotes and verses and dozens of QuickStart layouts complete with text and graphic placeholders. Thanks to predefined QuickStart sample projects, even the most technophobic computer user can design visually compelling single or multi-page masterpieces without sweating over the detailed mechanics of creation. Choose a project activity from the Select a New Project screen, then pick a readymade QuickStart Layout. If you want to flex your creative skills, click Help Me Design instead, and let Print Shop present you with step-by-step options from existing artwork and layouts. There's also Print Shop's blank slate for those who prefer to create projects from scratch. Regardless of your choice of method, Print Shop presents helpful on-screen instructions for every project decision.
Print Shop 2 plays well with 10.4, and iLife '05. Users can drag images directly from iPhoto or the Finder into open Print Shop projects, import events and times from iCal, or use Spotlight to search for Print Shop documents by project type, creator, Avery template number, text block or headline content. The program's iDVD layouts create snappy-looking case inserts, covers, booklets and disc labels in styles that match iDVD themes. You can even import iTunes playlists, or documents and images in formats such as PDF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT, PNG and SGI. Print Shop can save your projects in PDF, JPEG, TIFF, PICT, PNG, BMP and HTML formats. Printed output turns out just fine every time because the program's new Precision Print Adjustment (Print dialog box) lets you move or "Nudge" a project horizontally or vertically in hundredth-inch increments.
To ensure that program commands are within reach of the Design Desk (or work area), Print Shop 2 sports special palettes and toolbars for common program commands. This application is designed with non-technical users in mind. For example, the Objects toolbar, which floats at the left side of the Design Desk, has illustrated buttons that you can use to insert or modify graphics, headlines, text blocks, shapes, borders and backgrounds.
Tools on the Text palette (at the right of the Design Desk) offer the usual assortment of typographic controls, typeface choices (from a WYSIWYG drop down menu), typestyles, line spacing options and alignment preferences. There's also a Quotes button you can click to insert a sentiment perfectly suited to the occasion at hand. An Effects palette has tools to adjust the color and opacity of selected elements, plus several special effects options (including attention- grabbing textures, edges and transparencies) for visual pizzazz.
If you need help arranging your text and graphic elements on a page, the Layout palette has rulers, guidelines and gridlines.
With the latest revision of The Print Shop, we can look like pros while still using a user-friendly, entry-level desktop publishing design powerhouse.
–CAROL S. HOLZBERG, PHD
The Print Shop for Mac, Version 2: 
Software MacKiev | www.mackiev.com | $60
Pros: Powerful desktop publishing in a package that even novice computer users will appreciate, users who print to select Canon or Epson inkjet printers can print directly on the surface of a CD
Cons: No support phone number listed on website.
Requires: G3 or faster, 192MB of RAM, OS 10.2 or higher, 490MB Free Hard Disk Space, 800x600 resolution, any OS Xcompatible printer
macHOME recommends: 0S 10.4, 512MB RAM
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