The Mac is known as the best option for creating graphics and brochures, etc. These were packages like Illustrator, Photoshop, Quark Xpress, Pagemaker and some of them disappeared, some upgraded. Then there were windows versions of the same packages, however one thing remained that was these were cannons when all that the user wanted was a hammer. You had to pay for the whole lot of features that you did not need, when all you wanted was to place some text and images.
Following the Mac App Store, one application that has shown that it is not just the big corporations that make amazing tools was Pixelmator. It rivaled Photoshop and offers most of the features that an average home user would require and for windows users, there is Paint.Net.
Today we are looking at Publisher Plus from Pearl Mountain Software, which is a Mac only software for creating Publications, Magazines, Brochures, etc. If you have been using computers when they used to be 8-bit and ran off TV's as monitors, then you would know of a Brodurbund package called Print Master, this ran on the CGA/EGA resolution and allowed you to create brochures and print then to a Dot Matrix printer. This is not as lo-res and limited as that would be today. The beauty of this package is its simplicity. It is made for one task and one task only - To allow you to create a publication.
When you start the application, it looks like what Office or Apple Works products would look like, it offers a list of templates that you can choose from to base your publication from.
Then choose a type of publication you want to create, and you have the options to change or add elements to it. There are 5 major elements, they are Text, Shape, Free Hand, Calendar and Background. The calendar is a new type, which displays a calendar. You can choose from the 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12 month format which is handy to include a calendar on your publication. You do not have to manually set up cells and align the boxes, and lay them out. The colors, alignment, display can all be tweaked by selecting a couple of options.
The Background allows you to change the dull white background to a solid color or a pattern or a custom image. Though using a pattern is a prettier option (there are plenty of subtle and lovely patterns to choose from).
The shapes and text are what you would expect in most applications, and have all the attributes presented in the inspector to change.
There are a whole lot of features that are under the surface and not apparent, you can lock layers, rotate, add gradients, etc. You can also export your design at the end to a variety of image formats and also as PSD or PDF formats.
The app is quite moderately priced, it is quite simple and intuitive to use that even kids can use it. There is a large collection of templates that are available so you would not have to spend a lot of time creating your own, you could simply use one of the pre-exisiting templates. Having worked with Quark, PageMaker and Print Master, You have time to get a coffee because you are done, not because it is still processing and creating the outputs.
There is one thing that stumps me, which is the Publisher Lite available on the Mac App Store with 45 templates is available for free. The 6 In-App purchase options (Template Packs) are $0.99 each which add up to $6.00. The Full pack with 170 templates is $19.99 which does not justify the $39.90 price to buy from the website.
SUMMARY
Software : Publisher Plus
Version : 1.5.0
Publisher : Pearl Mountain
Website : http://www.pearlmountainsoft.com/publisherplus
Platform : Mac OS X (10.6.8 or higher)
Price : $39.90
Mac App Store : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/publisher-plus/id862880554?mt=12
Following the Mac App Store, one application that has shown that it is not just the big corporations that make amazing tools was Pixelmator. It rivaled Photoshop and offers most of the features that an average home user would require and for windows users, there is Paint.Net.
Today we are looking at Publisher Plus from Pearl Mountain Software, which is a Mac only software for creating Publications, Magazines, Brochures, etc. If you have been using computers when they used to be 8-bit and ran off TV's as monitors, then you would know of a Brodurbund package called Print Master, this ran on the CGA/EGA resolution and allowed you to create brochures and print then to a Dot Matrix printer. This is not as lo-res and limited as that would be today. The beauty of this package is its simplicity. It is made for one task and one task only - To allow you to create a publication.
When you start the application, it looks like what Office or Apple Works products would look like, it offers a list of templates that you can choose from to base your publication from.
Then choose a type of publication you want to create, and you have the options to change or add elements to it. There are 5 major elements, they are Text, Shape, Free Hand, Calendar and Background. The calendar is a new type, which displays a calendar. You can choose from the 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12 month format which is handy to include a calendar on your publication. You do not have to manually set up cells and align the boxes, and lay them out. The colors, alignment, display can all be tweaked by selecting a couple of options.
The Background allows you to change the dull white background to a solid color or a pattern or a custom image. Though using a pattern is a prettier option (there are plenty of subtle and lovely patterns to choose from).
The shapes and text are what you would expect in most applications, and have all the attributes presented in the inspector to change.
There are a whole lot of features that are under the surface and not apparent, you can lock layers, rotate, add gradients, etc. You can also export your design at the end to a variety of image formats and also as PSD or PDF formats.
The app is quite moderately priced, it is quite simple and intuitive to use that even kids can use it. There is a large collection of templates that are available so you would not have to spend a lot of time creating your own, you could simply use one of the pre-exisiting templates. Having worked with Quark, PageMaker and Print Master, You have time to get a coffee because you are done, not because it is still processing and creating the outputs.
There is one thing that stumps me, which is the Publisher Lite available on the Mac App Store with 45 templates is available for free. The 6 In-App purchase options (Template Packs) are $0.99 each which add up to $6.00. The Full pack with 170 templates is $19.99 which does not justify the $39.90 price to buy from the website.
SUMMARY
Software : Publisher Plus
Version : 1.5.0
Publisher : Pearl Mountain
Website : http://www.pearlmountainsoft.com/publisherplus
Platform : Mac OS X (10.6.8 or higher)
Price : $39.90
Mac App Store : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/publisher-plus/id862880554?mt=12
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