The Print Shop 15 review

Gallery

Verdict:

Stationary design without the smallest hint of sophistication.

Review Date: 22 Nov 2002

Price when reviewed: (£20)

Reviewed By: Peter Robins

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

I'll say this for The Print Shop: it can create something truly hideous faster than any other program around.

It's a brilliantly simple tool for producing cards, banners, posters, simple newsletters, but its true genius is for special effects. It does them quickly, easily, and in bulk. You want a woodchip background? A fancy watermark? Nasty distorted text? Maybe a sepia picture of a kitten, with a jigsaw pattern overlaid? You can have them. All of them. At the same time.

The Print Shop does its best to keep you under control. You open to a huge array of sumptuously detailed templates, many very classy. Start a greetings card, and you only get a front, an inside, and a back - the nightmarish folding-and-rotating stuff is hidden, even if you want to see it. There's an 'Insert Sentiment' option too, always ready with the right feelings for Christmas, if not for your CV.

Some things are made a little too simple, though. Ask at the start for 'Blank Pages', and you get one page - the option for more is greyed out. Detailed controls in other areas are similiarly eccentric. The Print Shop is for fun, not function - for complex, serious projects, stick with Word. But still: since when has Word had a woodchip option?

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