I originally wrote this up on Amazon.ca a few days ago and thought that, since most readers would not go to the Canadian site, this review would be helpful posted here for a larger audience.
After spending approximately 40 hours working in the 2010 version of the program (we have been using this product since the 2003 version), here are my initial observations:
PROS 1. It is definitely more stable and it is more integrated into the Office suite 2. It has lots of little additions that make using it much easier – for example, it has no problems with a bilingual document and switches keyboard, language and speller seamlessly. Changing pictures is a snap and you can link an Excel table to Publisher – change numbers in Excel and when you open Publisher, it updates your Excel tables. Excellent. 3, It is much easier to use than a real publishing solution such as InDesign, which has a really steep learning curve and costs about $1K more per license. If you know Word, you can use this product. Everyone in your business can use Publisher, while very few will have the knowledge to use a professional desktop publishing software solution such as InDesign by Adobe. This is a really big advantage from both a cost and time perspective. 4. The learning curve is very low, especially if you are already familiar with the Ribbon. 5. Contrary to popular belief and snickering on the part of printing houses and so-called experts, Publisher does a very good job at creating documents for printing at a professional printing house – it has Pantone and CMYK built into it and an excellent commercial printing wizard – our documents are of the quality of, for example, The Missing Manual series, using full colour. Some of our printers cannot believe that our documents were created in Publisher. 6. If you need to make a lot of changes to a document to satisfy clients, Publisher makes it really easy – but it is flawed, some basic automated functions do not exist. Your alternative is to do everything in a competing product like InDesign. 7. Publisher is very affordable compared to InDesign and if you are prepared to invest your sweat and time into manually manipulating each page, it probably is a very good solution (see the Cons about automation however).
CONS 1. It still is NOT a real desktop solution. You need to write all of your documentation in Word first, then design your template and move everything from Word to Publisher. Trying to import a Word document with pictures, tables etc. is a nightmare (believe me on this one). Write your text in Word and import it, but add your tables, pictures etc directly from within Publisher. This tip alone is worth money in terms of saved time and frustration – donations are, of course, accepted . 2. The help files are completely and totally useless – there is no detailed information on all of the features (SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT). I have to use Word help files to get information on using specific elements of Styles for example – fortunately, if you know Word, many of the functions are the same. I sometimes use a Word reference manual to find more information on a Publisher function – wow! 3. You can see literally that Microsoft is still not really supporting this product – with the dearth of comprehensive help files, it feels still like an orphan and it still seems to be oriented towards greeting cards and newsletters and very short documents (think twice about writing a training manual of 200 pages for example, it is really time consuming – as some basic automated functions do not exist and you need to do each page manually). Too bad, the product merits more attention as it is a very complimentary extension of Office. 4. Lacks automation – this is a very serious drawback. Publisher 2010 lacks some really basic functions – for example, it cannot create a table of contents, although it offers some table of content templates that you can fill in manually. Importing a table of contents from Word will save a bit of time, but you still have to manually type in the page numbers in the table of contents if you change anything -which means that if you add in some pages, you need to manually enter the changes such as new titles and page numbering, into the Table of Contents and redo all of the numbering manually – ouch! Very time consuming and creates the conditions for errors slipping in with page numbers, table references etc. 5. Because of the lack of automation, you need Word to make this product shine but, importing from Word is very time consuming. Sometimes, when updating a manual, we simply do the changes in Word and re-import what we change (like a table of contents) … but if you have a lot of changes throughout a document and not just the Table of Contents, then you are better off simply starting a NEW publisher file using the custom template you created AND, just so you know, importing is very…
I have been using Publisher for about 10 years and have come to rely on it, primarily for business documents such as training guides and promotional items for my software business. I think that the 2010 Version of Publisher is a worthwhile upgrade from previous versions.
I happen to be one of the people who like the “Ribbon” interface that was introduced in MS Word 2007 and has now been extended to Publisher. I can easily find most common tools and features on the ribbon and customize it as required if there is a ribbon element missing from those I use frequently. There is a much improved “File” tab (or “Backstage View” as MS calls it) with easier access to various printing, saving and sending options. Unlike another review I read here, I had no problems whatsoever printing both paper and .PDF versions of my Publisher documents on both my Xerox and Epson printers with zero configuration*. In fact, printing is improved as there is now top-level control over things such as duplexing (double-siding- if your printer supports it) without having to set a default printer for a document and then go into the Printer Properties to select features. There is also a great new, accurate and large print preview right next to all of the Publisher printer controls.
Other improvements include better font previews including support for OpenType fonts. I find that the layout tools are improved too, with better accuracy and display of the alignment of various document elements. There are some great new templates and more available online. Photo/graphic editing tools are also improved, and the whole program just seems easier to work with while it works better for me. I also find that more web services than ever (Internet faxing and printing services) accept the upload of Publisher documents in their native format, without the need to export them into .PDF or other formats.
I am impressed with the 2010 version of Publisher and recommend it as a worthwhile upgrade or as an excellent new product for desktop publishing for everything from postcards and training manuals to greeting cards and signs. I bought mine as part of MS Office 2010 Professional Suite as opposed to buying it as a standalone item, but I think it’s worthwhile either way.
Publisher is easily one of my favorite pieces of software (and I use a lot of software). I wholeheartedly recommend it if you have need of a great desktop publishing app.
*(As an aside, I sell and support a specialized piece of law software. We have thousands of users who have no printing issues, but I know of a handful who cannot print .PDFs with our built-in .PDF add-on, no matter what we have tried. We usually then have them install a different, free PDF printer software. I believe that such quirks are a result of some corruption of the installation and/or of a corruption of the Windows operating system. Let’s face it, if the user base is many thousands- and for a product like Publisher, many hundreds of thousands, and a few people can’t print, what do you blame- the software or the environment it is installed into?)
Update 3/11: I still like and recommend Publisher for the types of tasks I mention above. I do not think it would be a great tool for really long documents. I have used MS Word in the past for 85+ page proposals and would NOT recommend Publisher for such things. Even Word had problems generating a good table of contents and other technical parts of long documents. I have never created a Publisher Document longer than 15 or so pages. If you are looking for something to publish your magnum opus on, look to something like Quark or InDesign- just be ready to pay 5X more for it and spend a lot of time learning. Publisher is for the rest of us.
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I’ve used Publisher for about 10 years and upgraded to 2010 from 2000. I definately recommend the upgrade to anyone using 2000. Although I’ve used the program for a long time it has been for the same purpose, writing a monthly newsletter that includes text and photographs and is emailed in pdf format. The improvements in Publisher make my job much easier and faster. For example, I can save my file as a pdf and Publisher compresses files as well as the Adobe Acrobat Professional program I was using for that purpose. The difference is Publisher is faster. In fact, the program seems much more responsive than 2000 for pretty much everything I do. I’m not a big fan of the “ribbon” interface but I like using one standard interface and since I have Office 2007 this program provides that continuity. In terms of function, the ribbon makes most things a little easier and a few things a little harder. That said, I have 10 years with the old interface and a few weeks with the new. I’ll adjust quickly. Still the ribbon is a case of fixing something that wasn’t broke rather than fixing something that is broken. I’m talking about the help feature which IMO isn’t and has never been very helpful.
I had no problems loading the program and no problems with printing. I’m using Win 7 and have a fairly new computer. I ordered from Amazon. I always seem to have a good experience with Amazon and this was no exception. Fast delivery and produce arrived in perfect condition.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
OK but falls short in several areas – it is a disappointment.,
I originally wrote this up on Amazon.ca a few days ago and thought that, since most readers would not go to the Canadian site, this review would be helpful posted here for a larger audience.
After spending approximately 40 hours working in the 2010 version of the program (we have been using this product since the 2003 version), here are my initial observations:
PROS
1. It is definitely more stable and it is more integrated into the Office suite
2. It has lots of little additions that make using it much easier – for example, it has no problems with a bilingual document and switches keyboard, language and speller seamlessly. Changing pictures is a snap and you can link an Excel table to Publisher – change numbers in Excel and when you open Publisher, it updates your Excel tables. Excellent.
3, It is much easier to use than a real publishing solution such as InDesign, which has a really steep learning curve and costs about $1K more per license. If you know Word, you can use this product. Everyone in your business can use Publisher, while very few will have the knowledge to use a professional desktop publishing software solution such as InDesign by Adobe. This is a really big advantage from both a cost and time perspective.
4. The learning curve is very low, especially if you are already familiar with the Ribbon.
5. Contrary to popular belief and snickering on the part of printing houses and so-called experts, Publisher does a very good job at creating documents for printing at a professional printing house – it has Pantone and CMYK built into it and an excellent commercial printing wizard – our documents are of the quality of, for example, The Missing Manual series, using full colour. Some of our printers cannot believe that our documents were created in Publisher.
6. If you need to make a lot of changes to a document to satisfy clients, Publisher makes it really easy – but it is flawed, some basic automated functions do not exist. Your alternative is to do everything in a competing product like InDesign.
7. Publisher is very affordable compared to InDesign and if you are prepared to invest your sweat and time into manually manipulating each page, it probably is a very good solution (see the Cons about automation however).
CONS
.
1. It still is NOT a real desktop solution. You need to write all of your documentation in Word first, then design your template and move everything from Word to Publisher. Trying to import a Word document with pictures, tables etc. is a nightmare (believe me on this one). Write your text in Word and import it, but add your tables, pictures etc directly from within Publisher. This tip alone is worth money in terms of saved time and frustration – donations are, of course, accepted
2. The help files are completely and totally useless – there is no detailed information on all of the features (SHAME ON YOU MICROSOFT). I have to use Word help files to get information on using specific elements of Styles for example – fortunately, if you know Word, many of the functions are the same. I sometimes use a Word reference manual to find more information on a Publisher function – wow!
3. You can see literally that Microsoft is still not really supporting this product – with the dearth of comprehensive help files, it feels still like an orphan and it still seems to be oriented towards greeting cards and newsletters and very short documents (think twice about writing a training manual of 200 pages for example, it is really time consuming – as some basic automated functions do not exist and you need to do each page manually). Too bad, the product merits more attention as it is a very complimentary extension of Office.
4. Lacks automation – this is a very serious drawback. Publisher 2010 lacks some really basic functions – for example, it cannot create a table of contents, although it offers some table of content templates that you can fill in manually. Importing a table of contents from Word will save a bit of time, but you still have to manually type in the page numbers in the table of contents if you change anything -which means that if you add in some pages, you need to manually enter the changes such as new titles and page numbering, into the Table of Contents and redo all of the numbering manually – ouch! Very time consuming and creates the conditions for errors slipping in with page numbers, table references etc.
5. Because of the lack of automation, you need Word to make this product shine but, importing from Word is very time consuming. Sometimes, when updating a manual, we simply do the changes in Word and re-import what we change (like a table of contents) … but if you have a lot of changes throughout a document and not just the Table of Contents, then you are better off simply starting a NEW publisher file using the custom template you created AND, just so you know, importing is very…
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|The Best and Easiset to Use Desktop Publishing Program Gets Even Better,
I have been using Publisher for about 10 years and have come to rely on it, primarily for business documents such as training guides and promotional items for my software business. I think that the 2010 Version of Publisher is a worthwhile upgrade from previous versions.
I happen to be one of the people who like the “Ribbon” interface that was introduced in MS Word 2007 and has now been extended to Publisher. I can easily find most common tools and features on the ribbon and customize it as required if there is a ribbon element missing from those I use frequently. There is a much improved “File” tab (or “Backstage View” as MS calls it) with easier access to various printing, saving and sending options. Unlike another review I read here, I had no problems whatsoever printing both paper and .PDF versions of my Publisher documents on both my Xerox and Epson printers with zero configuration*. In fact, printing is improved as there is now top-level control over things such as duplexing (double-siding- if your printer supports it) without having to set a default printer for a document and then go into the Printer Properties to select features. There is also a great new, accurate and large print preview right next to all of the Publisher printer controls.
Other improvements include better font previews including support for OpenType fonts. I find that the layout tools are improved too, with better accuracy and display of the alignment of various document elements. There are some great new templates and more available online. Photo/graphic editing tools are also improved, and the whole program just seems easier to work with while it works better for me. I also find that more web services than ever (Internet faxing and printing services) accept the upload of Publisher documents in their native format, without the need to export them into .PDF or other formats.
I am impressed with the 2010 version of Publisher and recommend it as a worthwhile upgrade or as an excellent new product for desktop publishing for everything from postcards and training manuals to greeting cards and signs. I bought mine as part of MS Office 2010 Professional Suite as opposed to buying it as a standalone item, but I think it’s worthwhile either way.
Publisher is easily one of my favorite pieces of software (and I use a lot of software). I wholeheartedly recommend it if you have need of a great desktop publishing app.
*(As an aside, I sell and support a specialized piece of law software. We have thousands of users who have no printing issues, but I know of a handful who cannot print .PDFs with our built-in .PDF add-on, no matter what we have tried. We usually then have them install a different, free PDF printer software. I believe that such quirks are a result of some corruption of the installation and/or of a corruption of the Windows operating system. Let’s face it, if the user base is many thousands- and for a product like Publisher, many hundreds of thousands, and a few people can’t print, what do you blame- the software or the environment it is installed into?)
Update 3/11: I still like and recommend Publisher for the types of tasks I mention above. I do not think it would be a great tool for really long documents. I have used MS Word in the past for 85+ page proposals and would NOT recommend Publisher for such things. Even Word had problems generating a good table of contents and other technical parts of long documents. I have never created a Publisher Document longer than 15 or so pages. If you are looking for something to publish your magnum opus on, look to something like Quark or InDesign- just be ready to pay 5X more for it and spend a lot of time learning. Publisher is for the rest of us.
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|Good Program,
I’ve used Publisher for about 10 years and upgraded to 2010 from 2000. I definately recommend the upgrade to anyone using 2000. Although I’ve used the program for a long time it has been for the same purpose, writing a monthly newsletter that includes text and photographs and is emailed in pdf format. The improvements in Publisher make my job much easier and faster. For example, I can save my file as a pdf and Publisher compresses files as well as the Adobe Acrobat Professional program I was using for that purpose. The difference is Publisher is faster. In fact, the program seems much more responsive than 2000 for pretty much everything I do. I’m not a big fan of the “ribbon” interface but I like using one standard interface and since I have Office 2007 this program provides that continuity. In terms of function, the ribbon makes most things a little easier and a few things a little harder. That said, I have 10 years with the old interface and a few weeks with the new. I’ll adjust quickly. Still the ribbon is a case of fixing something that wasn’t broke rather than fixing something that is broken. I’m talking about the help feature which IMO isn’t and has never been very helpful.
I had no problems loading the program and no problems with printing. I’m using Win 7 and have a fairly new computer. I ordered from Amazon. I always seem to have a good experience with Amazon and this was no exception. Fast delivery and produce arrived in perfect condition.
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|