There are few programs that make me go "WOW". This is especially true for programs that I have used for years and consider them a required item on my
hard drive. I've written reviews on previous versions of Broderbund's Print Shop and when I learned a new version was on the way, I was frankly unexcited. The normal operating procedure for Broderbund over the years has
been to allow the program to slowly evolve with minor upgrades or changes as well as adding extra graphics (especially after buying the T/Maker company that makes the Click Art . graphics they had been using for years).
This is not a regular upgrade. A Broderbund staffer told me Premier Edition 5.0 is the first total code rewrite in five years (when Print Shop Deluxe was introduced), and I can certainly tell this is not the old Print
Shop.New or not, no program is perfect and I did find a couple of minor glitches, but I also found myself saying "WOW" several times. First there was the tutorial. Broderbund is famous for creating programs
that only have a manual because it's traditional, not because they are ever needed. Most anyone can create nice looking posters, etc. without ever opening the user manual. In case you are a new computer user or have
never encountered Print Shop, you'll find the tutorial comes with a lot of information that is presented in a way that is clear and concise and will also get the Print Shop regulars up to speed on all the new features.
You can still make signs, banners, cards, stationary and the normal stuff, but there are some extras like Post It. notes and more.
The first thing the regulars will discover is the new layout of the toolbar. If you
bought The Press Writer™ program, which is the newsletter and report program written to compliment The Print Shop., you will find they decided to use that tool layout for the new Premier Edition 5.0. It
makes selecting what you want to place in your project much easier whether you are inserting graphics, text or headlines. Among the new features is how to find the right piece of clipart for your project (and the new
version comes with 23,000 graphics and photographs).
In Ensemble III, Broderbund allowed us to search for clipart using key words. The same is true in the new version, but now you can scan through the clipart images
matching the key words from either a long list with small thumbnail graphics, gallery view with larger images or large view which shows you one graphic at a time. Once you pick your graphic and place it on the page,
another change is the artwork is already in a box with a handle ready to be rotated or resized instead of having to go find the right toolbar button to push.
One other very noteworthy change in the clipart section is
how much easier it is to export clipart to other programs. For years I have used the graphics from Print Shop. and Click Art. collections for other programs. The problem has been in trying to get those graphics into the
other programs due to the proprietary graphics format PS and Click Art. use. Instead of having all of the graphics as separate files, they are stored in much larger database type files that make them easier to search.
In the past you had to first find the graphic in PS, write down it's name and which file it was in. Then you had to load a separate export program, locate the graphic again, and then export. Now all you have to do is
find the graphic in PS, and on the menu for selecting is a button called EXPORT which allows you to decide the file type to export to. A simple click of the save button and it's now a .JPG, .WMF or other format for use
in other programs.
Another new item is the way text if handled. Along with being able to edit in the same place where the text is going to go (rather than the old way of a box and menu that used to pop up) you can
also select several shapes for your paragraphs like hearts, etc. The Headlines section has also been improved. I have used to use other programs to create headlines because the options were kind of limited, but now
there are lots of options for colors, patterns and the shapes of the words or phrases themselves. While there are still things that will have to be created elsewhere, its nice to have lots of options inside the same
program. Not everyone likes to have 2 or 3 programs running at once like I do.
