Carlton Cards CreateaCard 5 Gold

CreataCard 5 is a slimmed-down version of Crafts 2 and sticks inevitably with greeting card construction.

The major complaints against the software still apply. We could not open the files on the second CD-Rom but most annoying of all is the way that CreataCard turns your whole Desktop a hideous mix of turquoise and yellow once you start it.

Whether or not this is intentional is unclear but add this to the mildly irritating Hints and Tips pop-up screen that appears every time you click a button and you may find yourself shutting it down before you have got your teeth into it.

If you can cope with these small irritations there's plenty to do here. The number of design options is excellent, allowing you to create posters and banners as well as the usual array of business and greeting card templates.

There's even an address book feature and a web page design option, although we doubt any of the templates provided here would make it on to anyone's site. A host of templates is on offer, including a particularly ominous 'Time's up for John' greeting card.

Automatically installed is another Broderbund product, Photo Organiser. While this is a handy feature, we were quite annoyed at the appearance of an AOL free trial offer on our Desktop, which was advertised again during installation.

Contact: Mattel Interactive 0800 279 6620
www.amazon.co.uk