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Desktop publishing made easy
For 20 years Serif has been selling Pageplus as a budget desktop publishing program with features to rival those of high-end professional programs costing many times more.
The latest version, Serif Pageplus X2, builds on past strengths and adds exciting new features such as PDF slideshows containing video and audio clips, and full compatibility with Windows Vista.
Not only can Vista's Search feature locate Pageplus documents by examining their contents, it can also display them as resizable thumbnail images in Vista Explorer.
Trying to be all things to all users is not a trick that's easy to manage, but Pageplus X2 almost pulls it off. New publications can be created from scratch by starting with a blank page and setting up your own framework for text and pictures, but as a rule it's easier to use one of the hundreds of ready-made templates. These cover projects such as web pages, flyers, posters, greetings cards, stationery and virtually every kind of business document.
If the ready-made publications don't exactly meet your needs they can be customised using the full range of desktop publishing features embedded within Pageplus X2, and it's at this point that the printed manual and on-screen tutorials come into their own.
Unfortunately the on-screen tutorials are nothing more than static documents that can be printed out for future reference, and we can't help feeling that beginners would get up to speed more easily with interactive demonstrations and wizards.
Unlike professional desktop publishing programs, which are mainly used to collate work created in other programs, Pageplus is completely self-contained. It contains an advanced text editor with spelling and grammar checking and a UK thesaurus. There's an image editor, built-in drawing and diagramming tools, and even the facility to generate interesting 3D graphics from your own 2D artwork or photographs.
The cleverest feature of Pageplus X2 is its ability to work with Pdf files. As well as creating Pdf slide shows and presentations of its own, it is able to load standard Pdf files for editing, and these can be saved as new Pdf files, web pages or Pageplus publications.
For this facility alone, Pageplus is an absolute bargain.
Vista compatible: Yes
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Stunning functions for a bargain price
I have been working with the desktop publishing dinosaur PageMaker from Aldus (later Adobe) for the better part of the last 15 years. It was good enough for my line of work. Dues to the fact that support and development is discontinued and Vista Compatibility was not available, I had to search for a replacement. I found PagePlus x2 and did not had high expectations. Boy was I in for a surprise. Not only got I a great publishing software but also a PDF generator and editor which also allows me to generate interactive forms for my website. (My old Adobe Destiller 5.0 is too old for a current upgrade as well) I was also scrambling to replace Microsoft Frontpage with a somewhat interactive WYSIWYG web editor. I you are not a sophisticated HTML geek and you want to publish web pages exactly the way you create a flier, this is the perfect tool. I am working with PagePlus X2 for a week or so. It is not too difficult to use if you are familiar with similar programs. I am just flabbergasted how versatile this program is. Every day I detect new way how I can use it. For Example: Have you programmed HTML forms for your website before? If you know what you are doing, they are not too difficult to do but to a Caveman like me they are pretty aggravating. Page Plus has a nifty solution for you. You can create PDF forms and set them up with a submit button. After you uploaded the form to your site your visitors can fill them out on line and submit the content to you via email. The information either comes as HTML or as a PDF, depending how you specify it. And you can use the Serif web server for this tool at not extra charge. You can save your print publications and convert them to high resolution PDF as a data interchange format with your print shop. You can even open publications from other programs that you saved as a PDF before, and continue editing them in PagePlus. If you only want the program for one of it uses, it is worth the $ 130 it costs. If you use it like I do it will save you thousands and replace many other programs you otherwise might need. I hate to change a running computer system and I almost never switch Software. Here I am glad I did. The templates are great to see what the software is capable of doing and to see how you can structure your document. The ready to use documents are professional looking and anyone with a bit of experience and talent can create great looking documents, email fliers, brochures and websites in a short time. The instructions are just static PDF's so a interactive version or a online video series would be more convenient. However considering pricing this is worth every cent. One wish I had would be that the software came with several coordinated design themes that go through all different categories of documents so that a lazy guy like me can create a great looking corporate Identity package with little work involved. But I guess, they wanted me to do at least some work as well. They for sure made it a lot easier to get there. Try the free download of the limited version which only has 20% of the functions, and you already see how this program works.
Posted by Malte Strauss, 12 Jan 2008