Desktop Publisher Pro for Mac

User Reviews

• Buggy Text Editing

  drdavedminDecember 18, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I purchased this program two years ago, in both PC and Mac versions, in the hope that it could do very basic layout and text editing. As in past versions, 2.2.2 has HUGE problems with text editing on the Mac. I typed 3 paragraphs into one of their pre-designed templates and let part of it wrap around a picture. Text was formatted to 12 pt Times New Roman, chose Paragraph Format for an indent and space before. Half the text disappeared, the line spacing went wacky, and the space before the paragraphs remaining didn't space at all. I am afraid I could not recommend this until they fix the many bugs. I keep trying and it keeps failing at the most basic tasks.

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• Pretty Good App - BUT!

  ppsphilMarch 18, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />- Tutorials provide an extremely useful way to learn the basics of a new App and are also an extremely useful way of evaluating SW. However there are two somewhat serious deficiencies in the Tutorial for DPP 2.2! First the template that you are instructed to select in Lesson1 is not the template that the Tutorial shows you how to fill in! In fact there is NO template matching Lesson 1! Second the documentation doesn't show any obvious way of accessing Lesson 2 without stepping through Lesson 1! DPP looks an awfull lot like an update of the venerable 'Aldus Personal Press" with some vastly improved operations and having used that SW since about 1994 sure helped in using DPP. A lot of the dialogues are identical! Personally, I find the methods of trying to convince users to register as being very "Chintzy" - the disabled "Save" and the "Demo Version" all over a print! Doesn't really let me see if this thing will produce documents suitable for my use and for my printer! Much better to use a number of days or a number of documents limit! As to the earlier comment about "Ready, Set, Go!" - $19.95USD for DPP is a helluva lot better than $175.00USD for "RSG" !!! (And "RSG" wasn't even OS X compatible until very recently!)

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• Pretty Good App - BUT!

  ppsphilMarch 18, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />- Tutorials provide an extremely useful way to learn the basics of a new App and are also an extremely useful way of evaluating SW. However there are two somewhat serious deficiencies in the Tutorial for DPP 2.2! First the template that you are instructed to select in Lesson1 is not the template that the Tutorial shows you how to fill in! In fact there is NO template matching Lesson 1! Second the documentation doesn't show any obvious way of accessing Lesson 2 without stepping through Lesson 1! DPP looks an awfull lot like an update of the venerable 'Aldus Personal Press" with some vastly improved operations and having used that SW since about 1994 sure helped in using DPP. A lot of the dialogues are identical! Personally, I find the methods of trying to convince users to register as being very "Chintzy" - the disabled "Save" and the "Demo Version" all over a print! Doesn't really let me see if this thing will produce documents suitable for my use and for my printer! Much better to use a number of days or a number of documents limit! As to the earlier comment about "Ready, Set, Go!" - $19.95USD for DPP is a helluva lot better than $175.00USD for "RSG" !!! (And "RSG" wasn't even OS X compatible until very recently!)

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• As with all Metis apps,

  guruosmosisMarch 15, 2004

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />they are constantly updated and improved. They are very resonably priced and tech support has always and tinely responded to my email to them. Looking over the reviews it seems many are very critical of DTP pro. I'd agrree with some if we we where talking a week's wages for such an app, but we're not. For the price,timely updates, and service many of you are way out of line. I'm licsensed to use three of their apps, and they're all sweet. Meaning, bugs are addressed, enhancements are ongoing, and documentation is very good. Stop whining and be thankful for good apps at a good price. Thank you Metis. DTP pro is a 4-star app, but I'm giving it 5 to offset some of the whining...

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• Good Potential

  see3dJanuary 27, 2004

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I have used Pagemaker for over 10 years. I would have upgraded beyond V6, but no OSX support. My needs are modest; occasional labels, booklets, and flyers printed on my laser printer, so an expensive upgrade to In Design or other professional page layout programs is not called for. This program looked to be just what I needed to replace Pagemaker, and for a price that is better than an upgrade price. I many ways, the GUI is similar. It has a few more features in some areas (flashy typography) and a few less in others (fine typography). I would love to see a Pagemaker document conversion utility! The feature set is minimally adequate for me. However, I have encountered bugs with text justification and printing that have kept me from being able to use the program for most of my needs. I have submitted bug reports, and have had a personal acknowledgement. I hope the next bug release comes quickly. The built in help is not very useful (needs search). The PDF help file is more useful, and necessary, because the menu locations to access dialog boxes to control some features are not obvious. An inspector panel for controlling object and text features would be a vast improvement to the GUI. I would have liked to give this program a better rating, because with just a little more improvement to the GUI and bug fixes, it could become the low end standard for DTP on the Mac. I will review again after the next release.

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• AlbrightOctober 15, 2002

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Is it worth $15? Well... Okay. Still, this product can be quite frustrating to use sometimes; trying to work with text which is sized larger

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• gevantryOctober 1, 2002

  Pros

  Cons

  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />All the makers need to do is enable 2-byte encoding for Asian character sets, and my pagelayout world would be complete. For $15, this is

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