Customer Reviews

Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I got the "bright" idea that I would make my own Christmas cards. It wasn't a matter of cost. It was just that now that I'm retired, I thought I could burn-up some creative energy.

I had used a couple of programs in the past for an occasional card, but I'd never undertaken a project quite this ambitious, or so I thought. I tried the programs I had on hand, but they didn't seem to want to work with my new computer with Vista, even the Microsoft programs. So, I thought I'd try Hallmark Card Studio.

Unlike some other reviewers, I shut-down my firewall and turned-off my User Account Controls (Vista does not like this, but what I've found lately is that with the computers reacting so fast, and being so protective, when a program, especially one that hadn't ever been installed on a particular computer, sends an installation instruction to the computer, the computer blocks it, often times before your little "window" pops-up asking you for permission to have the program access your computer's system. Since the window is up, and you haven't clicked "OK" in that split second, the computer stops the installation process right there.

Other times, the "window" asking you for permission is hidden behind another window. So, if you're installing this product, or even another, on Vista, or even XP, take down your firewall (on Vista, you can allot for a certain length of time that the firewall is down, in case you forget about bringing it back-up) and turn-off your User Account Controls.

That said, I found the "2009" version of Hallmark Card Studio an extensive program that put my Mac software and previous versions of card software to shame.

It is a little tricky on replacing the text in the cards, and it had an issue understanding that my printers duplex (print on both sides of a page without you having to physically turn the page over), but the results were phenomenal. I would really like to give the program four and one-half stars, but there's no way to do that.

One aspect that I really liked about Hallmark was that I could easily insert a picture in the cards. Not all card programs allow you to do that easily.

With regards to printing, I had picked-up some Hallmark Half-Fold Matte blank greeting card paper Hallmark Blank Greeting Cards Half-fold Matte Premium 20 Count, too. As I started printing the cards, I used first some Avery card stock I had, then used the Hallmark paper. The difference was unbelievable. The colors on the Hallmark paper were vivid! I'm posting examples of the print quality in a review of the Hallmark paper. You may want to check that out.

First, please note -- people who are experiencing install abort errors are NOT hallucinating or performing their installations incorrectly.

First, my installation DVD hung, with the drive even periodically pausing as if it couldn't read the disc, but after a while it recovered, only to end up with a catastrophic failure during install on a Vista computer that FAR exceeds the minimum system requirements.

I followed the really non-specific installation instructions to the letter, and here is the error I received during MY installation--

"Error 1334
The file
'_2FAD9EEBC5660B68AB9666A141A53D73' cannot be installed because the file cannot be found in cabinet file 'Data11.cab'...."

I can't even read the complete error message because it won't fit in the error text box! Ellipses in error messages sure don't help one to trouble-shoot the problem! This error occurred during two attempted installations, separated by a "cold-boot."

On their support page, there are two other installation errors listed other than this one that occur "for some reason" (nice explanation!)! To this _experienced_ computer user, these are signs that the software has not been adequately beta-tested, and since I'm not getting paid to perform that service for Hallmark, and since I see that this problem is not unique to me and this particular DVD alone, I'm sending the program back.

My guess is that Hallmark has hired out its DVD authoring to a sub-par DVD authoring company, as they have a FAQ on their site that some people are having read errors on CD 5 of Card Studio 2008, and they have a link to help you get a working disc.

Hopefully Hallmark will take note of the error and flurry of complaints and produce a less error-prone product that we can all enjoy in the future.

There are plenty of other greeting card software packages to choose from: I'll try one of them instead. In my opinion, this one is not worth the trouble.
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Update Jan. 12, 2008
I took this program back to the store I purchased it from, and they suggested trying another copy in case it was a bad disc. Okeydokey. Well, this one gives me EXACTLY the same file read-error as the last. This makes me think there must be a bad batch of discs out there if multiple copies are missing the same file -- or if the file is unreadable on any of the ones in that batch. AVOID!!!!
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Update Feb. 23, 2009

After responding to their support offer of Jan. 22, I still have had no response regarding my questions about the Vista 64-bit install/disk-read error problems. Draw your own conclusions....
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Update March 04, 2009

I have received another contact from the Senior Technical Supervisor at Nova Development, and he's supposedly sending me the latest build of the software disk directly from their labs. Will post results.

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Update May 17, 2009

I did receive the newest build from the software developer/subcontractor for Hallmark, and, as noted in the comments below, the program now loads without errors on a Vista 64-bit machine, but there is an error notice in installing the Microsoft component needed to run the program.

However, I've successfully printed a few cards without problems, so I hope the original issues were fixed. No way to know without further testing.

I'd like to raise my review to 2 stars now that it's apparently working, but, for some reason, Amazon.com won't allow me to do that. Still, I have misgivings about this software: no customer should have to return multiple copies, ultimately having to wait for the software manufacturer to ship the "latest build" directly to them. Why not just wait until the bugs have all been fixed before releasing it, causing multiple problems for the customer?

In short, I'm happy it seems to work, but I wish it didn't take so much work just to get a functional copy.

Over the years I bought Broderbund's Print Shop and PrintMaster Deluxe software for most of my cards & graphics projects, plus other brands for variety, but since I had to get new software again for the new computer with Windows Vista I decided to try Hallmark for a change.

The software installed easily, and I like that you can install all the graphics too instead of having to use the disc each time!

I like the Hallmark program and graphics & designs very much. The software is easy to use intuitively, and has some nice features. I like many of the pre-designed cards as they are; usually with other card programs I end up making many changes to the pre-designed cards and projects (especially the text which is often too maudlin or mushy), and it's very time-consuming. This Hallmark deluxe program is great when you want a decent card fairly quickly. The DVD was in a box with a manual.

Okay, I've read the two "one star ratings". I agree, it is not the easiet software I've ever loaded, BUT after a little effort, I was able to load it! Just have patience and follow the steps. I STRONGLY recommend closing all other applications running on your PC during installation. I suspect that may have been the problem with the two reviewers who rated this software one star; because, I too had a problem installing it, but when shutting down other applications, I had no problem! I have an awesome system. I am very competent with PCs. Once the software is loaded, it is excellent. I would give it five stars except for the loading. I am very happy with this software! Check my other feedbacks and you will see that I'm not a "yes-man", I give honest reviews. It is a "memory hog" at 3.32 GB on your hard drive!

This is the third version of Hallmark Card Studio I've bought, and it's the best yet. Lots of new cards and graphics - and more of the contemporary ones I felt earlier versions were lacking. And the new screen design is a nice touch. (It changes with the seasons, which is cute.)

Overall, very easy to use. I had absolutely no problem installing it. As mentioned in a previous review, you should ALWAYS quit other programs when installing anything under Windows. I learned that years ago, for heaven's sake. You can't blame installation problems on Hallmark; only on Microsoft. :-)

Great tech support, too. I called up because I had a problem getting the e-cards to come up inside my Outlook. Turns out it was my mistake, but the people on the phone were really nice about it. Very thorough, and they answered the phone immediately. Heck, I'm just grateful when a software company offers free phone support these days. Not many do!

Great program, great cards and a nice value.

We previously had the 2004 Deluxe version and have been really happy with it. We decided to upgrade to the new 2009 Deluxe version and have been really happy with it to date. Install went just fine. Took about 10 minutes. Made sure all programs were closed and followed the steps. We have Vista Ultimate & had no challenges installing it. It was very easy to purchase from Amazon and will take advantage of the $10 rebate as well (can you tell I am a finance guy?). It is great making our own cards with Hallmark Card Studio 2009. Our relatives & friends love it when we can make personal cards for them. It is easy to add pictures & other clip art to the cards to make them truely unique. Hope this update is helpful.

I've flip flopped from Hallmark to Greeting Card Factory 4, 5, 6, 7, on my pc through the years and for some odd reason Greeting Card Factory 7 Deluxe would not install after download. Nonetheless, I Since returned GCF7 and Hallmark Card Studio 2009 Deluxe works like a charm after downloading with no problem at all and my platform is XP. You just need to close out everything else when downloading so it runs more smoothly and at a rapid speed.
Just hoped Hallmark would offer more of a selection in each category like Greeting Card Factory and the Effect Text as well. Plus, more of a realistic clip art instead of a majority is cartoon-ish.

I have used editing software for over 10 years and this is by far the worst program i have ever used. It looks nice. The clip art is lovely. However, I have just spent hours preparing a flier for a charity project only to have the program delete ALL text and clip art upon saving (using the "save as" feature). This is not a fluke as it has now done this to me four (4) times. I finally had to print it out and will have to photo copy it rather than print or e-mail it from here as it has deleted my information again. If i hit the save button at the bottom of the screen it will save but you can not change the name of the file that way, so that would be very inconvient.

In the past i have used several programs, Print Master Platnium (which i lost the disks for and should have just replaced instead of buying this software), American Greeting Cards (which is attiquite), and Photoshop (nice but not really for this application).

Just a side note you also need a lot of excess mouse clicks to get to menu options. Rather than having font, color, and effects having quick short menus that you can one-click standard options every change has to go into a full menu. This keeps your working area clean and nice looking, but is time consuming. Also you can not "shift group" all of your text and change the font or color in one group. It has to be individually changed or temporarily grouped and then ungrouped which take a lot of extra wasted time. A small matter but tidious. Definately not a reason to not buy this product but a matter to concider when weighing two equally good products.

On the positive side the clip art is really very nice and there seems to be more than i could ever use, which i love. It also has plenty of fonts to choose from. I have just bought this software today but the 3D craft projects and the mini albums look like they would be fun to try. Other than deleting all my work when I tried to save the program is fairly easy to just sit down and use.

I often skip 1 star ratings but please be careful before putting out this much money when other programs work very well. If you do not mind having to never use the save as function then this may very well be a great program for you.

BRIGHT SIDE WORTH NOTING:
Inside the box there is a 30-day money back guarentee

I received Hallmark Deluxe Card Studio 2009 promptly from Amazon with the free shipping. I was looking forward to exciting new graphics and new things in this Deluxe version 2009. It is very disappointing. The install went great and I had no problems with it even though my computer is 6 years old as many reviewers indicated there was an install problem. My disappointment came with the program hardly changing from the earlier version 2008. My earlier 2008 version wasn't the Deluxe and it does exactly the same thing as the Deluxe 2009 version. I would have thought that Deluxe meant it is better than the standard version. It isn't. They changed the opening page and added some new clip art but the cards are almost identical to the earlier version. In fact, some of the cards from the earlier version were omitted. So when a company touts that there over 1,200 new designs in the new version, don't believe them. My suggestion is, if you have an earlier version, don't waste your money on this one. There isn't a noticeable difference. If this is the first time that you have purchased Hallmark Card Studio, you are going to love it. It is so easy, and fun. I rarely purchase a card in the store and I get so many compliments on the cards that I make with Hallmark. I will say they added the digital editor for the photos and that is a plus. They need to work on getting some new cards out there.

Although this program has many great features, it lacks the template for a small notecard(4-1/2 x 5-1/2) such as Avery 8315 & 3268. This notecard is perfect for artists cards, thank you notes, sympathy cards, etc. While it's easy to print a small one-sided card, a two-sided card required a lot of steps and wasted paper. The Hallmark Card Studio website has some tips in the user forum for working around the problem, but buyers should be aware it is not included in the software. Also, I could not find a copyright symbol in the font selections so had to copy and paste from Word. Despite these issues, the software offers lots of great features like clip art, fonts and photo editing. I haven't found another program that offers so much, and would purchase again.