Customer Reviews

Microsoft Publisher 2002 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

Microsoft Publisher 2002 contains new features for users such as the Microsoft Office Word-Art, which I think is a plus. It was so difficult in previous versions of Publisher to insert Text Art so that's one major benefit from the program. It has the familiar Task Pane which makes integration across all the Office (XP) applications work seamlessly. You get ton's Clip Art that are very unique so that Publications can look different and fancy. You also get more design templates for better variety and individuality in your publications, so that's another added bonus. It's cheaper than most high-end desk top publishers such as PageMaker or Quark Xpress. So if you are a person who does simple projects such as creating Post Cards, News Letters Publisher I think will come in very handy for those types of Projects. ... I think Microsoft Publisher is worth the buy. And it's better for first users of desktop publishing. Some experienced users might experience some problems with publications created in previous versions of Publisher but, it's not a major problem. Older files do convert thou, you just have remember if you are going to save a file as a previous version, you have to select file type. One of the main things is that it get's the job done and thats what we all want to do, right!

TRY BEFORE YOU BUY: ... Microsoft sent a CD in the mail (2 day delivery) which let me sample Publisher's new wares for 30 days, or "28 days more than I needed to realize I did not want it".

START UP: Wowsa. Probably the best thing about Publisher 2002 is the amazing speed with which it opens. Unless opening a document through file association, I can just barely take my hand off the mouse and snap my fingers before having Publisher 2002 open and ready to go.

WORD ART: Has Hell frozen over?! Word Art has finally changed! In publisher 2000 you could actually do more with a standard text box than with the geriatric WordArt component. The new word art is nice for canned effects, but nothing to rave about.

CUSTOMIZABLE TOOLBARS: What a novel idea. That the user should have control over what buttons belong on the toolbar. Word had it back in the days of Windows 3.11. How many years did it take Publisher to catch up? Unfortunately, when customizing the toolbar button hints are disabled. So if you do not know what the images mean you will be at a loss for what buttons are already on the toolbar.

Publisher also has this new green sheen to it. Buttons shadow green when the cursor rolls over them (why? just why?). Push buttons now have a green depression which doesn't make them look selected so much as sick. The main menu also comes with a wierd milky white sheen which makes one wonder if too much time spent under flourescent office lights hasn't given this version of Publisher a case of the rickets.

MEASUREMENTS: .... But now it is in a column instead of a row which doesn't really want to fit anywhere on the screen. As if moving the office assistant wasn't a big enough nuisance.

TEXT STYLES: MS Word has had them since version 6.0. All other page layout programs seem to have them. But Publisher? Its Styles format paragraphs only. This may seem like a small detail, but to someone doing serious bookwork it makes a world of difference.

INSTALL ON DEMAND: Whoever dreamed up this idiocy? Even when I have the CD-ROM in front of me it still manages to add a good three minutes off to my work day.

WEB STUFF: Hardy Har, Har, Har. I'm not even touching this mess.

SYNOPSIS: I may be ostracised from the desktop publishing community for writing this but..., it would not take much to turn Publisher 2002 or better = Publisher 2000 into a serious desktop publishing outfit. ....

So what you will be buying is largely glitz. P>-JD McDonnell of greaterthanzen

I work with Publisher about 45 hours per month. This upgrade
isnt. I give it ONE star because there is no option for ZERO
stars. Why? The document is less controllable than 2000. You
can do complex work at 32 pages with photos and graphics but
the pre-press is more a nightmare than the hassles found in
usinf the 2000 version. If you were expecting Publisher to do
small publications of high quality forget it and look at Quark
Xpress or Adobe Indesign. You really do get what you pay for

here. the "registration" system on all 2002 MS software is a
joke. 2 installs? OK your desktop, then your laptop, and then
what if your hard drive croaks? You are out of installs!

I originally submitted a review back in December, after upgrading to Publisher 2002 from the 97 version in August '01. I wrote how frustrated I was with how unstable the program seemed to be on my computer with frequent protection faults, which of course, render the program useless until shutting the program down (or in my experience with Publisher '02) rebooting the computer as well. To make a long story short, I ended up having to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows 98, the operating system on my computer. Fair enough, the program's been stable ever since. But a few other points:

1) The help feature in Publisher 2002 is absolutely worthless, compared to a comprehensive help feature in older versions of Publisher.

2) If your work, in a previous version (2000, 98, 97, etc.), involves heavy use of Word Art, then buyer beware, as curved shapes will diplay very differently in 2002. You'll have to resize and touch up much of your Word Art to restore it to it's original look. If this "enhanced" Word Art is luring you to buy, just be aware it's essentially the same Word Art that has been found in MS Word for years. You can actually do your 3-D Word Art in Word, then cut and paste as a picture into your older version of Publisher.

3) The fonts in the drop-down window will not display correctly in Publisher '02, unless your Windows display is set to the original default setting.

4) The supposedly great new feature of headers/footers appears to be a primitive, stripped down version of what has been available in Word for years.

5) Microsoft finally updates the interface consistent in other office products, but in my view, this is no "enhancement" but something that should have been done long ago.

6) Another reviewer on this site summed up web capabilities very nicely. I absolutely agree, don't waste your time using this program for anything more than 1 page websites. Publisher '02 will not allow you to assign file names to graphics.

7) If you happen to be current user of Publisher 97 or earlier and are thinking of upgrading, just be aware that Publisher '02 only allows users to save back to the Publisher 98 format. So if you decide you don't like this program, you're stuck using it for the '97 or previous version files you converted.

7) In all fairness, some enhancements are quite nice, such the ability to save groupings as pictures, and enhanced options to embed fonts and graphics. But quite honestly, I question the overall value of this upgrade, especially given the rave comments about Publisher 2000 from other reviewers at this site. Likewise, I can also chime in about Publisher 97.

Finally, if I had taken the time to explore Word a little more years ago, I would have realized Word can do many of the same tasks Publisher can do. The key is to use text blocks like you do in Publisher, and turn on the drawing grid under "drawing tools" to act as a ruler guide. Through the purchase of MS Works (which includes a full version of MS Word) the Picture It program, as base as it is, will do the other tasks that Word is not designed to do (i.e. banners.)

Why Microsoft doesn't consider integrating Word, Publisher, and Front Page into one powerful program is beyond me. I get the impression the company is spoonfeeding Publisher users, with "enhancements" that have actually been in other MS products for years. I count myself as one of those loyal "Publisher" users that had a lot of expectations with this upgrade, which simply didn't pan out. I won't be upgrading again, and will instead upgrade to the newer versions of Word (via MS Works) in coming years, and use the simplistic 'Picture It' program for the occasional banners, etc. I have found Publisher is an Microsoft "extra" that in retrospect, I simply didn't need, given the full scope and power of MS Word.

Publisher 2002 is a pretty good product. I haven't had any of the prolems that some other people have had.It runs great on my machine never crashed once. It has some really good templates from menus to flyers to paper airplanes. and it is pretty simple to use once to get a little used to it. But stay away from the bundle with the photo editior included because the photo editior has almost no functionality

I have been using Publisher for quite a few years and up to this version have been very satisfied. However, I am extremely unhappy with 2002. I've given it a try, but will install my previous 2000 version. In the 2002 version I am unable to edit my work in WORD and since Publisher has only a spell check and not a grammar check, I depend heavily on the "Edit Story in WORD feature." I simply cannot get that function to work. Technical support was absolutely No help - and since I called a few day after my 30 day software warranty had expired (unknowingly)was charged for the call even though they were unable to help me.
Unfortunately my files have been converted to 2002 and do not seem to be able to convert them back to 2000. I have tried using them on my laptop which still has the 2000 version, but no luck.
Remember the old saying, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it." So why did microsoft mess around with perfectly good previous versions?

I was looking for a helpful upgrade and instead got perhaps the most user unfriendly software I have used in a long, long time. I am a software tester by profession and would have failed this product on poor usability. Stay with the previous version.

If you are a beginner at desktop publishing, or just want to put a personal touch on your calendars and other documents, Microsoft Publisher 2002 is the right choice for you! You will find that it is easy to get started using Publisher, because Microsoft has given you a plethora of templates around almost any type of document you could want. These templates are fully customizable, however so you will not need to worry about being stuck with one look. I prefer Adobe InDesign, however, because I have more flexibility and power to design the document I want. Honestly, I only use Publisher because an organization I am with has decided to use that. If I were new to publishing, however, I would find InDesign overly complicated and prefer the simplicity of Publisher. Don't get me wrong, just because Publisher is not as powerful, doesn't mean you can't create nice looking documents... If you are experienced, go to Adobe. If not, Publisher is right for you!

Publisher 2002 is a perfect example when new doesn't mean better. This version took out an essential ability of Publisher 2000 to create web sites consisting of several pages. Publisher 2000 was a dream for web publishing.  What made it valuable over freeware such as Netscape Composer, is that you could create a large web site of multiple pages, and while as a document you could easily name each page with its own file extension.

This function is critical for a business web site.  It is vital to have each web page named with its own professional-appearing extension, beginning with index.html, and not page001.html, page002.html, which is a big red flag of a home-made web site using a WYSIWYG program.

I bought the 2002 expecting the same critical feature that would let me maintain my 5 web businesses and create my 4 new web businesses with ease.  You see Composer only lets you create 1 web page at a time, which is very tedious if your web site contains 40-150 pages.  It was worth paying [price] for Publisher 2000 that let me create and edit large web sites, jump easily while creating from page to page, edit pages, transpose images from one to another, etcetera. 

Then, when it was time to publish, I made certain to name each page while still in web document form, with an appropriate, professional-appearing .html extension. I could do this easily page-by-page, by going to Page Properties in the File category, and typing in the file name extension for each page.  Then, when I converted the collective web document in Pub 2000, each html page would appear with my prenamed file extension.  So my pages would appear as.mybiz.com/index.html, .mybiz.com/products1.html, etcetera.

Well you can imagine I was aghast to see the super critical feature to name each page with its own file extension in a large document, missing from Publisher 2002!!!!!!!  This means that if I create 20 pages in 1 document as a web site, I can only name the first page with a professional business name of index.html.  The rest of the pages are named starting with the number 01.html and so on numerically!!!!  This is totally unacceptable for a web business site as this tags the site as an amateur creation.

Another huge flaw because this ONE vital feature is missing is, if I create 10 separate web pages, one at a time in Publisher 2002, these pages will be worthless linked together in the same directory.  Say I publish onto the web 10 linked pages into a directory called /sales.  The problem is Publisher names each photo on each of those pages starting with the number 0. 

So if I have 10 pages linked together, created one by one in Publisher, it will be a fiasco if they are in the same directory, because there will be TEN pictures all named 0.jpg and what will publish is a garbled confusion. 

At least in Composer it keeps the names of each photo you import as it was originally, such as butterfly.jpg, avoiding that confusion.  But if this same butterfly picture is imported into Publisher 2002, it is renamed 0.jpg.  So if I have 3 pages I made in Publisher each of a different image on it, it won't matter, because each of those 3 pictures will be renamed 0.jpg, making it impossible to put any 2 or more pages created in Publisher 2002 in the same directory.  So being told by Microsoft to just create one page at a time and link them together, doesn't cut it.

All this can be solved by returning the cricitical option to type in your own file extension on each page as Publisher 2000 allowed.  I am vastly disappointed with Publisher 2002 because it is virtually worthless for any professional web business use that exceeds 1 web page.  This lumps it in the same category as Composer, only Composer is better because you can truly link individual pages together, since each .jpg retains its own individual, identifying name.  On top of that why would someone pay [price] for a program with less than the options they can get for free?

This is the first time I have every uninstalled a new program and reinstalled the older version, but it's the only way I can continue to work on my large web sites.

On top of that you don't get free tech support with 2002, if it isn't related to installing. I had to pay [price] for the technician to tell me that 2002 has lost that feature. In fact, it was the technician who urged me to complain about this---he thought it was terrible, too....

>Hey, for regular, non-related publishing, 2002 is great. It's just worthless for web site creating. I'm still shocked and surprised about this, 'cause I never thought Microsoft would strip this powerful program of its ability to make web sites.

If you are not familiar with other Office products and how to use them, I do not recommend this software. I purchased this program a month ago and I still have not been able to create the type of calendar that I needed to. I have not been able to find a tutorial to learn about the features of the software. There is no true "help" file like every other software package I use. An animated paper clip is supposed to answer questions, but to this day I have never gotten a correct answer from it (it cannot understand what I am asking!). The enclosed "manual" is actually a guide on how to create the correct layout for brochures, flyers and newsletters, not a manual on features and how to use them. When I tried to call the customer support representatives I was told I had to pay $35.00 to have my questions answered. I was directed to try the on-line help, but there too I have to pay $35.00 to receive answers. After spending over $100.00 I expect to get some help if I need it! I guess Microsoft does not share that belief.