Customer Reviews

Print Explosion Deluxe

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

 

 

Pretty much everything they claim about this app is true. If you're looking for a simple app for print projects, this is hard to beat. That said, here are the gotchas to look out for:

The app doesn't support ANY antialiasing making on-screen editing difficult. If your project is destined for print this isn't a big deal, but if your destination is a screen image it's a problem.

The program's JPEG compression is HORRIBLE; its BEST setting is worse than Photoshop's WORST setting! With its lack of antialiased text, this renders the program's e-postcard feature practically useless.

The installer is questionable. The program ships on three CDs, with the installer on one and extra graphics and fonts on the others. But the installer doesn't add the contents of the other two CDs to your installation. Those have to be installed MANUALLY. Considering that the quality of the graphics on the other two CDs is much higher AND the fact that this information isn't clearly explained anywhere, it becomes an issue for the less knowledgable/experience (for whom this app is primarily aimed towards).

Knowing this, I would buy this app again -- but I wouldn't use it for anything destined for on-screen use. Since the app is called *PRINT* Explosion this makes sense. :-)

UPDATE 5/2/04: Since writing this review, I have learned via an email conversation with Nova Development that they have no interest in addressing the shortcomings listed above. I have also purchased The Print Shop for Mac OS X which is a significantly nicer/higher quality app and is definitely an OS X-savvy app (not a Windows port as Print Explosion is), but it doesn't have the billions of bits of art and fonts that come with Print Explosion. But if given the choice between Print Explosion and Print Shop, choose Print Shop.

I was very excited when I received this product for my new iBook. I am a teacher, and print items for my classroom quite frequently. First, I was disappointed in the quality of the graphics. Many of them are amateurish and cartoony-looking. Also, I was dismayed by the fact that there is no way to search by keyword for a specific graphic. Each time I need a graphic, it takes me 30 minutes to open folders and search under vague headings. My only other option is to go through the huge book, but I don't always have that handy. The text tools are good, and they give a lot of options as far as shading and shapes go, but if you are planning on purchasing this item for the graphics, don't. I've used Print Artist, Print Shop, and Print Master (when it was still available for Mac) in the past. I would recommend any of these before Print Explosion.

I've been a user of Nova Development products for years, having bought their first Art Explosion product when they first brought it out. They've always been committed to great Mac software, and Print Explosion Deluxe won't disappoint.

My wife and I are both teachers, and we use Print Explosion Deluxe (she under OS 9 and me under OS X) for school projects, as well as for our church. It's a simply outstanding program for making banners, flyers, greeting cards, and other printed projects. The templates/designs are great, and the tools are excellent. And, most important to me being a Mac user since 1984, it feels like a Macintosh product, unlike Print Shop and some of the other "Windows ports" I've tried that are just hokey on the Mac.

Contrary to another review I read on Amazon, I think the graphics are incredibly well organized and of great quality. It's easy to find images for just about any purpose, and the software is just incredibly easy to use.

It even supports EPS graphics. So no matter where the clip art comes from, you can print it out, even on an inkjet printer, and the quality is perfect at any size. Even Microsoft Word doesn't do that for me. And creating your own projects from scratch is easy.

Along with Quicken, Word and Entourage, Print Explosion Deluxe is one of my core Macintosh applications. I use it daily and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Print Explosion works great with OS X Panther. It has a wealth of templates, images and fonts. The only problem is you can't start with a blank project, but it is easy enough to pick a generic one and delete the stuff you don't want. Well worth the money.

After years of using Print Shop Deluxe, I ordered Print Explosion when I moved to OS X. My only regret is not making the move earlier. The whole family loves it. It is so easy to create eye-catching graphics for school work, newsletters, and posters.

I bought this program the day I bought my new iMac. I love the iMac (super quality-works great), but the Print Explosion got removed from my machine after a week. It's a program that takes twice as long to use as the Printmaster Gold I have on my old PC and the results are far below what I am used to. I think that it's very user unfriendly!
Perhaps it would be OK if all you wanted to do is fill in their templates, but creating your own project from scratch is hard to do.

This software is easy to use for the most part,although it seems geared to using their designs more than making up your own. The manual that it ships with is over 700 pages because all but 50 pages are thumbnails of the graphics. So you can look up in the book where they are located but when you are searching for something in the program there is no place to type in say trees and get all the tree graphics{which is a feature in Print Shop and others}. You have to navigate thru channels so it takes much longer. If making mailing labels is in your plans, this software is really good at that BUT instead of just picking your Label Size via Avery number, they make that difficult by not listing all the numbers in a row. They are listed by holiday,personal etc. and each of those has SOME Avery numbers and under Blanks where all available label sizes should be it simply says ALL . Then you have to navigate thru the pre-made ones to find your size. There isn't that many label sizes to choose from.So in this long winded way of saying its alot easier to pick there premade design and get that label at the store! It does have some nice features, like you don't have to have the CD in.It ships with 2 CDs, the 2nd only needed to access some graphics and those graphics are only listed in the manual so all the ones pictured in the program itself are on your hard drive. I had PrintShop w/my PC and there is 6 discs you are constantly swapping so this is a real plus.There are lots of nice crafts to make with it like little gift bags,bookmarks and masks for the kids. So its easy to use and average

This application is so very slow that every time I use it, I get very frustrated. Some of the basics are not very well done or clunky (small example - you can't cut using Cmd-X in editing dialogs) and some of the latest features of Mac OS are unsupported (inline spell checking, Spotlight as examples). When a region on a page needs to be redrawn, sometimes it has to redraw the entire page, and this is incredibly (embarrasingly) slow.

I've looked for updates on the Nova Development site, but I don't think they're supporting this application anymore. As a matter of a fact, as I write this, the developer's website is down. The copyright on software is dated 2001 and I believe this is the last time they updated this software.

Please look elsewhere and don't purchase this application, unless you enjoy cheesy, unprofessional graphics, a very slow UI and basically unsupported software.

This is a wonderful easy to use product. As a retired Graphic Designer I have used Quark and Pagemaker. Both are excellent programs for high end graphic design. However, if you want to do something quickly and easily, this is the program for you.
You can use the blank "sign" template to create just about anything you would want to have on a single page--newletters, Christmas letters with photos, etc.
One note of caution. Patience at installation is a virtue. Originally the program would not work with my iMac, running Mac OS X. However, a call to their friendly and helpful technical support people got the program up and running. I was also pleased to be promptly connected to a real person when I called.
Get the new Greeting Card Factory, also by Nova Development, if you like to make greeting cards on your computer. Each of the programs has a different set of premade designs.

I have used this software for over 2 years now. I just upgraded to the new OS-X version. I am extremely satisfied with it as well as the company. When I received the cd's I had some trouble installing it. Tech Support walked me through installing the software. They were very helpful! I am now up and running and printing like a pro!