Customer Reviews

Nova Greeting Card Factory (Mac)

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

 

 

I swear, we Mac faithful must be patient folk. How long have our Windows friends been enjoying greeting card software for? It's taken two decades for such a product to come to the Mac. Sheeeshh .... But this is a winner. I own Print Shop and Greeting Card Factory, which have nice greeting cards. But these are really high-caliber. And it's 100% greeting card projects. It's really well done. Graphics are great. Sentiments are clearly professionally authored. It's a keeper. :-)

Just bought a Mac after using PCs for 20 some years. Not much choice in software! This program is easy to use and is fairly versatile - about on a par with the Windows application called "Card Studio" and not quite as versatile as "Print Artist". Was able to produce my annual Christmas card in a rather short time after receiving the software this PM. Menus and commands are intuitive and there is a better than average "manual" in the box. If you have fun making cards you can enjoy this application.

I installed Greeting Card Factory 1.02 on my Mac and it crashed every time I tried to run it from a user account. In the administrator account it ran fine. That's how I figured out that the problem is solely due to a poorly written installer that sets bad permissions. This can be fixed by running the Terminal from the administrator account and entering:

sudo chmod -R 777 /Applications/Greeting\ Card\ Factory/

Then you just enter your administrator password and everyone can use the program. I gave it just 2 stars because I blame the developer for this mess.

I have used the Factory to make several cards. Overall ease of use is good, selection of cards is good, printing is good.

The Not So Good: I cannot size down a "crop" of an image. The software wants to maintain the original frame size. I would like to take a small part of the page one image and replicate it on page three to add a small amount of color and still be "within theme". Can't do it.

Now for the Ugly: I installed the Factory on a Mac Mini with Tiger. I have my account (administrator) and I've set up an account for my wife. I installed the Factory as administrator, but my wife cannot access the Factory under her account. A message stating that the application unexpectedly quit is always the result. I contacted Nova technical assistance. They stated that this is due to concerns for "security". Yet, when queried whether these same "security" concerns exist for the Windows editions of Factory, the answer is "no". Sheesh! Tech support will send my concerns to their "superiors", but I don't expect much help in that direction!

I previously owned a PC and used American Greetings card program. I found this to be the best one out and I tried them all. Now that I have a Mac computer the choices are so limited in card programs. I ended up purchasing the Nova Card Factory and I am not at all pleased with it. A very limited selection of cards and not user friendly. I would not recommend this to anyone. I hardly use it. I wish they would make an American Greetings program compatible with the MAC computer.

Julie
Dearborn, MI

I thought the graphics were weak and seemed limited to either too cutesy, cartoony stuff or overly fluffy granny stuff. I did like the selection of fonts and headlines, though. I am still trying to figure out why I'd bought this one and not just gone for the clip art programs. Based on the good reviews it got, I thought it would be as good as The Print Shop 11 which has better graphics for all age groups.

I've tried most, if not all, of the greeting card programs for the PC. Now that I'm a Mac user, I'm expecially pleased that there finally is such a good greeting card program for the Mac. This is a good complement to Nova Development's Print Explosion. The predesigned greeting cards in each program seem to be different. Between the two programs you can do a large number of "desktop publishing" projects. And, both programs are much easier to use than the high end desktop publishing programs used by professionals.

I've used -- and enjoyed using -- Nova Greeting Card Factory on a PC for years. The Mac product is probably my only real disappointment since switching to the Mac. It's not user-friendly and it does not seem to have so many of the features that the PC version has had for such a long time.

We've been using a Hallmark greeting card program for years and recently purchased a Mac. This was the only product we could find that is made for Mac users and seemed to fit our needs. Problem is the software is way to complicated compared to the Hallmark software. It's definitely going to take awhile to learn and get used to it.

After using the windows version I am disapointed with the Mac.
It is difficult to navigate and very difficult to switch back and forth to read the cards.
Difficulty in adding your own text.