Customer Reviews

The Print Shop 22 Deluxe [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

I have had minor problems with previous versions of Print Shop, but the new 22 version installed without a hitch and runs like a champ.

I am not a professional graphic artist and do not work with desktop publishing or illustrations on a day-to-day basis. I think this is why I become so frustrated wrestling with Corel Draw and find a more intuitive and user-friendly program like PS-22 so useful, and indeed, fun to play around with.

My "thing" is scrimshaw. I am constantly on the lookout for little gimcracks like, perhaps an artistic compass rose, a sea monster, a mermaid, etc., to add that little finishing touch to my work. Finding a huge source of such stuff that can be easily edited, resized, and printed as an overlay that will exactly fit into my work is like finding gold.

There's a lot of very attractive bang for the buck in Print Shop 22.

I gave this a pretty harsh review when I first got it. Now that I've had it for a while, I've come to really like it. I still don't use any of the graphics, and I'm not wild about having to put my own graphics into their folder, but it's still the best program out there that I've found. So realize that when you read the original review, you might feel the same way at first but love it later! Who knew!
~ Original review below:
I just purchased this after having an older version of Print Shop which I liked - I mostly wanted a 'ruler' and better graphics options. I am so upset. I got the ruler, alright. That's the only 'plus' in the whole mess. It takes forever to boot it up every time I use it (I downloaded all 4 discs, but I had plenty of space) and although there are lots more graphics, they're childish and stupid - and many of them can be found by a quick search in 'google imgaes.'
But what I really despise is that you can't place an 'out of the program' graphic onto your project page until you put it into your 'my graphics' folder - which is attached to THEIR graphics folder. Then you have to close the folder after each graphic you place. So you go back and forth, back and forth and it's as painful and confusing as trying to figure out what I'm trying to explain!
If I could say ONE thing about this program, it would be RUN LIKE A BUNNY!

Let me add to what others have said.

This is my fourth version of Print shop.

A guy from Broderbund, called me on my cell to tell me about all the new bells and whistles, and it sounded like they finally fixed all my gripes, (little gripes, I used my version 21 all the time) making it projects email able, and an improved photo editor.

So when I bought a new laptop this year, it came with Vista, no option for XP, so I know that vista has some issues with older software, and I get the new version, Print shop Deluxe 22, figuring wrongly, that the current version would be made to accommodate Vista... WRONG

It will work, but your computer will complain and glitch constantly.
The Broderbund website advises running in "Compatibility Mode" but it won't come up for me for Print shop.

So I will load it into one of my older PC's at home and it will be fine I'm sure... It is just that I only use Print shop when doing projects for my wife, and that is what I got the Laptop for, so I could do these honey-do projects in my own room. Oh well.

5/12/08 I just looked at the Broderbund Website, to see when a new version that would be Vista compatable will be out. Nothing. But they now have a patch for Vista, whch I intend to try and see if it eliminates some of these issues.

5/27/08 I just put in the patch from Broderbund, and Printshop finally appears to be working mosty as it should! If you have PS22 installed, go to Broderbund.com and go to software update, and follow directions. Good luck!

I was shopping for an alternative when it occurred to me to review...I've used Printshop since ver. 10, and I know it pretty well. I use it a lot both for work and personal and usually from "scratch". A few things have improved but not enough to keep me committed to it. The art gallery directory is ridiculous, you can't search for a subject, the silly names are like "he likes ice" for a picture of a panda and it is full of old cards and really silly items (pretentiously called "premium images", maybe young kids like them) and many duplicates of images, sadly I've never figured out how to access images from earlier versions, which were superior. Some nice tools of the past like "transparency" seen to have disappeared ;-). It has a tendency to do odd things like "forget" the earlier version of a project or change font sizes when you cut and paste, or refuse to copy...I've run it on a few different computers and it does this on all of them. Today it changed my #10 envelope size every time I closed the project so I had to keep redoing it and couldn't find my address book so I couldn't use mail merge. It gets confused about using legal size paper, changing the layout when you reopen the project to fit letter. I've never been able to work the text in "table", the columns are difficult to size and print set up has a wrong page that has never been corrected. Do NOT call fee based customer support, they charge whether they know how to resolve the issue or not, after telling the tech what I had already tried he had me re-try, charging me all the time, I paid half after some argument and in retrospect should not have paid at all. There is really no technical support. It is easier to use than full programs but has surprising limitations and quirks. I use it all the time and can do a lot with it, but it can be unnecessarily frustrating.

At first, I was scared to try this product. All I found on the web were disappointing reviews. I've never used any of this type of software, but I'm very familiar with business software, like Word.

I found this software to be very intuitive to someone with my background. It took a bit of playing around, but within 3 hours, I had installed it, familiarized myself with it and completed two projects. I would absolutely recommend it.

I tried the photo editor, but since I have a simple photo editor that I already like, I don't see myself using this one too often. For someone without other software, however, this photo editor will be just fine.

It took awhile to upload the software and the 'custom' load didn't prompt me to put all disks of software in for installation. As such, I'll be doing some disk swapping for the extra artwork or trying to re-install. However, there is enough artwork on the original disk that I may never need the rest.

For the price point, a home user or small business user would do well with this software.

The templates and the clip art don't much resemble some of the fairly sophisticated examples on the box. I have done a careful search of the product, and don't think that you could create some of them with the actual contents of the box. The templates definitely don't exist, and the art does not seem to. For example, there is an example of a newsletter called "Fitness News". There is no template that looks like it, and there is no such photograph anywhere in the galleries.

The templates and the art are generally rather funky.

According to the marketing hype on the box, "With The Logo Creator all the tools and templates you need to create the perfect logo are right at your finger tips".

It doesn't come with any templates at all. It just comes with a free trial version of The Logo Creator that you can download yourself from the publisher's (Laughing Bird) website. The first thing it does when you try to load it is to prompt you to buy a key. You don't have to, but there's negligible functionality if you don't. The Logo Creator was advertized as additional functionality to the product, but it's not at all; it's just an advertisement for another product you would have to buy separately to make usable.

Printshop ProPublisher crashes easily. So I immediately checked for updates and found none. Save early and often.

The product is painfully slow (and I have a brand-new computer). And the scroll bar has to be moved a counterintuitively large distance to barely budge the workspace.

The U/I is rather counterintuitive. For example, leading is usually thought of as a paragraph attribute, but you find it in "character spacing" and then click on a tab called "paragraph".

Any document longer than one page seems to be a "newsletter" regardless of whether it actually is or not. If you pick the wrong template, the menu command for adding pages is mysteriously greyed out without explanation. There is no help topic explaining this anomaly.

Select a text box and then try to set text attributes. They are all greyed out. You have to triple-click to select the text. Or you can double click an insertion point (I was never very good at triple-clicking) and then select all the text, or double-click once to get an insertion point, and then double click again.

I am disappointed. I was all set to make myself a logo for my new business venture, and that was why I bought the product. But Logo Creator doesn't really come with the package, contrary to the box. I think I could make myself some nice brochures and business cards, but I'd have to locate better clip art somewhere else, and do my own layout.

this program does it all. the section to edit pictures has many tools and you have the choice for advanced or the userfriendly one. i have used print shop for over 10 years, and so far this new edition is the best. i am happy with it. if you have the extra few dollars you may want the DVD edition. it has everything on one CD so you won't have to switch CDs to access different picture files.

The program and most graphics used actually work as a shell and Internet connection is required for the files to run.

This should be quite clearly stated on the programs own advertising .

If the company goes bust at any time then the program is of no use and all customers will have wasted the cash paid.

It is quite clearly not advertised by, nor is it stipulated by broderbund as an Internet program only.

It's a let down greatly on the company's own part, other than this the program is perfect and well worth purchasing.

Do not order this. Tech support from broderbund is basically non-existant. One sorry product.

This product does not load in Windows Vista without workarounds. In fact, Vista warns that it is incompatible! Try something else.