Customer Reviews

PrintMaster Platinum 2.0 [Old Version]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(54)
1 star:		(119)

 

 

I have been a loyal Printmaster user for years. I have upgraded many times because of the ease of use and the variety of design elements available. I recently got a Mac so I purchased the new 2.0 version to use with my new Mac computer. WOW, AM I DISAPPOINTED. The product STINKS!!! Everything that I loved about the older versions is gone. First of all, you have to install all of the art onto your computer. This is a 23G program! But still, the templates are limited, the clip art is awful and I can't seem to layer them onto my own designs without the white background showing around the clip art, so if I have a colored background in my design, I can't get the clip art on my project without the white around it. I imagine it can be done because the white is not in the ready-made templates, but I can't seem to edit it out. If anyone knows how, please let me know. I can't copy and paste outside clip art into it either. It just puts a box with the name of the item and there is no way to activate the contents. As I said, I have been using PrintMaster products for a long time and I can usually figure out most software programs without a problem, but this version has me so frustrated that I will probably uninstall it from my computer. It is not worth the enormous amount of space it takes up. Sadly, I probably can't return the opened item so I am just going to have to eat the $39.99 I paid for this inferior version of a once-loved product. I will try to contact the company to see is there is a satisfaction guarantee, but I'm not hopeful. I would NOT recommend this version of PrintMaster.
UPDATE: Thank you Amazon for your great return policy. You sent a return shipment label and bar code immediatly when I asked to return for a refund on this Horrible Product. Initial shipping was free, so for less than $5 for return shipping, it is well worth it to be rid of PrintMaster 2.0. AMAZON IS THE BEST!

I have used Printmaster products for years. I have always been really happy with their products and have upgraded everytime they have come out with a new version. STAY AWAY FROM THIS VERSION. It is SLOW SLOW SLOW! If you want to search the clipart, it can take you 5 - 7 minutes to go through a search. Also, the thumbnails are so small, you can barely see the picture (in previous versions you could change the thumbnail size... I couldn't figure out how to do that in the new version) So, save your money and don't buy this product. You would be better off buying Printmaster 18 Platinum, which is a great product. I'm so disappointed, I will be asking Amazon for a refund. (Also, in case you are wondering, I have a brand new, high powered PC, so my computer is not the problem)

I have been a big fan of PrintMaster for years. Their templates were straight-forward, easy to use, and personalize. But this product is very unintuitive. The biggest disappointment is the fact you can't print cards and other projects at home. What were they thinking?? The whole idea of such programs for the computer is to do-it-yourself. If I want professionally done cards, I will go to the store and buy one. The convenience of print-at-home is immediate gratification and usability. This is a huge disappointment. I asked for a refund from Amazon. Thank goodness for their understanding return policy.

I have been using versions of PrintMaster for years, and I was just waiting for Version 19 to come out because I have basically worn out 18. Fortunately I read the description of 2.0 online before I bought it. 2.0 is not compatible with earlier PrintMaster versions--as in, it will not even read them! Somebody at Broderbund is ignoring a lesson Apple learned the hard way with the MAC--if you have to get all new software with a new machine, and you lose all of your old files because the old machine is totally incompatible with the new one, you're going to lose a lot of business. Broderbund just lost my business.

This review is for installation on a Macintosh Computer.

Based on the way the product works by itself, I would give this a much higher rating. The features once installed are easy-to-use, powerful, and fun. You are able to make a wide assortment of products from menus, church bulletins and flyers (something I did effectively), invitations and more. The color matching tool, a eye dropper used to match colors in photos or clip-art, is effective and a great way to incorporate colors from existing work into new merged work. The software also has some photo editing capabilities, can crop, remove red eye, etc.

This is an all-new product. Work done with prior versions of Print Master will not work with this one. This is important to note. As I never used a previous version of Print Master I was unaffected by this, but I am sure if you used prior versions or are looking to upgrade, this will be worth noting.

My main points of contention with this software is that prior point of backwards compatibility as well as the installation. Coming in at close to 23 gigs, this is one huge piece of software. Installing it took nearly all of my free space left on my hard drive. The installation is three whole DVD disks. One for the main software and two for artwork. On it's front this is good, because many competing software products come with comparable functionality out of the box, but lack with art and add-ons this has, so that is a plus.

But in the end, most of the features you get on this come with computers already. Macs, for example, come with iPhoto that do all of the photo editing. If you happened to add on iWork you already have most of the features that this has in a smaller more integrated package.

All-in-all I gave this four (4) stars. I was torn. The product itself is very good and fun to use. The problem again lies with the size for installation and lack of backwards compatibility. If you had a lot of free disk space, didn't have software like iPhoto, iWork, or MS Publisher, this will be a good product for you. It is feature rich and easy to use. Otherwise, if you already have other similar products, avoid this.

It's a waste of money, time, and space on your computer. I've used older versions of Printmaster for years and have created beautiful documents,business cards, flyers, invitations, banners, etc. There is no way that this Platinum 2.0 can come close to providing the same quality. The only reason I purchased it is because I recently switched from a PC to an IMac. It seems to be the only version that is formatted for Mac users. The graphics in this program are complete DUDS!!!! They lack the color, vibrancy, creativity and imagination that the older version had. There is not one "free-standing" graphic in the entire program. They are all set in "frames" which make it impossible to add little subtle effects on flyers and posters. I wish I had bought mine through Amazon so I could get a refund. I bought mine directly through Broderbund. A total waste! Don't buy it !!!

I agree with others here who are extremely disappointed with this new version of Printmaster. I also have used it for MANY years and really liked it, but this new version is just terrible.

For example, I couldn't even find a simple template for creating a greeting card using an 8.5 x 11 sheet and then folding it.

Another example, in the old one, to create business cards using business card stock, you would create the layout for ONE card and then when you printed, it would duplicate that layout on every card on the sheet. You could even tell it to only print a specific number of cards (e.g. 2 lines worth). Well, with the new one, when you pick a business card template, you are then presented with a sheet with each card as an individual selectable object - i.e. any modifications you make to one of the cards on the sheet is NOT replicated on any other! So from what I can see, you would actually have to modify each card individually on the sheet! I suppose you might be able to use global search and replace to modify the text on all the cards, but otherwise it seems completely useless!

It looks to me like they took a pretty simple drawing program engine and packaged it with some terrible templates and called it Printmaster, without any of the helpful logic it used to have embedded in it. The worst upgrade I have ever seen (it's actually not an upgrade, just a completely new and totally useless program).

The only reason I gave it one star is there are no minus stars! I did not buy from Amazon, I bought directly from Borderbund site as a pre-order. I wish I had bought from Amazon, they make returns so easy! YES, My PC would run it; however, no one in their right mind would want to run it. It is nothing like previous versions and I do not mean the interface. The interface is different but that only takes a few minutes to adjust to, this pathetic thing has few useful functions. It is simply a piece of junk. AND I've owned many versions of PrintMaster over the years and loved them all dearly. PrintMaster was simply the most well planned, easiest to use software to create great newsletters, brochures, cards, booklets. All were marvelous. I had to upgrade because my new video card runs at too high a resolution for Version 15. I have ordered PM 18 FROM AMAZON and hope it will meet my needs.

This program is awful. I have been a long time PrintMaster user and have always loved the program for making mailing labels and banners. After purchasing a Mac, I greatly missed the program although I still run PrintMaster Gold 15 from time to time under Boot Camp. When I read that the new Platinum 2.0 worked with Mac OS X I was ecstatic. Finally, one of my all time favorite apps could run natively on my Mac!

Wow. What a disappointment.

The program took about 45 minutes to install. I have never had a program take that long to install, and that was just ONE of the DVDs! No matter, as I knew it would be worth it in the end.

Wrong.

The interface is almost completely different. Instead of being presented with a menu on startup that shows an animated icon of the different types of templates (as in 15 Gold), all you get is a pre-made and a blank project option. It then goes through a drill down menu of the different types of projects. The interface is also very slow and the animations are choppy. It's almost sickening to watch. You can't click anything without it having to load. The response time is also slow. The program cannot keep up if you are working at a fast pace and will not recognize half of your commands.

Anyone who has ever created a mailing label knows the vast amount of sizes labels come in. With PrintMaster Platinum 2.0 it only gives you ONE size option! I have not been able to figure out how, or if, you can change the size like on all previous versions, as the program has a very vague user guide. Multiple internet searches have also offered no help. I figured I would go ahead and use the default size from the program, as it was the size I needed anyway. In all previous version of PrintMaster I have used, it only shows one individual label on the screen that you edit and then it gives you the option of how many labels you want to actually print. Not this one. It shows an entire page of labels, and you must enter all of the information manually on each label, even if you want them to all be the same. Don't expect much customization in your work here unless you literally have hours to waste.

Then it came to printing. Ugh, what a pain. I decided to print a test sheet and lay over the actual labels to see how it would print. They were all off center, not to mention that when PrintMaster printed the labels, it also printed the dotted lines from the template onto the page! I have clicked every available option in the program but have not been able to remove the dotted lines.

This program is a joke. I am hoping to try to be able to return it to the store at which I bought it, because the Broderbund return policy requires you to pay for the shipping and to wait 4 to 6 weeks for your refund check.

I seriously doubt I will ever buy another Broderbund product.

Unfortunately, I DID NOT READ THESE REVIEWS BEFORE PURCHASING THIS PRODUCT!! I had an old version of PrintMaster on my old PC and LOVED IT! We made everyone of our greeting cards, announcements, newsletters, etc. EVERYTHING was personalized. I was able to freehand crop out faces and paste on cliparts, etc, for FUN projects! This new program does NOT create greeting cards at all... says it does on the package, and looks like you can do all the old stuff, but you can't. The cliparts all have white around them, which you can't remove, so there's a white square in your designs. The clip arts take forever to search though the archives and they are NOT that great! I did NOT buy this from amazon, but from Staples and am pretty sure I'm stuck with the product. The old software was kid friendly, and my children could even make cards. This is SOOOOO DISAPPOINTING! DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!