PagePlus X3 Publisher Professional
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The last upgrade of Serif’s veteran desktop publishing (DTP) program made it a bit of a jack of all trades.
As well the page layout features you’d expect it also included features for creating slideshows and presentations using PDF files, embedding documents into emails and even a smattering of business graphics tools for creating flowcharts.
However, this latest version, Pageplus X3, is a bit more focused, and its most important new features all concentrate on the graphical side of DTP work.
Our favourite new feature is the Logo Studio, which is a kind of program-within-a-program that focuses specifically on the task of creating logo artwork.
Most DTP programs provide tools for creating effects such as running text along a path, but the Logo Studio goes into this process in much more depth than we’ve seen elsewhere. There are predefined paths for curved text, or you can run the text along a freehand path that you draw yourself.
There’s a wide range of additional text effects available, such as shadows, 3D effects and metallic textures, and you can also draw your own logo graphics, select from a wide range of clip-art symbols or import your own photos and other artwork as part of the logo.
Once you’ve created the logo you can make it part of a master page that can then be re-used for other documents in the future. It’s a nice idea and will be very handy for home workers and small businesses that need to design their own stationary and marketing materials.
Another related tool is the Cutout Studio, which is used to select parts of a photo and remove them from the photo’s background image, so that they can be used them for logos or elsewhere in documents.
There’s also a new set of special effects filters that can be used to enhance photos and other graphics. These include a variety of blur, transparency, reflection and lighting effects, so there is plenty of scope for experimenting with artwork and logo designs.
Serif doesn’t just focus on fancy graphics, though. There are some very practical new features in Pageplus X3 too, such as the duplex wizard that allows users to print documents on both sides of paper even for those using low-cost printers that don’t normally allow double-sided printing.
The manual could be a little more helpful. It has a tendency to stray into jargon sometimes but for the most part Pageplus X3 is very easy to use, and can be recommended to home users of small business users who need a straightforward but versatile DTP program. And, with a price cut from £100 to £80, it’s good value too.
Do you have any experiences with PagePlus X3 Publisher Professional ? We would love to hear from you and get your opinion! Please see rating section below!
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Tags: design, graphic, pageplus, professional, publisher, Review, x3
Posted on: December 9, 2009
Filed under: PagePlus X3 Publisher Professional
4 Reviews
Bernd h
December 10th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
We recently used PagePlus X3 to make a newsletter about our upcoming event. We didn’t want to spend alot so decided to try out PagePlus. It was incredibly easy to use and we spent very little time learning the software. The Cut Out Studio helped to optimize the stock images we purchased by eliminating the background. When we were done we converted to PDF and sent right off to the printer. We received several compliments on the newsletter as well as some stickers with the company logo we designed in the Logo Studio. Great product and worth a try!
lorre
December 10th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
This product is being actively promoted in author/writer communities as a book layout and publishing application. The product description here even says, “perfect for . . . multi-chapter books.” Not so.
For starters, it doesn’t support different running headers for sections/chapters, nor does it support a different first page header for a section/chapter (even Word or WordPerfect can do those things). What’s required is that you create a unique document/file for each chapter. If you want chapters to have a different first page design (like most normal books), you have to create two documents/files for each chapter. Then you use a separate “BookPlus” utility (included) to string them all together, number the pages, build a table of contents, etc. It’s very awkward.
The book export options are standard PDF/X-1 and X-1a, with no apparent way to apply the custom settings or profiles that may be provided or recommended by a specific printer/press. If/how OpenType fonts and encapsulated PostScript are supported and handled is unclear. So all in all, several things that no one else may care about (but that really matter to self-publishers who prepare their own books for press) are either not provided or involve more work than they should.
Aside from that, this product seems to be everything it claims. It is superior to MS Publisher in almost every way, and provides a lot of the advanced text, graphic, and color management capabilities that you’d only find in something like Adobe CreativeSuite (yet this is much easier to learn and use — and obviously more affordable). Actually, laying out the content on a given page is easy and the results are impressive.
I ordered this product because it was being pitched as a “perfect” layout tool for books, capable of producing “unrivaled” commercial output quality. It’s not. Granted, for the price, it would have been really impressive if it WAS — but it’s not. So if you’re an author or publisher who is considering it solely for that purpose, I think you’ll be disappointed. For routine desktop publishing needs, however, I concur with the other four/five-star reviews posted here.
Hubertus
December 10th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
This is one of the greatest products I have ever purchased. The graphics and enhancement features are outstanding. And I just using plain paper to print on. Just imagine if I used photo paper or even a high grade print paper, it would be totally unreal. I love the many additions to the art gallery. And it is easy to navigate through. I had Publisher in 2004 on my desk top and I gave that computer away. So I purchased this Publisher for my laptop because I converted to Vista Windows. I never forgot how I loved the first one. And I love this one even better.
Micahel
December 10th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I’ve been in the bit-banging business for more than 20 years. This product from Serif is Number One. The attention to detail is great. An outstanding appreciation is shown for the types of problems that users may run into in when working in this process environment.
It’s a comfortable software to use and it’s priced right!
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