NWA-PCUG 11/2000 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 Microsoft Home Publishing Suite 2000 A Software Review by Diane Gillette Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. Microsoft Home Publishing Suite 2000 is considered the next level of personal publishing. This program contains over 100,000 quality graphics, 10,000 project templates and 10,000 professional photos as well as paper projects, e-mail and Web projects. In Paper Projects, you'll find a multitude that includes: greeting cards, invitations, envelopes, address labels, calendars, banners, crafts, (gift tags, stickers, recipe cards, activity booklets, bookmarks, masks), school reports, flyers, photo projects, postcards, stationery, posters and signs, party sets, and newsletters. Why not add flair to your communications with multimedia. You can send e- mail messages using animations, pictures, sounds special effects, and fancy entrance and exit effects. You can also specify the timing of when you want your picture or animation to appear, disappear or start and stop moving. I have a lot of birthday cards to buy this month, so my first project was to make those. Hallmark quality greeting card templates are included in the program, so you've got many to choose from for birthdays, anniversaries, etc. My first step was to select a theme, then select the style, (cute, funny, or serious), and then a card was chosen. A small, medium, or large picture called a thumbnail of each design that matches the theme and style is shown so you can see exactly what the card would look like. Once you see it, you can always go back and change anything on the card. Selecting a message for the front and inside of the card was the next step. I customized the back of the card by putting my own name on it as the creator, which made it unique. Once I was satisfied with my card, I printed it, and it looked great! You can even make your own envelopes with the envelope templates, or use quarter fold, half fold or special Hallmark envelopes to mail out your creations. My next project was address labels containing a graphic and then some stationery. They were so simple to make; the program walks you through the projects so anyone can have terrific results. I then decided I needed a newsletter and so I can e-mail it to my family. I'm starting a bit early, but I chose a Christmas theme with Christmas lights on the left had margin of the paper. I put in my own newsletter title, volume and season and started typing. You'll find that many of the email projects have sound icons that are included, and you can go in and tell it when you want it to play. If you don't want the included sound, you can record your own voice. I did this with a birthday card, and it was fantastic. An audio card with headphones or speakers for sound and a microphone is required for voice recording. Once you record your message, play it back, to see how it sounds and then e-mail it to your friend by using the send button. Depending on your e-mail program, Home Publishing will either automatically create a small program that your recipient can open, or guides you through the steps. One of the great things about this program is that the recipient will not need Home Publishing on their computer to open your project. Need a new business card....why not make your own? Recognize achievements by making your own personalized message, using your company logo on your award. Calendars are always useful. You can include special dates you want to remember and use Home Publishing "reminders" feature. If you don't have a web page, Home Publishing Suite 2000 will get you up and running. Make your very own personal web page using the templates provided and use the web wizard to help you post to your Internet provider. You create the design and Home Publishing does the rest. Why not make a scrapbook of your family or relatives to enjoy, or make a page for your school, club or business so it can be viewed on the Internet. We all want to use our own special pictures. Home Publishing can help. It has powerful built-in photo, animation and graphics editing tools that can help you create exciting print and multimedia projects. You can lighten, darken, rotate, sharpen, blur, soften the edges, emboss, antique, tint, or use the painted effect to get just the right picture for your project. You can adjust your photos all at once, fix red eye, and remove distractions. MS Home Publishing 2000's web site, http://www.home_publishing.com, is updated weekly and can give you a lot of useful ideas and information for your projects. Add-on packs are available, some are free, and others require a fee. I truly enjoyed reviewing Microsoft Home Publishing 2000 Suite. It was extremely easy to use for either novices or people of any experience level and yielded professional results. It walks you through everything, including how to put your paper in the printer for your cards and special projects. As with any Microsoft product, the help menu gave you lots of additional information. I would recommend this program to anyone who wanted to use their computer to make their own cards, newsletters, Websites, or any project that employs a combination of text and graphics. Try it, you won't be disappointed. There are so many positives to the program; it's hard to find something to criticize. The only negative I found was having to switch discs for the graphics, but that is understandable and common with most all graphics software. You certainly wouldn't want to put all this data on your hard drive. Check out your local Sunday ads in your newspapers for special rebates on this program. My box included a $20 offer. I have seen some where the combination of store and Microsoft rebates result in a free box of software. You will otherwise find Home Publishing Suite at a very reasonable street price of $27. Minimum System Requirements: Pentium 166 MHz, Windows 95, 98 or NT (Service Pack 4 or later), 2 MB of RAM, 376MB hard disk space for minimum or 482MB for typical installation, 4X CD-ROM drive, Super VGA 256 monitor 14.4 modem, Windows compatible color printer for full color output, audio card with headphones or speakers for sound, microphone required for voice recording, Internet access required for Clip Gallery Live, Street Price: Approximately $54.95 Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399 : Copyright 2000. This article is from the October 2000 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277- 1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/ The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,600+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program. See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.