Catalog Builder

What do you like best?

Catalog Better creates databases based on imported Excel spreadsheets for use in cataloging online or print media. Category options are dense, with loads of customization options to choose from making the set-up time consuming; however, creating a database is pretty simple and straightforward. Your database appears in the form of a spreadsheet identical to what you upload, which is convenient. You can batch attach specific columns in your database to link to .tif or .jpeg files, which saves a ton of time in the long run. You can customize your font size and styles and how you want the fields in your catalog to appear within Catalog Builder prior to exporting to inDesign. The software works independent of inDesign; however, you can choose to export your database to it, which I prefer considering the fact that additional changes to your pages can't be made within the program without completing reexporting your database.

What do you dislike?

As state above, the category options is clunky and difficult to navigate without support guiding you and explaining all of it's features and what they mean. The manual that the software comes with isn't very comprehensive and doesn't go over every feature of the program, including the Adobe inDesign module within the program, which will be a major issue for those who work primarily with Adobe products. There is an indexing module that organizes based on the categories you create. When you create a databse, you are asked to choose a minimum of two categories, which will serve as unique identifiers that determine how catalog builder organizes your data. The index will organize based on what your chosen category; for instance, if you choose a category called "manufacturer name" or "product id", Catalog Builder with create an alphabetized index based on those categories when you export. That being said, I was never able to figure out how to include subcategories in my indexes and customer service was no help and unfortunately were not privy on how the index module even worked. Which brings me to my biggest issue: The customer service is horrendous. The people on call seem to have very little knowledge of how the program works, especially everything in conjunction with the inDesign module. Whenever a problem would arise i.e. images getting mixed up with the wrong parts or appearing on the wrong pages, line items not staying within page margins, customer service essentially had me experiment with various settings in hopes that I would garner different results. I spent hours with customer service performing nothing but trial and error only to set me back over software that feels buggy and unfinished or at the very least unmanaged. The price update feature doesn't work and I spent hours with a customer service rep who also couldn't figure it out, only to tell me that no-one seemed to know how it worked. Apparently it was a feature that was added but was apparently used so rarely, which I find hard to believe, that no one ever bothered to continue testing it or modifying it.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

I've recently been informed that Computer Pundits Corp. is slowly phasing out Catalog Builder and focusing primarily on B2B and ecommerce. The program is being run by a skeleton crew with updates only being made for new and current customers. After having dropped their service a year ago due to budgeting constraints, the company now refuses to allow us back on for a new service plan, making us unable to acquire new updates and support for current issues.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

The two biggest issues I have faced involve the price update feature and indexing. Neither of which have been resolved at this point in time. That being said, the benefits of this software ultimately come down to that fact that it's quicker to generate pages using databases imported to CB as opposed to manually inserting thousands of products into an inDesign layout, so because of that the good outweighs the bad; however, expect to spend many hours still on manual adjustments within inDesign after exporting your database.