Microsoft Publisher

What do you like best?

Publisher is powerful and easy to use. It has strong features for manipulating text and images, with layers, irregular cropping, and a host of other capabilities. It is in my opinion the best layout program on the market today.

What do you dislike?

I wish this were available for Mac as well as Windows. It seems that Microsoft has always treated Publisher as the poor cousin to Word, yet it is actually a better and more powerful program.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

The primary competitors to Publisher are Quark and Adobe InDesign. I find Publisher to be easier to use, and it produces results of similar quality. A bonus: it's a lot cheaper.

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

I use Publisher to:

- create Meme images

- create logos and letterheads

- set up manuscripts for publication

- create book covers

- create fancy PDF handouts such as the Parish Profile for my church

It's easy to create multiple versions and let my client pick the one they like.