Publisher - software for amateurs or professionals?

[Dolby]

I'm in the final stages of my course and I'm trying to find out if Microsoft Publisher users are professional designers. If you use Publisher, I'd be really grateful if you could answer a few questions:

are you a professional designer?
what other software do you use?
if you are a non-professional, do you think that what you produce is competitive within the commercial world of design?
has using Publisher encouraged you to take up design?
do you have any formal design training?
do you think designing is easy?

Any comments on the use of Microsoft Publisher in the commercial world of design and print much appreciated!

 

[Milton103098]

It's probably late to give you feedback, but here it is in case others may want to read.

My partner and I run a home based company part-time. We design and produce newsletters, brochures, flyers, and other products for clients [mostly churches]. We use Microsoft Publisher 2000 and will probably upgrade it to 2002. I think we turn out a really nice product using our own HP printers. I would classify us as "semi-professional." Our products do not have the bells and whistles that some client's products would require, like edge-to-edge printing.
I've heard everybody rave about Quark with Pagemaker a close second. They seem to be the products of choice among "professionals." They are much more expensive, but they can do so much more than Publisher. I looked into purchasing Quark, but my local Micro Center told me that apparently, the manufacturer has some sort of proprietary distribution system. I didn't pursue it any further as our clients are not demanding features available with Quark. MR

 

[Dolby]

Many thanks for your views. There are plenty of people out there with negative views, so it is interesting to hear from someone who uses Publisher on a daily basis. I haven't had much experience with Microsoft Publisher, but I've just had a quick look at Picture It! and was pleasantly surprised by it's capabilities.

Only 4 days to go to finish my dissertation now...wish me luck!

Again thanks.

Dolby

 

[rtshort]

My mother works as a typesetter for a local newspaper. They have Quark Express installed on all of their machines and she uses it on a daily basis. If she is real busy and wants to work at home, she uses Publisher at home. She doesn't have Quark Express installed there. Don't know if she considers herself a professional or not, but she likes Publisher as well as Quark Express.

Good luck on your dissertation. Rob
Just my $.02.

 

[camptallk]

Publisher vs. QuarkExpress/PageMaker. This is a decision that needs to be made depending on what you need to do. If you are submitting large print jobs to printing companies, producing high color content flyers, posters, books, tech manuals, and publications with large graphic content, you probably want to be on Macintosh platform using Quark or PageMaker. Mac and Quark are the printing industry standard. Just about every printing company, newspaper, and magazine in the world will be Mac platformed with PM or Quark.

Small businesses and home users usually can do well with MS Publisher on a PC platform.

 

[1148]

I work for a real estate company producing marketing graphics for the agents-over 100 of them. I make good money doing it and my primary application is Publisher 2002.

I also use Photoshop to fix up the crappy photos they give me to use.

I have found Publisher very easy to use and a good fit for this type of business where I produce a large volume of presentations and brochures that are more flash than wordy. My biggest problem has been getting accurate color which is, I think, more a problem with my printer than anything else. Not a problem for my customers, just to me.

Publisher is very flexible and allows a great deal of creativity with the available tools. I use all kinds of templates, many downloaded from the net, and change them to suite the real estate business. Publisher handles imported photos from Photoshop and most kinds of clipart from the net with no problem.

I am happy to say that I get compliments from my customers all the time, so I know they like the work I do for them. I think it's a piece of cake because Publisher is so easy to use. I am very satisfied with Publisher.