Why does Microsoft continue to make Publisher?

7on said:

I don't know anything good about that program other than people automatically have it when buying Office. And even then... I don't think that's a good point.

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Publisher actually does a decent job of what it's designed to do; that is, allow simple layout of pages consisting of graphics, text and shapes. I'm pretty sure the intent of Publisher is not to match InDesign or Quark but to allow for Joe Public to make church or small group newsletters, flyers, and the like. These are people who are never going to pay for a designer anyway.

One thing Publisher does really well is creation of a calendar from a template. We had a guy call my place of employment looking for calendars from 2004 and 2005 (in 2007) - in Publisher, I was able to create those and print them from a laser printer in minutes.

Yeah for creating brochures and calendars in a hurry you can't beat Publisher. I'm taking a class right now that focuses solely on Publisher. I just really wish they had a Mac version.

GSMiller said:

Yeah for creating brochures and calendars in a hurry you can't beat Publisher. I'm taking a class right now that focuses solely on Publisher. I just really wish they had a Mac version.

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They do, it's called Pages. Actually, I doubt Pages is as robust... but I've become quite biased at what MS considers 'robust' on a program.

Now, to answer your question with a question, why does Microsoft keep making anything?

I used to work at a website sweatshop and hated it when people would send over their 'websites' on ANY Microsoft product. 'I already designed it in Publisher for ya'. Gag! Clipart! Comic Sans! Oh boy! Aside from the fact that cheap-o sweatshop only had publisher installed on the biggest POS in the building, it was such a hassle to try and use for anything.

It's not as bad as getting a website 'design' they made in Word.

Publisher is so much quicker for slinging stuff together on - my mums forever asking me to do things for her school class (the bain of being the computer person) and its often quicker to do it in publisher (atleast my mum can use the basics of it) than for me to use something like indesign or photoshop etc

GSMiller said:

Yeah for creating brochures and calendars in a hurry you can't beat Publisher. I'm taking a class right now that focuses solely on Publisher. I just really wish they had a Mac version.

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Not if you're planning on having output done at a professional printers ...

Every Publisher job that was ever brought to me had to be re-set from scratch in Quark or InDesign because - surprise - the customer's own Publisher proofs looked lovely on the six-colour inkjet they had at home, but bore no resemblance to normal CMYK output.

After the first few times, we gave up even telling the customer what we were doing and just re-set the job without them ever knowing, because they wouldn't pay the artworking fee.

It may be possible that with the right training, Publisher will produce documents that will hit a RIP without issue and split reliably for CMYK, but I was never fortunate enough to witness such a thing.

Cheers

Jim

GSMiller said:

Yeah for creating brochures and calendars in a hurry you can't beat Publisher. I'm taking a class right now that focuses solely on Publisher. I just really wish they had a Mac version.

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I am sorry to hear that. I have never really been a fan of Publisher, but that is probably because I know how to do it the right way in professional programs. I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, but the more I see Publisher flyers built by people claiming to know design and call them selves designers the more I dispise Publisher.

If you want to make a church flyer then by all means us publisher, but it is not for publishing designs and layouts.

Sorry went off on a little rant.

bbeers said:

I am sorry to hear that. I have never really been a fan of Publisher, but that is probably because I know how to do it the right way in professional programs. I don't mean to sound like a jerk or anything, but the more I see Publisher flyers built by people claiming to know design and call them selves designers the more I dispise Publisher.

If you want to make a church flyer then by all means us publisher, but it is not for publishing designs and layouts.

Sorry went off on a little rant.

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Don't apologize for telling the truth...