Print Reviews

Reviews: Font Manager Face-Off

We pit eight Mac and Windows font managers against each other. Who will win the fight?

Review: Adobe InDesign CS3

Go ahead...make my layout. This new version makes short work of design and production tasks across the board.

Review: HVC Color Composer

This Photoshop plug-in adds an intuitive color selection tool that will save time and money -- once you grasp its complexity.

Review: Five InDesign Plug-Ins

Adobe InDesign has a lot of features, but for some specific tools, you need a plug-in. These five plug-ins, with prices from free to $100, will help you prepare print files, share styles, and more.

Review: Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional

More for the Office, Less for Creative Pros.

Review: Quark Print Collection

Its imposition and marking tools for QuarkXpress or Adobe Acrobat are top-notch, and its price is surprisingly low. Do you need this new bundle of tricks?

Review: Quark Interactive Designer 1.0

A long quest for a simple, easy-to-learn Flash program is over. Or is it?

Review: Enfocus PitStop Professional 7

While expensive, the new version offers major interface improvements, painless preflight, and much more.

Review: QuarkXPress 7

In many ways, it's a great leap forward. In other ways, it falls short. Is the new version enough to keep current XPress users in the Quark fold? Can it even entice some people back from InDesign?

Review: Adobe InDesign CS2

Should you buy the new InDesign? Here's the lowdown on the new features, who they benefit, and whether the price is right.

Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional

Adobe released a new version of its Acrobat software. Is the upgrade worth $449? Read on for a firsthand look at the pros and cons.

The Digital Dish: Plugging PageMaker into InDesign

Loyal PageMaker fans shed a tear when Adobe announced it was discontinuing the application. But PageMaker lives on as a set of plug-ins for InDesign. What do you get? Sandee Cohen takes a look.

Adobe FrameMaker 7.1: Fast Software for Long Documents

Producers of technical documentation have long sung the praises of Adobe FrameMaker, but other print designers may wonder what's the big deal. That may change with FrameMaker 7.1, which includes powerful QuarkXPress and PageMaker filters and whizzy conditional-text features.

CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12: Smart Doodling, Dynamic Snapping, Savvy Copying

Some graphics products may be flashier, but few offer the bang-per-buck of CorelDraw Graphics Suite. Just-announced version 12 of this illustration-imaging-animation package offers intelligent eyedroppers and smart drawing tools and withdraws Mac support.

InDesign CS: Adobe Ups the Ante Once Again

Page layout these days is a high-stakes poker game full of bidding, bluffing, and raking in the chips. With the release of InDesign CS, Adobe adds new features that may make users of other programs throw in their cards. Should you join the game? Sandee Cohen has the answer in her review.

PitStop Professional 6: Preflighting with Panache

Prepping PDF files for press -- also known as preflighting -- is an essential step of the publishing process. But if you want your preflight software to do more than just check for missing fonts and graphics in PDFs, take a look at Enfocus PitStop Professional 6.0.

QuarkXPress 6.0: A Safe Upgrade in Dangerous Times

QuarkXPress's perch on top of the page-layout heap has long been undisputed. But with increased competition from InDesign, the pressure is on Quark to produce an upgrade that secures its standing. Does QuarkXPress 6.0 deliver? Gene Gable reviews the Mac OS X version of XPress.

Color Management Tools: GretagMacbeth's New Eye-One Lineup Spans the Gamut

Making an already comprehensive set of tools for color management even more wide-ranging, GretagMacbeth updates its color-profiling product line with new software, new hardware, new capabilities, and new price points. Bruce Fraser takes a look.

Acrobat 6 Professional: Adobe Targets Creatives with Nimbler Acrobat

After years of trying to be all things to all people, Acrobat now comes in three flavors, among them Acrobat 6 Professional. Designed to meet the needs of creative professionals, Acrobat Pro sports features for creating e-books, preflighting files, onscreen color proofing, and more. Susan Glinert makes Acrobat Pro jump though some hoops.

HP Color LaserJet 2500: Good Prints at a Great Price

Color laser printers have lagged behind color inkjets in popularity due to high unit costs and so-so print quality. But the HP Color LaserJet 2500 series, with models starting at less than $1,000, could change that.