Publisher 2002 Version Upgrade

As you'd expect, Publisher 2002 fits in seamlessly with Office XP so you'll find features such as XP style menus, the new Task Pane and Auto Correct to name but a few. Word users will approve of the Import Wizard as documents can be loaded directly into Publisher and have new fonts, styles and colour schemes applied at the click of a mouse button. A huge range of pre-defined templates are provided and you now get a further 15 design sets focusing on business stationary themes--just pick one from the Task Pane and it's loaded ready for your master touch. Fill effects and background choices abound and you decide how you want text to be wrapped around each object.

The Web page design tools are a mixed bag as Publisher allows excellent results to be produced easily and exported directly to HTML format. However, a lack of control over the Web page naming convention used for multi-page projects and the fact that Netscape Navigator doesn't cope well with Publisher's proprietary XML-based code won't impress professional designers. It's a pity that Ad obe's PDF format isn't supported either. These make Publisher 2002 less appealing to professionals but to the rest of us it offers a flying start into the world of desktop publishing. --Dave Mitchell