Features

• Create unique Hallmark cards for any occasion
• Includes more than 5,400 Hallmark cards and projects
• Also includes more than 1,000 new designs and more than 10,000 exclusive clip art images
• Digital Editor feature lets you personalize cards with your digital photos
• Event Planner feature keeps track of birthdays and anniversaries

Reviews (1)

Possible Vaporware
With the demise of the Card Studio line this product may never be released. ... Read more

Features

• 18,000+ exclusive greeting cards and customizable projects
• 82,000+ beautiful graphics; 500+ fonts
• 5,000+ easy-to-customize sentiments
• Advanced digital photo editor; import images from any source
• Electronic greetings; dozens of additional creative projects

Features

• Sophisticated, easy-to-use program for creating personalized projects
• Design greeting cards, newsletters, full stationery sets, or decorations
• Access images, photos, headlines, logos, and more from one location
• Full suite of photo editing tools; enhanced printing resolution
• 100 free Paramount greeting cards with online registration

Reviews (1)

LOTS of Projects
This program has lots of projects for you to choose from. It is easy to use, also. The biggest downfall is that the photo fixing and enhancing are not the greatest. You are limited to a few minor fixes on the photo itself, and enhancing is the same. You can enhance a lot better with Creating Keepsakes. Neither program has much to actually fix a photo. If you are looking for photo enhancing and fixing, move on. If you want great projects for everything from photos to making coloring book pages for kids, this is for you. ... Read more

Features

• An easy way to do more with digital photos
• Organize collection and find photos fast
• Fix and enhance photos easily
• Drag and drop to create impressive keepsakes
• Back-up and protect photos on CD

Reviews (11)

Best software of its kind
Print Explosion Deluxe is, in my opinion, orders of magnitude better than the original Print Explosion and beats Print Shop (which, by comparison, is cumbersome, not "Mac-like" and not os x compatible) hands down. The artwork in Print Explosion Deluxe (templates, etc.) is really nice, too, and it's easy for me to customize. I've used Print Shop and Print Master on the PC, and Print Explosion Deluxe is on par with those products, which I think are great on the Windows side.

Insanely Great Mac Print Software!
I've been a user of Nova Development products for years, having bought their first Art Explosion product when they first brought it out. They've always been committed to great Mac software, and Print Explosion Deluxe won't disappoint.

My wife and I are both teachers, and we use Print Explosion Deluxe (she under OS 9 and me under OS X) for school projects, as well as for our church. It's a simply outstanding program for making banners, flyers, greeting cards, and other printed projects. The templates/designs are great, and the tools are excellent. And, most important to me being a Mac user since 1984, it feels like a Macintosh product, unlike Print Shop and some of the other "Windows ports" I've tried that are just hokey on the Mac.

Contrary to another review I read on Amazon, I think the graphics are incredibly well organized and of great quality. It's easy to find images for just about any purpose, and the software is just incredibly easy to use.

It even supports EPS graphics. So no matter where the clip art comes from, you can print it out, even on an inkjet printer, and the quality is perfect at any size. Even Microsoft Word doesn't do that for me. And creating your own projects from scratch is easy.

Along with Quicken, Word and Entourage, Print Explosion Deluxe is one of my core Macintosh applications. I use it daily and recommend it wholeheartedly.

Nice app, but has weird quirks that need fixing.
Pretty much everything they claim about this app is true. If you're looking for a simple app for print projects, this is hard to beat. That said, here are the gotchas to look out for:

The app doesn't support ANY antialiasing making on-screen editing difficult. If your project is destined for print this isn't a big deal, but if your destination is a screen image it's a problem.

The program's JPEG compression is HORRIBLE; its BEST setting is worse than Photoshop's WORST setting! With its lack of antialiased text, this renders the program's e-postcard feature practically useless.

The installer is questionable. The program ships on three CDs, with the installer on one and extra graphics and fonts on the others. But the installer doesn't add the contents of the other two CDs to your installation. Those have to be installed MANUALLY. Considering that the quality of the graphics on the other two CDs is much higher AND the fact that this information isn't clearly explained anywhere, it becomes an issue for the less knowledgable/experience (for whom this app is primarily aimed towards).

Knowing this, I would buy this app again -- but I wouldn't use it for anything destined for on-screen use. Since the app is called *PRINT* Explosion this makes sense. :-)

UPDATE 5/2/04: Since writing this review, I have learned via an email conversation with Nova Development that they have no interest in addressing the shortcomings listed above. I have also purchased The Print Shop for Mac OS X which is a significantly nicer/higher quality app and is definitely an OS X-savvy app (not a Windows port as Print Explosion is), but it doesn't have the billions of bits of art and fonts that come with Print Explosion. But if given the choice between Print Explosion and Print Shop, choose Print Shop.

Great Mac Software
Print Explosion works great with OS X Panther. It has a wealth of templates, images and fonts. The only problem is you can't start with a blank project, but it is easy enough to pick a generic one and delete the stuff you don't want. Well worth the money.

Great basics for design for less money
First, I do promo for a large fundraising project. I purchased the basic version and found it to be extremely workable however when I then upgraded and attempted to email my work to my printers I found that my fonts and designs were corrupted and wouldn't come through well. As the main piece I created using this program I print out and mail about 6000 copies a month this is too bad.
This is mainly names and the program does the graphics well just not the word processing aspect.
So the upshot is for little money you can create some great basic pieces. Make a master and you are fine if you can do the printing on the glass.
I also found a limitation of not being able to work with unusual sizes. That is overcome by figuring your own measurments
All in all a very useful program and I am reommending it for all 179 organizations following in my fundraising footsteps.
Our large organization sent out a cd version based on this for my main fundraising piece and I got a call from someone saying he couldn't afford the $900.00 software -how did I do this?
Pretty good recommendation. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Regarding: American Greetings CreataCard Platinum 8
I currently have American Greetings CreataCard Gold 3, and I love it. It has been so easy to use, and I like the fact that I can create an envelope, which comes up with my return address already on it, and address it with a single click of the mouse. Then I can change the font and add an image. With the Platinum 8, I have not been able to do that at all. I tried to do their "Mail Merge", even had the instructions in front of me, but it would not work. The setup is not nearly as handy to use, and it is always trying to send me to the Internet for images. I am very disappointed with this product.

Poor Upgrade
I have Create a Card Platinum 5 and really like it. I haven't upgraded for some time because I thought it was good as is. But I decided to buy the Platinum 8 to check it out. What a rip off. Hardly any upgrades at all in the format. A few new graphics, but what was available to me before is now only available on line. I felt taken buying this and think this company should be ashamed of themselves.

CreataCard Platinum 8
I've been using CreataCard for eight years. This is my third updated version. The previous version was Gold 2. I have to agree with the other two who wrote their reviews, in that I was disappointed. What I really missed was the rotating screen saver. Another feature that was changed was the art format, which you could open like a book. I'm fortunate in that I still have the Gold 2. If this is your first version of CreataCard, it's worth the buy. If you have, as I do, Gold 2, save your money. In all fairness, since I didn't pay full price, I have chosen to keep the Platinum 8 version, but I will not buy another update.

Hallmark Card deluxe 200-2004
I think that the Hallmark Card deluxe 2000-2004 is great.
I think it helps kids draw and helps to make thier family happy.
If possible try to send me as many of these a possible without going
over $20.00. Thank you so much dianna

Creatacard Platinum 8
So far this is a real dud, much less then I had expected. I have used creatacard 3 plus in the past and this can't come close to being as nice as that one. Platinum 8 does not have the calender with all of the holiday capabilities. I am having trouble printing out my calender in the landscape mode. "Forget me not" will not appear when I turn on my computer which I miss a lot. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Funny stuff!
Just got Humorous Greeting Card Factory, and I love it. I have an admittedly odd sense of humor, and I was a little skeptical if there'd be enough cards I like to justify the price of admission. But they run the gammut. They're really great-quality cards, too. I'm loving it.... ... Read more

Features

• Create unique Hallmark cards for any occasion; personalize with family photos
• Over 3,500 Hallmark cards and projects; exclusive Hallmark fonts
• 1,000+ new designs; 5,000+ exclusive clip art images; send e-cards
• Customizable event planner keeps track of birthdays and anniversaries
• Make scrapbook pages, photo frames, invitations, certificates, and more

Features

• 15,000+ exclusive greeting cards and customizable projects
• 80,000+ beautiful graphics; 500+ fonts
• 5000+ easy-to-customize sentiments
• Advanced digital photo editor; import images from any source
• Electronic greetings; dozens of additional creative projects

Reviews (7)

Thanks for al the Help!!!!
We have been using Greeting Card Factory for over nine months and have never had better experiences with the software and Tech Support. Thanks to techs, for the knowledge and friendly, professionalism, that makes it a great experecience to work with this company.

Amazing software for an amazing price!
I have had this software now for just about one week. And in that time frame, I have printed and mailed 5 cards (would have cost me $15), custom made 5 envelopes, made return address labels for friends and family, printed out the pre-made paper airplanes for my kids and soooo much more.

I can't believe all this program can do right out of the box. I really can't praise this software enough. It has so many different options for cards, notes, labels, door hangers, origami etc. The possibilities are truly endless.

The cards look professional, and if you download a UPC font, you can give that card the final "store bought" look.

You can not go wrong with this purchase if you send cards or have kids. I figure I will this program will pay for itself in about another 2 months with the upcoming holidays and birthdays!

I'm printing on a Canon i860 and have to admit that the quality is definitely store bought.

Easy to use, until you want to print
I was very impressed with this software package. You can view the cards you would like to creat easily, edit them easily, change images, easily. The only issue I found, there are far to many steps to print on the appropriate size note card. That is by far the most time consuming part of using this program.

Good Program but some problems
Greeting Card Factory Deluxe 3.0 is a pretty good greeting card program although it does hog a lot of resources. Greeting Card Factory Deluxe has two browser-based project types: web albums and slide shows. You can transform greeting cards, photo cards and note cards into HTML pages. The program turns the individual panels into separate .jpg graphics that are placed on a background of your choice with buttons for going between pages. These HTML files are then viewable through an Internet browser. At least that is how it is supposed to work. It works pretty well with web albums and slide shows except for inserting sound files into the projects. The sound files do not work correctly and I end up haveing to edit the HTML to get the sound files to play at all. You shouldn't have to do that. Greeting cards do not work correctly at all when published as HTML. When viewed in a browser the only thing you see is the front page. I think this is because there is no assets folder created when you publish a greeting card as HTML as there is with Web Albums and side shows. The graphics for the navigation buttons are located in the assets folder. I have contacted Nova about the problem a few times but have never received a response. If you plan on using the program just for normal greeting cards or email attachments the program should work fine for you. However, be aware that the web publishing portions do not work correctly.

The Gold Standard Of Greeting Card Programs!
Having tried them all, I can safely say that Art Explosion's "Greeting Card Deluxe, Version 3" is far and away the best program if it's kind. You might expect "Hallmark" or Broderbund's "American Greetings" to offer higher quality templates but surprisingly this is doesn't seem to be the case. For the most part, Art Explosion's graphics and layouts are the closest to what you would expect to find in a good card shop. With over 15,000 cards and 5000+ sentiments you're sure to find something appropriate for any occassion. Additionally, users looking for some added value will find a nice assortment of craft related "project" templates and a "Video CD Greeting Card" creator.

The application launches quickly and the much improved program interface and "double sided print wizard" are intuitive and user friendly for young and old alike. Even those with limited computer or graphics experience can reasonably expect to produce high quality greeting cards within minutes of installing the program. Those who wish to customize their projects to a greater degree will appreciate the rich assortment of easy to use editing tools, 80,000 additional graphics and 500+ font library. Although most users won't need it, Art Explosion has included a well illustrated 100+ page guide book in addition to the on-screen help file.

As for possible negatives, the size of the application might be a bit too much for those with older computers. The "compact" installation (which requires the user to insert content discs while creating cards) checks in at near 600mb while the full monty (certainly the most convenient) requires up to 1.2 gigs of drive space. There are no provisions for desktop publishing (newsletters, brochures, and the like) which is fine by me as such applications are better left to application specific programs such as Serif's "Page Plus" or "MS Publisher". As the name would impliy, Greeting Card Factory is mostly about (you guessed it...) greeting cards (and PLENTY of them!). If that's what you're looking for, you're not likely to find a better program for the job. ... Read more

Features

• 3,000+ exclusive greeting cards, customizable projects, and e-greetings
• Make announcements, invitations, photo cards, envelopes, and more
• Over 45,000 premium-quality Art Explosion graphics
• Over 500 high-quality color photographs
• Get creative with text effects and 300+ font styles to choose from

Reviews (4)

Not worth the price
I thought the graphics were weak and seemed limited to either too cutesy, cartoony stuff or overly fluffy granny stuff. I did like the selection of fonts and headlines, though. I am still trying to figure out why I'd bought this one and not just gone for the clip art programs. Based on the good reviews it got, I thought it would be as good as The Print Shop 11 which has better graphics for all age groups.

It's Great!
I've tried most, if not all, of the greeting card programs for the PC. Now that I'm a Mac user, I'm expecially pleased that there finally is such a good greeting card program for the Mac. This is a good complement to Nova Development's Print Explosion. The predesigned greeting cards in each program seem to be different. Between the two programs you can do a large number of "desktop publishing" projects. And, both programs are much easier to use than the high end desktop publishing programs used by professionals.

New Mac user
Just bought a Mac after using PCs for 20 some years. Not much choice in software! This program is easy to use and is fairly versatile - about on a par with the Windows application called "Card Studio" and not quite as versatile as "Print Artist". Was able to produce my annual Christmas card in a rather short time after receiving the software this PM. Menus and commands are intuitive and there is a better than average "manual" in the box. If you have fun making cards you can enjoy this application.

How long have I waited?
I swear, we Mac faithful must be patient folk. How long have our Windows friends been enjoying greeting card software for? It's taken two decades for such a product to come to the Mac. Sheeeshh .... But this is a winner. I own Print Shop and Greeting Card Factory, which have nice greeting cards. But these are really high-caliber. And it's 100% greeting card projects. It's really well done. Graphics are great. Sentiments are clearly professionally authored. It's a keeper. :-) ... Read more

Features

• Customize the look of your print projects -- alter your text, fonts, color scheme, photos and graphics
• Personalize your stationary with new border graphics and sample projects
• Work with semi-transparent background images -- make them float over or under the text
• Align text boxes relative to each other, placing horizontal and vertical text on your stationary
• Built-in spellchecker prevents embarrassing spelling errors

Reviews (1)

A Great Graphics Labeler For Many Needs
At the time this review was written, a product description was not provided above. If this is still the case I would suggest you go to the Version 4.0 of this product listed on Amazon. You will also find customer reviews, lacking here at this time. The latest Version of this Product, is Version 4.3. Maybe the number was rounded.

Some items included with this package worth noting are: Label applicators for 5 ¼ Discs for both full and standard hub labels. In terms of ease of use for centering or placing the label correctly I would give Sure Things product a better rating than the Stomper or Fellows applicator I have used. It also comes with an applicator not listed on the box for something I am not familiar with.

In addition samples of the label stocks for the CD/DVD needs you might have are also provided. This might suggest they are more interested in selling labels than software. After using and seeing the output this software provides with the ease of use you might see why.

If you are looking for a product providing intuitive menus leading to great graphics and labeling, this is one from my limited experience I would highly recommend.
... Read more

Features

• Features 4,500+ Hallmark cards for Deluxe and 3,500 Hallmark cards for Standard
• 1,000 new cards from current Hallmark designs featuring familiar card favorites
• 10,000 art images, 30+ Hallmark crafted fonts, new calendar layouts, and Hallmark sentiments
• Quality clip art; PhotoPower stand alone and integrated photo editing
• Intuitive and easy-to-use design and XP compatibility

Reviews (21)

INCREDIBLE PRODUCT
I was able to get a sneak peak at this before the release date. Calendars have been added and they are beautiful. You can also create your own personalized calendars and it's easy to put your calendar information in so it can be printed. They've added lots of new cards. A lot of the cards are the same ones you're seeing in the Hallmark stores right now. I own Card Studio 2003 but I'm definitely buying the 2004 version.

Hallmark Card Studio Delux 2004 (11-5-03)
Purchased this program for the event planner/address book. The problem is that when making labels from the book, you are unable to scroll through the address book list. Sierra has been made aware of this problem, but does not know when a solution will be available. If you are looking for a program strictly for the cards, this is an excellent choice.

This looks pretty good to me!
I think this software is a great greeting card software to own. You have over 4200 pre-made Hallmark cards to choose from for ANY occasion. If you can't find one, just do a theme search and it will come up with an answer for you. The box does say 4500 cards to choose from, but when you live 100 miles from the nearest Hallmark store, fudging by 300 cards doesn't make that much of a difference. If you prefer to change the wording in any of the cards, you can choose from over 3900 greetings, or write your own. The clip art selections are numerous with drawn objects to actual photos. You can even change the pre-made calendars, which are very cute on their own, to suit your own picture preferences. Of course, you can create cards, calendars, postcards, etc from scratch if you prefer to work that way. The calendar selection includes monthly, weekly, and daily formats. If you are looking for the entire Hallmark selection, you need to buy all of their software, which could get pricey, or just make a trip to your local Hallmark store and buy one when you need one. This is a great and fun software. The Photo Power software that is included is a pretty simple photo editing software. It doesn't have many options for editing photos, but it works in a pinch for making cards, photo frames, etc. One big plus on that is it takes out red eye. You can use the photo editing on it's own, but it doesn't give you a print option. Hallmark Deluxe 2004 even has a simple event planner calendar and address book for you to use. Probably not the best planner for an office professional, but it works well for the home. Have fun with it!!

Deception in Number of Cards
The program works fine on Windows XP and is easy to use. It lets you print cards of many sizes. The big disappointment is in the number of cards that comes with the program. The back of the box claims "4500+ Cards and Sentiments, Celebrate life's special moments with cards for all occasions". That's nice. The problem with that is that I counted the total number of cards that come with the program. It only adds up to 1045! So where are the other 3450+ cards and sentiments? Are you supposed to design them yourself? I just don't know. And certainly "cards for all occasions" means just that, doesn't it? Well there's lots of birthday cards and plenty of holiday cards but not one sympathy card of any kind. I guess you just need to buy those on your own.

This program should be recalled.
As an avid user of Hallmark Card Studio programs, I must say that I am highly disappointed in Card Studio Deluxe 2004.

This program refused to load on my XP machine.

After spending considerable time and troubleshooting with the moderators of Hallmark Card Studio 2004, it was discovered if you previously had a particular version of Print Artist (Print Artist 12 in my case) installed on your computer, then uninstalled it, Card Studio 2004 would not load.

Even though I do not want and use the Print Artist program (taking up disk space), I had to reinstall it in order for Card Studio to load.

Up until now Hallmark Card Studio Programs have been "5 star" programs.

I've also found that there is not enough ethnic content...if it is there, it's hard to find.

Come on Hallmark...we are a melting pot!

This program should be recalled and the purchasers should be compensated either monetarily or with the upcoming 2005 version.

For more issues with this program, check the Hallmark Card Studio 2004 message boards. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

American Greetings 3 CreataCard Plus 3 CD
I have up dated to the above cd and I want 3 more of the same. However I tried to do your newer one and can not get it. My Daughters have also gotten your newest cd and thay can not get going. How can I get 3 more CD's like I have? This is what it says on my CD that we all love. Your first CDs were easy to use for us who are learning.
Application / mindscape-88 Rowland Way Novato, Ca. 94945 / www.mindscape.com / American Greetings 3 CreataCard Plus / Windows 95/98 CD-ROM. Hope you can help me find these. Thank you, Gail Neal, 266 Rockhill San Antonio, Texas 78209. 210-822-3640.

Disappointed
I have used earlier versions of CreataCard and have been very pleased with every upgrade. But not this time. While there are many nice graphics, the majority (and in some categories - all)of graphics require you be online to even view them. If you 'paste' the item, then you have to wait while the graphic downloads. Many of the artwork that had previously been on my PC are now only available if I'm online. I have written the company; they acknowledged that the majority of graphics were online and advised me to turn off that feature or to upgrade!!! I told them I wanted my money back. ... Read more

Features

• Sophisticated, easy-to-use program for creating personalized projects
• Design greeting cards, newsletters, full stationery sets, or decorations
• Access images, photos, headlines, logos, and more from one location
• Full suite of photo editing tools; enhanced printing resolution
• 100 free Paramount greeting cards with online registration

Features

• Save your calendars in PDF format for easy printing and sharing
• Organize and customize your images more easily with the Image Set Manager
• Enhance your designs with 150,000+ premium images in every style and theme
• Easily import data from Microsoft Outlook into your calendar layouts
• Enjoy full compatibility with your Palm OS handheld organizer

Reviews (3)

Hate it, Hate it, HATE IT!!!
This is by far the worst calendar program EVER! I absolutely abhor it. It is not at all user friendly. It randomly prints boxes where you didn't create them. The functionality to move calendar entries from one month to another doesn't exist...you have delete the entry and completely recreate. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with it because my boss likes the way it looks...too bad he doesn't have to struggle with it!

Broderbund Ignores Customers
The Calendar Creator product is useless for all but the very lucky. The software appears to be impossible to install without customer support and there IS NO customer support. It has proven to be impossible getting any help at all from Broderbund either on-line or by phone. We have been trying for two months and have spent almost as much in long distance charges (all of it on hold) as we spent on the product. Steer Clear!

Frustrating
In order to use this software it seems one would need to have a degree in graphic information technology and I'm not sure even that person would be able to use it. The company provides no support for persons having difficulty using the program and the "Help Center" is not structured in a useful manner. ... Read more

Features

• Celebrate your faith with grace, imagination, and style
• Create cards, banners, stickers--even entire Web sites
• 4,800+ inspirational art images; 2,000+ project templates
• Straightforward design tools and abundant help features
• Complete your project using the new Finish Project button

Reviews (4)

Hated it!
Did not like the program or the graphics. Returned it! Recommend
Hallmark software or Microsoft Print It! for home publishing of cards, banners, etc. They are the best.

a little upset
I had an older version. Bought this for an upgrade, found out there was no spell check. Loved the upgrades, hated no help with spelling.

American Greetings Spiritual Expressions
Outstanding program! I hate figuring out how to do things and need a "no-brainer" program for address labels and business cards which I use to make all kinds of things for my Developmental Kindergartners. This is the easiest program I have ever used for that. They also have exceptional clip-art. Buy it! You'll love it!

Expressions of Faith
This program is wonderful. I just updated to version 7 from an earlier version. The main thing that caught my attention was the ease in using the program. It's easy to move around in, make changes, more art work, and makes life easier when I need to make a card, certificates, banners, bookmarks, mini-cards. I have no desire to go looking for any other programs of this type. It blends well with my CreataCard version 7. I'm glad they came out with it. ... Read more