First, Happy Easter one and all!
Secondly, I took a class on February 14 entitled
Design and Page Layout that had to do with the
production of in-house newsletters. In the class,
they recommended the use of the high-end products
(Adobe, etc.) over Publisher. They indicated it made
better quality newsletters and you could do more with
the software.
That being said, the products they suggested were
quite pricey for our budget, and we have rules as to
which products we can and cannot use on our computers
because their are guidelines as to what our techs will
support. So, those two things ruled those products
out for me. In addition, beyond the cost of the
software, there is the cost of the training for the
product, both in terms of learning the overall class
and the slower work-product time it takes when you
still have your training wheels on.
I didn't know t at the time, until I was in class,
that I actually had Publisher on my computer. It
apparently came with the software I was given when
they swapped out my old computer for a new one. I
started using it--with no instruction--and was able to
put together a newsletter that served our purposes at
no extra cost, both in terms of training expense and
software purchase.
It's really going to be a question of what is your
objective, and how much money do you have to be able
to do what you need to to accomplish that objective?
Higher-end institutions may well be able to afford the
cost of purchase and the cost of learning the higher
end product. I used PageMaker years ago (it's now
veritably obsolete according to what I learned in
class last month), and I absolutely loved everything
it will do. There are days when I'm doing things in
PowerPoint and cursing because I don't have the
pull-down rulers and such that I had in PageMaker.
But Publisher is an ok product and will get the job
done with little extra cost in terms of learning curve
if you know other Office products. Examine your
mission and budget, and go with the product that best
fits that. If you don't need a Michelangelo type
newsletter, a lesser-end product may well suit your
purposes. It did mine.
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