Publisher 4 is the latest desktop publishing program that is distributed by Manaccom Australia for an affordable recommended retail price of $49.95 and is available at all good retailers. Desktop publishing was quite a central process to the computer world during the 1990's as it allowed users to create a plethora professional designed documents from greeting cards to calendars and the like.

Although Desktop publishing may not be integral to the computer world as it once was, Greenstreet have released Publisher 4 which is a godsend to publisher users that features a plethora of options and hundreds of fonts and clipart to make professional looking documents.

Features of Publisher 4:

• Loads of free clipart, photos and fonts - Literally hundreds of extras to get you started.

• Heaps of great templates - Professionally designed, why not let us do the work for you?

• Export to web - Export your documents perfectly to the internet with one mouse click!

• Document styling - Quick and simple document design with powerful and easy to use tools.

• Multi-lingual spell checker - Spell check in over 15 Western European languages including French, German & Spanish.

• Drawing tools - Draw freehand or use a range of line, curve, ellipse, rectangle and star illustration tool.

The system requirements for Publisher 4 are considerably low-end with a minimum of Windows 95 OSR2, Pentium 166 and 16MB RAM or greater which means this program will virtually run on almost all computers. The installation of Publisher 4 simply auto-installed with minimal prompting from the user which is great for novice computer users which happens to be target audience for desktop publishing.

Once the installation was completed, we were greeted to WYSIWYG interface that was extremely easy to navigate and if you have used any Windows product before, you should have no issues with navigating this powerful software package.

Benefits of Publisher 4:

• Create impressive documents effortlessly by selecting any one of the numerous professionally designed templates or design your own.

• To make things easier Publisher 4 allows multiple documents to be open at once, each with their own window.

• Publisher 4 now contains multilingual templates that you can select * Publisher 4 incorporates an easy to use Help system, including Tool Tips and Pop-Up Hints, to ensure your documents look professional every time.

• To enable you to get the most out of the product some useful features have been included - Picture Browser, SnapShot, KeyPad and PhotoFX.

• Publisher 4 incorporates English, German, French and Spanish software languages all on one CD

So what exactly can Publisher 4 do besides calendars and greeting cards?

The answer is almost everything in relation to "printable" design which include Web Pages, Posters, Letters, Newsletter, Invitations, Leaflets, Brochures and the like with the program only being limited to the users imagination.

For those starting off in the world of desktop publishing, Publisher 4 contains a variety of templates that makes creating them as easy as 1-2-3. Simply select the template you want and then enter in the information you require and "presto", you have a professionally looking documented that is ready to be printed. These templates are not limiting either and can be modified to suit your final designs.

The software also contains quite an in-depth drawing tool that allows you to draw freehand or use pre-selected shapes in order to spicen up your documents and let the muse be released. There are literally hundreds of different clipart pictures, photos and best of all new fonts that can lead to some inspirational designs and I must admit that ease of use was quite impressive. Your designs can even be exported to the internet in almost exactly the same format that appears in Publisher 4 which also gives you control over your web designs.

In conclusion, Publisher 4 is a very powerful desktop publishing tool that retails for a recommended retail price of $49.95 (I can't get over the price) that we could happily recommend to both novice and amateur desktop publishers as this program is your one stop program with a plethora of features.

Recommended

System Requirements for Publisher 4

Operating System - Windows®95OSR2/98/2000/NT4/ME/ XP/ Vista

Processor -  Pentium® 166
Memory (RAM)  - 16MB RAM
Video -  SVGA video card capable of 256 colours at 800x600
Hard Drive Space -  150MB Free Hard Disk Space
CD-ROM - CD-ROM drive
Other - internet Explorer 5 or above.