Fr. Jacob Myers

September 1, 2001

Microsoft Publisher is now 10 years old. Its newest version, 2002, continues to excel in a rather unique section of page layout programs centered on the non-professional desktop publishing category. For the small or medium range business, or for home publishers, who want ease of use, design integrity and a good deal of flexibility without a huge learning curve, Publisher, in its 7th edition is the program for them. Publisher has been pretty much a standalone program to date, not falling into the Microsoft Office category, but often included with Office. Now its integrity with Office XP is one of the main achievements of the Publisher 2002. This integrity includes customizable toolbars, Print Preview, headers and footers, allowing for the opening of Word documents with Publisher via onscreen Task Panes. Below the screen shot looks a good deal like we are in Microsoft Word rather than Publisher, which will be a great benefit to those who would like to take very simple steps to more from Word Processing to Publishing. Getting started is then quite simple. Publisher boasts 8,500 different template layouts, including as well 15 new and refined Master Design, coordinated page layouts and many other elements that can be applied to any application. Notice below how much the program resembles any Office program:

Let me begin with some of the new features of Publisher 2002 that are not found in previous versions. One of these is "Save as Picture" which allows the saving of design elements that are on a page or saving the entire page in a graphic or picture format. I used it on a Church logo that I made in Publisher and then saved in JPG format. Hence I can send the logo anywhere and it can be easily used in another application. Below I have the church picture block and the text block that I saved together in the picture format:

Another very nice feature is the office clipboard now right in Publisher. It will collect up to 24 pieces of information that are quickly able to be pasted into any Office application, which is one way that Publisher is now added to the Office family. There is an Office clipboard task pane on the left of publisher that comes into view when you access the Office clipboard:

From the Office clipboard you can easily collect and paste data. After pasting text into your document you can then modify the formatting by using the new Paste Options smart tag:

The new Task Pane includes visual previews of design elements including layout options, design sets, and font schemes. By starting with publication options which give you many different layouts, you can then choose predefined color schemes of which there are 66 in various colors, then choose different fonts, all of this in a matter of minutes and have your whole layout done on an original piece of your choosing. It is really remarkable how quickly one can take a publication design and make it totally your own:

The Word Document Wizard is a quick and easy way to open a basic word document and quickly view and format in Publisher adding all sorts of options including publication designs, color schemes, as well as font design. This feature is a quick way of giving a profession look to a document:

Now let us move on to some of the new printing features. To begin with there is a Print Preview that allows you to view the finished work before you press the print button:

Publisher has now expanded the commercial printing features as requested of Microsoft Publisher by professional printers including 12 spot colors in a publication. Publisher 2000 only had three:

And of course, as one would expect of any publishing program today, Web capabilities have been expanded. Publisher is now supporting HTML as a file format. You can update Web files without losing the fidelity of the publication. You can also send a publisher document as an email message which is able to be viewed without having Publisher installed:

There is in Publisher 2002 a Visual Basic for Applications support through its New Tools on the Web which includes online marketing tools and services from Microsoft bCentral such as ListBuilder, FastCounter, and BannerNetwork Exchange in which you can keep track of how many people are using your web site, or create banner advertisements or send emails with product announcements using the ListBuilder:

Publisher 2002 allows you to both generate HTML files and make Web pages, as well as update a Publisher made HTML file on the Web:

One very nice feature is the Clip Art Organizer which will find every graphic file on your hard drive and list it in the various directories in which it appears. You can then open a directory and view as thumbnails all of your graphics or photos for use in one of your publications. However if you wish to fine the file by name, there is a feature for doing so as well:

The new WordArt feature allows you to quickly choose a graphic style and by clicking on it change the text to a more attractive layout:

Included as well are all sorts of Autoshapes that you can add to your publication:

And finally for this review, the Microsoft Publisher Design Gallery allows for easily added elements to your marketing materials that will increase the impact of the document:

In summation, Publisher 2002 is very easy to use, quite fun, and very productive in the what you can produce. It is well worth buy and using.

Minimum Requirements
Computer/Processor
Computer with a Pentium 133-megahertz (MHz) or higher processor; Pentium III processor recommended
Memory
RAM requirements depend upon the operating system used.

Windows 98, or Windows 98 Second Edition
24 MB of RAM, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for Publisher
Windows Me, or Microsoft Windows NT
32 MB of RAM, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for Publisher
Windows 2000 Professional
64 MB of RAM, plus an additional 8 MB of RAM for Publisher
Hard Disk
Hard disk space requirements will vary depending on configuration; custom installation choices may require more or
less. Listed below are the minimum hard disk requirements for Publisher 2002:

180 MB of available hard disk space
100 MB of additional hard disk space for installation of the Microsoft Office XP Media Content CD

An additional 115 MB is required on the hard disk where the operating system is installed. Users without Windows
2000, Windows Me, or Office 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1) require an extra 50 MB for System Files Update.
Operating System
Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me), Windows NT 4.0 with Service
Pack 6 (SP6) or later*, or Windows 2000 Professional or later.
Drive
CD-ROM drive
Display
Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution monitor with 256 colors
Peripherals
Microsoft Mouse, Microsoft IntelliMouse, or compatible pointing device

Copyright 2000, Fr. Jacob Myers, All Rights Reserved