Editor’s Note: This product has been removed from our side-by-side comparison because it is no longer available. You can still read our original review below, but Top Ten Reviews is no longer updating this product’s information.
Print Explosion Deluxe, from Nova Development, is a great program for those who are just getting started with making their own greeting cards. This Mac greeting card software is a great access point to do-it-yourself design, but if you are looking for something more powerful, you might want to look elsewhere.
Print Explosion Deluxe is geared towards those who are just starting to dip their toes into the desktop publishing world. Browsing through and using the templates and clip art is fun and easy. Filling in the text boxes with your own messages is also easy. Moving images once they’re placed in the project can get a little frustrating, so planning ahead can save you a lot of irritation if you tend to nudge images here and there quite a bit. This program is quite basic and won’t scare off anyone unfamiliar with design. The lack of features and simplicity might deter some, but for the novice, this is a great gateway program.
Expect to use basic text formatting features in Print Explosion Deluxe. Bolding and italicizing are available, but you can also choose stagger, tilt and wild to add a little fun to your text. The rudimentary Word Art editor is impressive, allowing you to manipulate many features in the preloaded design schemes. Nova Development designed the options in the editor to be very easy to understand, making the word art function a high point.
But be aware, a bug was discovered during testing. The program has a tendency to crash after cycling through multiple fonts consecutively. We’re sure this kink can be ironed out with updates in the future.
Print Explosion Deluxe keeps in mind that not everyone immediately understands the complexities of some projects. Therefore, for each project, the images you create are arranged on the paper for folding and flipping beforehand. They even wait for you to reinsert the printed product for double-sided projects, making the whole process much more easygoing and friendly to a novice user.
This software makes it extremely clear that the bulk of the price for this program is represented by the extensive clip art and project templates. The breadth of variety in the templates is impressive, as you will be able to quickly turn out dozens of impressive projects for almost any situation. From t-shirts and certificates, to business cards and fax letterheads, the templates look nice and are fun to use. The provided clip art also has a lot of variety. 54 categories and their sub-categories give you lots of great images to browse through to find the one that’s just right for your project.
Print Explosion Deluxe isn’t the type of Mac greeting card software that really allows you to get down to the details of image manipulation. In fact, you really can’t edit images in any way except for the crop feature. This program simply isn’t designed for dealing with images (beyond adding them to your document).
There are a few beginner tutorials that take you through the basics of Print Explosion Deluxe. If you need guidance, this is a great place to start; they walk you through making greeting cards to more complex projects like CD labels and t-shirts.
Through the website, there are also ample means to get support for this program. You can sign up to receive the newsletter if you would like to be sent coupons and have chance to beta test future software from Nova Development.
Print Explosion Deluxe is ideal for users just starting out with Mac greeting card software. Considering its price is lower than the other more comprehensive programs, this is a great option to try out. If, however, you’re more comfortable using your computer for making cards, you might want to look elsewhere for deeper image, text and template manipulation. Be sure to check out the other reviews of Mac greeting card software for other options.
