|
What do they do?
Label Maker Plus prints address labels, letterheads, flyers, postcards,
business cards, envelopes, and brochures from your database files.
Advanced Business Card Maker uses design tools and imports logo image to
produce business cards.
Do they do what they promise?
Reviewer 1: Yes.
Reviewer 2: Yes.
Reviewer 3: (Label Maker) starts off quite well and is very smooth
during the label creation, but I had the hardest time trying to actually
get my data from Excel or Access into my labels. (Business Card Maker)
does what it promises and it does it very well with no faults found.
Reviewer 4: Yes. It allows users to create their own labels and
more for various personal or business uses. (Business Card Maker not
reviewed).
Reviewer 5: (LabelMakerPlus) Yes, in a simple & straightforward
way. (Business Card Maker) Yes, in a very easy-to-learn & use package.
Reviewer 6: Yes.
Were they easy to install?
Reviewer 1: Yes. Installation of both programs was smooth. The
license agreements seemed simple, reasonable, and clear.
Reviewer 2: Yes.
Reviewer 3: They were very easy to install and it does allow you to
install it in a different folder or drive if your system is so configured.
Reviewer 4: Yes, I had no problems at all with installation.
Reviewer 5: Yes, as simple and straightforward as any programs I've
installed in a long time. Each asks for a registration number, takes it in
a free-form cell, press the install button, and you're off and running.
Reviewer 6. Yes. Both offer a very fast and straightforward
installation utilizing a standard utilization wizard. I especially want to
applaud Identisoft for allowing the user to determine what, if any, icons
are to be installed as well as to determine their location. I also
appreciated that the icons-especially for Advanced Business Card maker-are
self-descriptive, i.e. identifiable without a label. Nice touch.
Good points.
Reviewer 1: Both programs are similar in format and dedicated to
performing a limited set of tasks. Although I believe that I can do either
labels or business cards as well with my Microsoft Office Suite and/or a
dedicated graphics program, having a program that is designed to do just
that task facilitates actually doing it.
Reviewer 2: The software contains many predesigned templates for
generating labels, envelopes and even letterhead. It can read from Access,
Excel, or CSV files to populate a label. Shapes can be added with
different colors or shading.
Reviewer 3: (Label Maker) When you first start the program, it
opens with a "New Publication "option and it is here you select the type
of labels you want. The first selection is Category. Here you select
Address/Shipping label, Name Badge, Envelopes, etc. Each category
selection changes the amount of options you are presented with in the
template section. Then you can select a background for each label or you
can select nothing. Each selection will change a preview of the label so
you get to see exactly what you will get printed out. After this is done,
you are given a Tip of the Day dialog, which can be disabled. The creation
process is smooth and well-designed. The options you are presented with
works quite well. (Business Card Maker) A variety of examples and
templates can be selected and modified to your needs; or, you can also
select neither template nor background and start off with just a blank
business card. The offered templates are quite well done, very graphic,
and very easy to modify.
Reviewer 4: Label Maker Plus is very good at what it does. It
allows you to easily design and print your own labels, letterhead, post
cards, signs, flyers, and envelopes. It was simple to use and had a fair
number of templates and art included, with the ability to import other
artwork and logos. You can also start from scratch designing and saving
your own project. It gives you the ability to create such projects as
address labels and envelopes using a database of contacts, and it printed
fine on all types of paper that I threw at it.
Reviewer 5: (LabelMakerPlus): Very well-designed and
easy-to-understand user interface, with a rich set of design functions.
The ability to choose from ready-made templates is an outstanding
accelerator for new/startup users. The Cut/Copy/Paste, Undo/Redo, and
Align/Rotate are all very handy features. Indentsoft's committed problem
response turnaround time of 12 hours is excellent however, I had no
occasion to seek technical support. This program has a good introductory
Webpage with concise reasons to buy, what you can do, and product
features. Its ability to link to customer databases is a very powerful
feature. (Business Card Maker): Excellent design makes it intuitive and
easy to use even without reading the User's Guide. Its functionality is
comprehensive and covers all practical needs without extraneous bells and
whistles to complicate or confuse the user. Its ability to drop in,
resize, and position a personal photograph on the card is powerful and
easy to accomplish. It has an excellent User's Guide, the irony of which
is that the design is so well-formed & intuitive that one hardly needs
it!! Its $30 price point is just right for its level of functionality.
Again, the committed problem response turnaround time of 12 hours is
excellent but I had no need to seek technical support.
Reviewer 6. Both programs have a nice interface based on or very
similar to the standards Windows GUI. They are relatively easy to use.
There is an ample variety of templates for both programs and a virtually
endless number of ways to further customize the standard templates. Label
Maker Plus, besides what its name implies, also offers templates for
creating letterheads, flyers, postcards brochures, and so on. You can also
create these same items from your own databases, including images such
jpeg, gif, tif, etc. Advanced Buisness Card Maker does indeed allow you to
make truly professional business cards. Again, there is a nice selection
of templates which you can simply use as is, or you may customize these
templates in a seemingly endless number of ways through color blending,
transparency, textural choice, font, color, and so on. Another nice
feature is this program's ability to allow you to cut and paste texts and
images from other applications. In addition, the program is not limited
strictly to business cards but can also be used to create price cards,
name badges, or most anything which has the general dimensions of a
business card. I was pleasantly surprised that both programs left a
relatively small footprint on my computer and are low in their use of
resources. It is also commendable that when either program is closed, it
closes completely and totally disappears from the list of running
processes; in other words, they do not keep running in the background
until the next reboot as so many programs do. Finally, and this is
something to be highly praised, when I uninstalled the programs I got a
clean uninstall with very little left in the way of empty files and/or
empty registry keys. This is the mark of a well written code in a well
written and professional program.
Weak points.
Reviewer 1: I was a bit surprised by the limited number of
templates in either program. With other graphics/text programs, I am
accustomed to clicking on an element and editing it directly onscreen.
With these Label Maker and Business Card Maker, the user must take the
less-intuitive route of clicking on an element to highlight it, then going
to the right of the screen to find the properties box and highlighting the
text in the "enter Text" box. Sometimes changing the text in this box
changes the text on the display but other times it doesn't. If the display
does not change, changes are lost when another element is selected. The
programs seem dedicated to users who print in color. There is no way to
select black-and-white mode from the template preview mode. Background and
layouts that look clear in color can instantly become vague and confused
when converted to grey scale. It would be nice to check to display these
previews in black and white.
Reviewer 2: Data access using a database is not as easy as it could
be. It desperately needs a query designer to help build queries. It also
could not understand a table name with spaces in it without manually
adding square brackets. As it was, I had to build my queries in Access,
then use that prebuilt query to populate the labels. Once I had my query,
it was very unintuitive to place the database fields onto the labels.
Adding fields is awkward and, once the field is on the form, it took quite
a bit of tweaking to get it sized and place correctly. I could not find a
way to view the data from the database in the designer, something that
would have been very useful while trying to size the text to allow all the
data to be shown. It cannot get data from a backend database like SQL.
There is very little drag-and-drop capabilities. The rulers were in
metric; at least I believe they were, since there was not an indication as
to what a unit of measure was and I could not find any information beyond
a description of the "rulers". The print preview acted oddly in that it
did not show the output using the selected page size/dimensions. It
appeared to be overridden by the printers selected page layout.
Reviewer 3. (Label Maker) I am a stickler for spelling and
unfortunately, there are a number of spelling mistakes in their help file.
I always feel that if this has been overlooked, what else is missing or is
not complete? As I was developing some test addresses which I tried to
import from Excel, I could not find an easy way to do this. I read the
help file but to no avail. For some reason, I could not get my data from
Excel to populate my labels. (Business Card Maker) I did not run across
any weak points. I do like this program as it is very small and easy to
Reviewer 4: I had no real problems with this program. It functioned
as advertised, and I have no complaints.
Reviewer 5: (Label Maker Plus): A price of $60 is significantly too
high; $30(even $20) I'd think much closer to the mark. There any
discussion of upgrade pricing. Documentation is very good, but at present
is only in the form of Help Files. I found the Clip Art neither very
appealing nor useful; for me it was much too cartoonish, and certainly not
appropriate to a business setting which Label Maker Plus claims as its
target market. There are a disconcerting number of typos on the Webpage,
e.g., in Key Features:"Link to you[sic] data files:..." and:Choose publish
type:"postcards postcards"; On Screenshots page: 'Below screenshots
prensent[sic]; In "Save Your Work" Help File, 'Save as .bcf file' Section
Title transitions into a paragraph header 'Save as .labf file'. (Business
Card Maker): I found the selections offered of Templates and Backgrounds
notably uninteresting and unuseful. Only a few were pleasing esthetically
or something I'd consider for business use. It contains a sizeable
quantity of clip art that is a not only a throwaway, but a distraction for
the serious or business user. Color blends are touted as a major
functional capability, but they pertain only to closed shape and images,
none of which I ever had occasion to use if my trial applications. Try as
I might, I could not get my test sample business card (3.5 x 2.0) to map
to its Avery 8371 template and print out properly on my Epson C82 printer
short of manual margin adjustments: it shifted the 2x5-layout images an
extra 1/8th inch to the left, leaving an extra 1/8th-inch margin on the
right. While I recognize that layout-mapping is the bane of the computer
printing world, marrying up this business card image with a standard
format already preset in the program should be about as easy as it can
get, yet it failed. Also very disturbing, the major text line on the card,
"Marja Partners", was without notice transformed to "Marja ...rtners" on
the printout, ruining the print run. So much for its WYSWYG claims!
Reviewer 6. As far as performing as promised by the developer,
there are really no obvious faults. It does as advertised. I did find that
both programs will not print in every font installed on my machine; they
show the fonts on the font window displayed in the program but will not
print some fonts. It appears that these are custom fonts installed by the
user and may have to do with whether they are TruType fonts or not. Both
programs to a large extent, but particularly Label Maker Plus, need either
a downloadable user guide or much better help functions through the
program itself. It does take some time to discover all of the options
available to the user, and there is a plethora of buttons and symbols
(some a bit obscure) to learn to identify. In fact, if there were some way
to combine some options through a drop down menu-thus eliminating a few of
the myriad of buttons-this might make it a bit easier for the average
user. My only real complaint is that the templates in the preview window
are too small to really see in detail. This does need to be corrected.
Other comments.
Reviewer 1: In Advanced Business Card Maker, I would like to be
able to enter information for the card one time at the beginning of the
process and then apply templates to see how the information displays in
different formats. Then, I would like to be able to change field
information as needed. These program are very simple, but there are more
powerful and elegant solutions available. I would expect a program
dedicated to a limited task would do it with great ease and in a
user-friendly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment. These
programs are not there yet, but with refinement could get there.
Reviewer 2: Generally, I was very disappointed this product's
interface. I felt as if I was running an application from 1995. Although I
could change the fonts and sizes of the text, it was in a separate
properties panel instead of being in a more standard toolbar. You can
change the background images for all types of output; however, unless you
are generating letterhead, it doesn't make any sense to allow this since
it can make the generated output very unreadable. This application needs a
major UI overhaul before it will be worth using. If you already have
Microsoft Word or Access, you don't need this product.
Reviewer 3: ( Label Maker) tried a number of times to import my data.
I look for programs to be easy and not frustrating. Unfortunately, this
was not the easiest thing to accomplish. (Business Card Maker) This
program was developed to be fluid, straight and easy to develop from
templates either a new business card or to modify an existing one.
Reviewer 4: A home user may get some good use from this product,
but it seems more directed at a business owner. Home users will usually
fall back on a do-all print program, but someone running a small business
could get a lot of mileage from this product.
Reviewer 5: 2) While I admire the 12 hour turnaround time support
commitment, I worry about whether there are really program fixes
underneath it, as well as about future upgrade plans and & commitments.
Can I count of this program's being around for the long haul? As a novelty
PC program it doesn't matter; but, as a business application it definitely
does. I'd need a good bit more convincing than I've yet seen before I'd
recommend it to one of my business clients.
Reviewer 6. While I have suggested that the complexity of the program
did create a bit of a learning curve for this user and that this might be
addressed through some simplification of additional instructions, it
should be understood that these programs both are, as described,
"professional quality printing software." As such, one should not expect
to be able to master all of the features of such programs without some
learning, especially if one is unfamiliar with similar type programs. I do
not generally use this type of software in my day-to-day computing or in
my profession and yet I felt that I had rather mastered the program by the
end of two small projects. In fact, I felt comfortable enough that over a
period of 45 days I was able to create camera-ready proofs for some
professional brochures and flyers which I sent to a professional printer
for large volume duplication and eventual mass mailings. The printer
remarked at the quality of the work, a compliment more for the software
than this user. This is the kind of software that you need to be able to
"play with" a little to get fully comfortable using; and, since the undo
and redo functions work nicely, you can safely "play" until you get it
correct and are comfortable using both programs. Both Advanced Label Maker
Plus and Advanced Business Card Maker are excellent programs and
relatively inexpensive when compared to other similar programs.
Will you continue to use them?
Reviewer 1: Yes, for now, hoping that future upgrades will make
them more powerful and user-friendly.
Reviewer 2: No.
Reviewer 3: (Label Maker) The initial designing of the labels is
great, but I will probably not use it because of the frustrating factor of
importing data from Excel or Access. (Business Card Maker) If I were in a
graphics design business or needed to design my business cards because I
changed companies so much, then yes, I would definitely use this program.
Reviewer 4: Yes.
Reviewer 5: (Label Maker Plus}:: Rarely; in fact, never unless
Business Card Maker becomes integrated with it. (Business Card Maker):
Yes, definitely and often. This is a neat and useful little program.
Reviewer 6. Yes, most definitely!
Back |
