Projects:  

Print Shop Essentials has most of the basic features of Print Shop Pro Publisher Deluxe but comes with fewer templates, images and fonts. Also, you can't publish your document to a webpage.

Ease of Use:  

Similar to other Broderbund products, Print Shop Essentials is fairly easy to use. It was frustrating how often we needed to insert the program CD, however. Most other similar products only require you insert an occasional art CD.

Photo/Graphic Tools:  

Like all Broderbund programs with desktop publishing capabilities, the graphics and clipart tools are very good. We would like to see the same tools that are used for photos work on clipart images also.

Text Tools:  

One thing we really like about Print Shop Essentials' text tools is that body text and headline text allow for a great deal of personal creativity. It's nice how the tools offer a great deal of customization, allowing you to adjust your text to exactly how you want it.

Printing/Sharing:  

Print Shop Essentials lets you send your projects via email or instant messenger. Another nice feature is that you can send animated greeting cards to friends.

Help/Support:  

Print Shop Essential's help and support functions are excellent. When submitting online help requests, however, you are required to fill out a form with sometimes trivial information in order to ask even a simple question.

Print Shop Essentials for the price is a very good desktop publishing software program. If you're looking for a program that is equipped with some good tools for creating desktop documents Print Shop Essentials can get you started.

However, if you're looking for more templates, graphics, and images we recommend our higher ranked products.