Greeting Card Factory V4 

To begin with it comes on four CD’s and you have the choice of a limited install at 1200MB or a full install at 1700MB, the actual space taken was 1706MB so that seems pretty accurate. It took around 15 minutes and used the first three CD’s, the forth is a CD of graphics and fonts.

Soon after I started using it I realised I was nearly out of Business Cards and while this could hardly be a must have for a Greeting Card product it can do them. Although they only took five minutes from start to printed output I have had a lot of favourable comments on the design. Lets hope people appreciate the Christmas Cards it is making.

Logically the main purpose is to create Greetings Cards and with even rather naff cards costing a pound or more this whole package at less than £20 will soon have paid for itself.

Doing the tutorial is always a good idea and this offered at your first start, assuming you have either done it or declined next time you see a project list and I will list it just to show what can be done with Greetings Card Factory V4.

Greetings Cards, Photo Cards, Specialty Cards, Note Cards, Announcements, Labels, Post Cards, Gift Tags, Electronic Greetings, Envelopes & More, Signs & Posters, Crafts and finally Matching Sets. That is only the main headings for instance my Business Cards that I mentioned earlier were buried in a sub menu under Labels.

There are in fact two different products the basic package that I reviewed that has over 8,000 Greetings Cards and Projects, more than 40,000 graphics and a ‘mere’ 300 extra Fonts. Should this not be enough for you then you may like to consider the Deluxe version that has 18,000 Greetings Cards and Customisable Projects, 82,000 Graphics and 500 Fonts, mind you it does cost £10 more than the basic package that I used.

Once you have selected the type of item then you may select either a blank or work with and edit a pre drawn item. The interface has four choices down the left side and the choices are Add Items, Manage Text, Drawing Tools and Editing Items. These are easy to follow and work in a logical way.

The right side of the interface has a colour palette and a font list showing an example of each font in the list. There are the normal Windows drop down menus at the top and things like adding a layer is as simple as clicking on add new layer.

Yes it is an American product but it is modified so that A4 is the basic page size.

So if you create only two cards a month by the time you have purchased some card and envelopes I am sure you will have a package that shows you a profit in pure card costs in a year, not to mention the fact you get cards that really suit the occasions.

Available from a range of dealers including PC World, Staples and W.H.Smith or online check www.avanquest.co.uk  for more information.