DesktopPublisher Pro - 2.2.6

The description claims this is for power users wanting professional looking designs and that it has features experienced graphic designers will appreciate. Others have already mentioned the problems with text editing and needed improvements to the interface.

Color support is clearly for novices wanting something to print on their home inkjet, though even a high end digital press like the Xerox 6060 would give good results too. The problem is that importing eps files does not add the colors in the eps to the color list for use in other layout elements or for printing spot separations. This is for any color, including Pantone colors, which ARE the industry standard for professional design. Pantone color libraries are not part of this application in any way.

Suppose you are a novice and have no clues what Pantone colors are. Not an unusual scenario. Now suppose you want a print shop to print your layout on their press. You've used the perfect color graphics you want, and the color photos you took with your digital camera. Unfortunately, the only colors that will be separated at print time are those pre-defined and those you've manually added. All the spot colors in your graphic files do not separate, nor do your photos separate into Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK), assuming you've already converted those photos from the RGB standard used by digital cameras into CMYK. All those colors that are needed for correct printing of your design get dumped onto the Black separation. This is a BIG problem.

If all you need is something to print on your color inkjet or laser printer, this may be a great program. The price certainly is right. If that had been the description for this program, I would probably give it 3 or 4 stars. Instead, the description uses phrases such as "power users", "professional quality designs" and "experienced graphic designers" as well as calling itself a "Pro" quality program. In that regard, it definitely falls way short.

If you want your layout printed on your local print shop's press, avoid this program, save your money and buy programs that ARE pro quality, such as InDesign, Quark Xpress, Illustrator, Freehand, even an old copy of Pagemaker. There's a reason why they are so popular with professional designers and print shops and why these professionals rarely accept files from any other programs such as DesktopPublisher Pro. Marketing for this product needs to be more accurate and focused toward those it can really help, not mislead buyers into thinking the program is better than it is.

- Tutorials provide an extremely useful way to learn the basics of a new App and are also an extremely useful way of evaluating SW.
However there are two somewhat serious deficiencies in the Tutorial for DPP 2.2! First the template that you are instructed to select in Lesson1 is not the template that the Tutorial shows you how to fill in! In fact there is NO template matching Lesson 1! Second the documentation doesn't show any obvious way of accessing Lesson 2 without stepping through Lesson 1!
DPP looks an awfull lot like an update of the venerable 'Aldus Personal Press" with some vastly improved operations and having used that SW
since about 1994 sure helped in using DPP. A lot of the dialogues are identical!
Personally, I find the methods of trying to convince users to register as being very "Chintzy" - the disabled "Save" and the "Demo Version" all over a print! Doesn't really let me see if this thing will produce documents suitable for my use and for my printer! Much better to use a number of days or a number of documents limit!
As to the earlier comment about "Ready, Set, Go!" - $19.95USD for DPP is a helluva lot better than $175.00USD for "RSG" !!! (And "RSG" wasn't even OS X compatible until very recently!)

they are constantly updated and improved. They are very resonably priced and tech support has always and tinely responded to my email to them. Looking over the reviews it seems many are very critical of DTP pro. I'd agrree with some if we we where talking a week's wages for such an app, but we're not. For the price,timely updates, and service many of you are way out of line. I'm licsensed to use three of their apps, and they're all sweet. Meaning, bugs are addressed, enhancements are ongoing, and documentation is very good. Stop whining and be thankful for good apps at a good price. Thank you Metis. DTP pro is a 4-star app, but I'm giving it 5 to offset some of the whining...

I guess that Metis have put a lot of work into producing something which is a little too ambitious for the moment. I also think my expectations were too high having got used to Quark. There are basic and frustrating flaws in this bit of software - and the support doesn't actually provide useful information - but for a few dollars it is a nice toy to have on the desktop - but so far that is all it is. I bought a licence some time ago, and have yet to use it properly because of its limitations.

program by importing a text file into a text box, then started editing. Drop caps don't work; they show overlapping the text. Tabs doesn't seem to work at all: I set a tab at .25", and when I pressed the tab key, the insertion point barely moved from the left margin. So I trashed this program.