Since the early days of computing, there have been print programs to let you create greeting cards, invitations, signs, banners, newsletters, certificates, calendars and more. In this regard, Riverdeep's The Print Shop Deluxe 20 is a comprehensive program that lets you create and print just about anything.

In addition to providing strong print tools for the home, this newest version offers integrated CD/VCD burning, enhanced resolution controls for printing, animated greetings and sharing features that work via instant messenger. Those of you who already own prior versions, however, may find little here to warrant an upgrade.

software - The Print Shop Deluxe 20

To start, the program offers tools that let anyone create attractive printed items and offers a good selection of fonts, basic layout and image-editing tools, and some 16,000 project templates and 310,000 clipart images. The templates give you a running start with printed projects. You simply call up a template, for example, "greeting card," select a look and layout that you like, and then fill the document with graphics and text. The templates are attractive and professional-looking.

The program does a great job of helping you find images. It arranges them by theme and lets you identify them by photo, and other categories. The clipart images in the collection tend to be mostly cartoon-like in style, and the digital photos are quite attractive.

A useful feature, the program comes with Calendar Creator Express 9 to build calendars with various timelines. You can organize contact information and handle mailings with the built-in address book and mail manager. The program also comes with competent image-editing features that let you modify photos to remove red-eyes, correct color, fix flaws and apply special effects.

Beyond basics, The Print Shop sports some new features. ProPrint technology does a good job of optimizing printouts. If you've been happy with the print-outs from past versions, you may not need this feature, but it particularly helps when printing photographs.

New, integrated CD and VCD Burning features let you archive projects or share them with friends and family. You can create video CDs of slide shows and presentations that play on a DVD player. The program offers helpful PDF output-a feature that is usually not available in consumer programs. It also lets you customize cards with 3D graphic add-ons, ribbons, cut-outs and more.

A convenient Hot Shots Viewer lets you quickly access photos, images, headlines, and logos that you frequently use. You simply add images from the art gallery or drag and drop images from your project into the viewer.

You can send personalized animated greetings to friends and family that feature graphics, animation, music and personalized messages. Here, the program offers some 50 animated greetings in categories such as birthdays, holidays, invitations and more.

You can share projects using new Click-N-View capabilities. And recipients may view your print projects, even if they don't own The Print Shop. You can also share projects via instant messaging. For this, The Print Shop supports AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and other popular IM services.

In our testing, the program ran slowly on our computer, which far exceeded the minimum requirements that were listed on the box. Without a doubt, The Print Shop Deluxe 20 is the strongest printing program yet for the home. And if you haven't upgraded in awhile, it's definitely worth a look.

The Print Shop Deluxe 20 has a suggested retail price of $49.99

9/10/03 Wayne N. Kawamoto, Managing Editor, www.daytrum.com