August 2004

By: Janet Mobley, NCMUG member

Many computer programs have a rather stiff learning curve, which brings to mind those from Adobe whose products are wonderfully rich in detail with subtle nuances that nearly scream out to you to buy a book or to take a class to adequately learn the application. But sometimes a computer program is just plain fun and easy to use and easy to learn and that is what Business Card Composer is all about.

A product created by a company in Odessa, Ukraine would not seem to be light hearted but both the program and the BeLight Software web site fall into that category. Maybe that’s how they got their name.

Figure 1.

There are twenty categories of graphics from which to choose to decorate your card and you can also add your own as I did. See Figures 1 and 2. There is a category of Flags but they are flat and the ones in my collection have a wave in them that I like better.

They have a category called Computers but better than that, they have one called Macintosh. See Figure 3. This company is Mac only. The web site tells us that the company, founded in January 2003, considers the best software should be run on the best computers and that no modern computer begins to match up to a Mac.

The printing set up is very straightforward. Under File/Card properties you can select to have your card in a vertical orientation or horizontal. You can choose to print on Avery, Decadry or various other cards. There is even a set-up for professional printers if you don’t want to print on your own printer. You can select to have ten or twelve cards printed on one sheet of card stock. You may also set up your projects to print business cards that will be folded or CD business cards.

Figure 2.

There is no manual with this product. Who reads them anyway? There is a Quick Start Guide and Product Overview that came with the Reviewers Kit and I don’t know if those are with the consumer product but I expect they are. I only had one question to ask and that was how to include my own photos. The question took me to a well written (by non-native English speakers) Help File that clearly addressed my query. Business Card Composer is so easy and so intuitive that no one will have any trouble understanding it. It is easy to see why Macworld gave it four and a half mice and more than two dozen Mac publications gave it very high marks.

Business Card Composer can be ordered in English, French, German and soon, Dutch but I didn’t see Russian listed.

Take a look at their web site and then go to Company and Team where you can read short bios of the company members. Irina, the VP of Marketing, even has links to a photo gallery of Odessa and writes that she hopes the reader will visit that gorgeous city.

There is something else that is very interesting about the web site; it even has a short history of business cards and calling cards: http://www.belightsoft.com/products/composer/history.php

Figure 3.

Now I think I will make cards for all of my family members. You will notice that I started with my pets. Silly, you may think, but my veterinarian likes the cards and his receptionist staples them to each animal’s chart. I put my phone number and address on the finished versions.

With my big family I think I will soon be an expert creator of business and calling cards. I’m going to have to buy a new ream of card stock and start this project to get them all finished by Christmas. This program is really fun and I am looking forward to the release of their newest program, Mail Factory due out this month.