January, 2006

By: Gary Miller

BeLight Software is a company on the move! They understand mac users well, as evidenced with their successful other products, like Business Card Composer & Mail Factory, both enthusiastically reviewed earlier by Alaskan Apple Users Group.

So I was excited to try out their first venture in simplifying self publishing in their product known as Swift Publisher, just the name said to me, no long drawn out instructions, settings, or work. I chose the download version, and you can even get a trial version, then purchase the serial key. Their support is top notch via email since it’s in the Ukraine, but they respond like they’re next door, and will work to make sure you’re a satisfied user.

Ok, Swift Publisher is a page layout program that uses supplied templates to assist you in making high quality letterheads, newsletters, brochures, flyers, all easily assembled. Here’s an example of how easy it is. I wanted to create a menu for a dinner, so I began by choosing one of the many supplied templates ( they are professionally designed, so really made it easy to just find what you’re looking for ) or they have a blank one if you want to go it yourself. Since it gave me a good way of laying it out, I then chose from the many graphics it supplies, by topic, I used Food, some in black & white, line drawings, color, all high quality, and BeLight continues to offer additional downloadable graphics to add to your library. Since I like to take food photos, I could click on the photo button, and it opened up iPhoto automatically, and I could use one of my own images. Excellent…

It went together quickly, offering me choices for fonts, colors, whether I wanted to put something in the back or foreground. I think most want an application that makes life simpler, quicker, and yet, yields a high quality result, Swift Publisher does that with little effort on your part!

I recommend it! Keep in mind when buying it, the by mail CD edition comes with many more templates and graphics (23,000 graphics and 100 templates versus 800 graphics and 80 templates for the download version), You can upgrade later for only $ 5 though…

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3+