September, 2005

By: Don Foy

Before last January, it had been a long time since anyone offered a simple desktop publishing program for the Mac. Apple invented desktop publishing 20 years ago, but there’s never really been an inexpensive, easy-to-use desktop publishing program for the Mac.

Windows users have Microsoft Publisher, which is anathema to the actual publishing world because it has never, and probably never will, played well with others. You can’t easily do anything in CMYK, which printers use for printing color.

Until recently, Mac users have had to make do with trying to use AppleWorks, which was never really suited for true desktop publishing. But things are looking up.

A few months ago, Apple introduced Pages, which is a desktop publishing application, but can be used for simple word processing like AppleWorks. The biggest downside to Pages is that you have to buy it as a part of the iWork suite, which also includes Keynote, a slick presentation package, for US$80. If you don’t need to do presentations, then you’ve spent that much money just for a fancy word processor.

What if you could spend just $40 and get a slick, stable program that’s easy to use, comes with templates to help you design like a professional and has enough clip art to keep anyone happy for years? Sound a little impossible? It’s not.

Enter Swift Publisher from BeLight Software. This desktop publishing program has the basics that you normally expect from a program of this nature, but that’s not what makes it special.

What I liked

Here’s what makes it special. It’s not so much the clip art, which is impressive at a hefty 1.6GB in size (about 23,000 items), but how the program handles images, whether it’s clip art or a photo. A four-pane drawer on the left side of the main window allows you to select from the clip art, any photo in your iPhoto library, Smart Shapes (more on that in a minute) or import images from a specific location on your hard drive. You can even use Google to search for images on the Internet.

All of the clip art is in a format that most any image editing program like Photoshop or GraphicConverter can open, so it can be used with other programs if you wish.

Each image, regardless of where it came from, is resizable via dragging handles on the corners or each side. Corner handles constrain the image, while side handles stretch the image. Images can be cropped, masked using a myriad of masks included in the program, color adjusted or matted. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

You can do almost anything you want with an image because of a little add-on program from BeLight called ImageTricks. It uses Tiger Core Image filters, a series of image filters built into Mac OS X 10.4. While ImageTricks is free and available to use without another BeLight program, it really shines with its integration with Swift Publisher.

Smart Shapes can be dropped on the page, then adjusted just about any way you want to. They can be filled and rotated and adjusted to just the size or characteristic you might want.

This program is so easy to use, you can create a brochure or flyer in just minutes, output it to your inkjet printer or a pdf you can take to a printer. It just works.
BeLight also provides great support. I had an issue where the Smart Shapes did not install when I installed the program. Technical support was helpful, and when it became apparent what had happened, the support rep sent me the Smart Shapes folder and explained to me where it should go. And this was before they knew I was reviewing the program.

There’s a lot more to talk about, like text wrap and opacity, but the Chief Macsimiser says you guys and gals won’t read more than 1,000 words at a time, so maybe I can talk about those features in a followup at the next major revision.

What I didn’t like

These omissions should not keep you from buying the program, but these are features I think are necessary in any design program.

You can’t change the location of zero point on the rulers. The zero point is always set to the top-left corner of the page.

When you set guides, you can’t tell exactly where your guides are located. Most programs give you a dotted line or some other indication in the ruler as to where your guide is placed.

You can’t group objects together. I can’t imagine why they didn’t include this feature.

But there is good in the bad. I emailed BeLight about these three obvious (at least to me) feature omissions and was assured that they would be added to future updates.

Also, that little installer bug, which we never really tracked down, which caused my Smart Shapes to not get installed.

Wrapping it up

This is a pretty good little program, especially for a first release (I based this review on version 1.0.3). I expect it to get better as the releases come along. The company seems responsive to suggestions for their program.

When the next major revision comes along, I’ll revisit this review.

If you need an inexpensive desktop publishing program, this is well worth the asking price. There is a downloadable trial version, so go get it and see what you think. As with all demos, if you don’t like it, email the company and tell them why not. Maybe the next revision will be what you want.
The download version is $35. The CD version is $40 plus shipping. The download version includes only a fraction of the clip art, so spring for the extra $5 and pay shipping to get the clip art.

System requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 and higher.

Macsimum Rating: 7 out of 10.