Print Explosion Deluxe 3.0.1.1 – Print Projects!

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Nova Development Corporation 23801 Calabasas Road Suite 2005 Calabasas, CA 91302 1-818-591-9600 FAX: 1-818-591-8885 http://www.novadevelopment.com Product site: http://www.novadevelopment.com/products/us/pnm/default.aspx Released: May 4, 2006 $50 USD Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or later; PowerPC G3 or later or Mactel; 512MB RAM; CD or DVD Drive. Comes With: DVD and 120-page User Manual. Supplies: http://www.perfectshirt.com Intended for non-graphics artists. Strengths: Ubinaried. Mac OS X personified. Simple Mac-like interface with a short learning curve. Makes anyone look good who wants to print out cards, banners or stationary, etc. Other graphic files can be imported. Weaknesses: Has a proprietary graphic file format so files can’t be transferred to other programs for editing, but documents can be webified.

Even as we try to move away from paper and on towards the paperless office environment, there always seems to always be a need for printed items and Nova Development has been at the forefront for years providing neat, easy-to-use software and resources to make that process to print and distribute eye candy a joy.

They just made it even easier by going the Ubinary route with the latest release of Print Explosion Deluxe 3.0. Of course, adding up to 900 fonts helps too. And then there are all those templates, so we don’t have to start from scratch and work with both raster and vector graphics. And if you want to play around with morphing text, you can do so. And send that final product to everyone you love or who you think will enjoy your work by doing a mail merge. But if you want to start from scratch, you may.

Earlier versions had some issues, and those were resolved by taking advantage of the Mac OS X technologies. It integrates with the iApps (okay, iLife) and Address Book. Oh, and we can do CD/DVD covers if we want to too.

Now, it took a little while to install, because the final app takes up 1.73GB of space. Yes, you read correctly. 1.73 GB of hard drive space.

There are four easy lessons in the included tutorial on customizing greeting cards, making scrapbook pages (scrapbooking seems to be a BIG THING nowadays…), CD/DVD labeling and even personalizing T-shirts. And if you want supplies, you can even go to http://www.perfectshirt.com, which is Nova development’s own on-line accessories store.

If you want to “scratch”, there are choices of paper sizes from 8.5 x up to 110 inches and lots to choose from B to T, meaning; banners, business cards, calendars, certificates, crafts, Email greetings, envelopes, greeting cards, invitations, labels, letterhead and fax, matching stationary, photo cards, postcards, scrapbooks, signs and posters and finally, T-shirts. Or if you don’t want to “roll your own”, there are plenty of templates to choose from. Something like 13,000 templates. Gosh, no wonder it took a while to load! Well no, it really was all those 100,000 Art Explosion clip art images. Or was it? Seems some stayed on the DVD and can be imported as needed. So it IS the templates!

If you need to use CDs instead of the included DVD, you can swap the DVD out for CDs, but you have to call Nova Development’s Customer Service to do so. Also, the 900 bonus fonts all are on the DVD, so as not to clog up the hard drive. Wait a minute, there are “only” 17 MB on the DVD being used…Okay, you caught me. I was going to just load them all, but Font Book wants me to not take the shotgun approach to font installations and look at each one and validate before moving on. Sigh. The DVD has 3.04GB used, so obviously, not all of it transferred over to the hard drive. Okay, time to go see if there is an update online. Yep, there is; 3.0.1.1. Speed Download 4.0.1 comes in handy! (Reviewed elsewhere in this issue of macCompanion.)

So what I see is that I can access the graphics on the DVD and the fonts as well by opening a template and clicking on the appropriate items in the menus to see and then install whatever I see.

The DVD will be needed as a reference disc if we want to go exploring for either images or fonts. A-ha! Sez I... I can get creative and do all kinds of neat stuff with text and graphics, but if I want to take full advantage, I am going to need that DVD close by – or load the DVD as an image and use the items from there instead. Duh! (Note to self: use the Mac to full advantage, Dingbat!)

Using the Font Book, I noticed after I shut down and restarted that there are a whole lot more fonts in my font folder now on my hard drive, so the transfer function for the Bonus Fonts seemed to work.

Do I really want to print out 110-inch banners? I can if I ever feel the inclination to do so.

So now you’ve tripped through some of the discovery stage for this print and graphics app. What I haven’t covered are all the twists and turns and swirly colorful things that can be done with text or customizing graphics. What can’t be done is that even though graphics can be imported, graphics cannot be exported. But what the heck! I think you might want to also grab the other apps that Nova Development has, well, developed. 

I personally recommend this app without reservation. It is just a fun app to play with and doesn’t get in the way of creativity. And isn’t that the kind of app we all like to use with our Macs?