The Print Shop Ensemble III by Broderbund is still one of the leading desktop publishing programs available. I have used the last few editions of The print Shop line and have seen the steady improvements that they have made to their extremely successful series of programs.

In this edition, you will be able to create a variety of projects from scratch or choose from any one of the 1,200 "ready made" designs that are available to use and modify to your liking. The Ensemble series will enable you to quickly and easily create Greeting Cards; Signs & Posters; Banners; Certificates; Stationary with matching envelopes; Post Cards; Business Cards; Calendars; Labels and even send an Online Greeting.

I have personally been using the Print Shop product’s to create greeting cards for my family and friends over the past 4 years and have become very proficient at making them. But, the application can be hard to learn all the functionality for computer neophytes. My father, who has own a computer for a few years now, still gets frustrated trying to create his cards.

Some of the features I like:

Four types of Text Input:

Regular text - Select font, color and size
Headlines - Allows you to stretch text and use different shadowing options.
Word Balloons - Insert text inside a cartoon balloon (many choices)
Title block - Mixes one Headline with two regular text lines for a mixed text look

Different background options:

Backdrops - A ready made graphic image usually in a pattern that covers the whole page in the background.
Page Blending - Allows you to use basic colors as a background, but blend from dark to light or from one color to another. This really gives a cool effect.


The large selection of graphic images - You can add a square graphic or a graphic as a row or column border. All of these graphics are able to be sized by selecting a corner of the graphic and stretching it. There are 15,000 graphics and 1000 photo images to choose from.

Special Graphics:

Initial Caps - This is a decorative graphic that combines a square graphic background with a single letter to start your sentence or phrase.

Numbers - Highlight a number in your project. Likes: Josh’s 1ST Birthday.

Timepieces - Lets you enter an exact time and select a timepiece graphic. A picture of a clock that says: The parties at 2:00.

Borders - Create unique borders around any project. Works especially well with Certificates.


Some of the features I don’t like:

The interface - With so many features, I think it can be difficult to find what you are looking for when creating a project. The use of terms like Object and Project can be confusing to the average person.

Extra Graphic CDs - While I already stated that the program came with 15,000 graphic images. They are mostly on 3 separate CDs. Using them can be difficult. It does not use the same interface that is used when selecting a square graphic. When you select from the pre-installed graphics. You see the name and a picture of the graphic. The graphics on the CDs are harder to access and get the graphic that you really want.

If you want to add a graphic off a CD, you have to use the import graphic option instead. Then, you have to browse through directories and files to find what you are looking for. (Example: A picture of an apple is labeled: Food0003.jpg) This is not very helpful.


Other Stuff to know: - I had upgraded from Print shop Deluxe and the Project did not convert because I didn’t install it in the same directory. It had problems linking back to the graphics that I used in the original project on the Deluxe version.

Conclusion: This program may have some drawbacks, but it has a lot of functionality and is fairly quick in accessing the functions. I’ve used some other products that were painfully slow. (Buy it)




Recommended: Yes