The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Corel Print House Magic
Bernadette Houghton
 bernieh@iaccess.com.au

Now in its third release, Corel Print House is better looking, easier to use and more powerful than its predecessors. Always a good graphics product, it has matured and become more streamlined over time. Re-packaged in this release as Corel Print House Magic, Print House 3 is bundled with Corel Photo House 2 image-editor and Corel Family and Friends (CF&F), a composite calendar/address book/database.

Corel is touting Print House Magic as an introductory CorelDRAW product. I have some qualms about this as a marketing exercise -the very thought of CorelDRAW in all its complexity could be intimidating for amateur graphic artists. However, the Print House Magic programs look and feel nothing at all like CorelDRAW and its siblings. They are much friendlier and simpler, with hints and assorted help facilities always close at hand.


Figure 1. Print House's introductory screen.


Figure 2. Using the new Symbol Sprayer. Note the Property Bar.

I always get such a delicious feeling of anticipation when another package from Corel lands on my desk -what goodies await me this time? Print House Magic includes 25,000 clipart images, 1000 greeting cards, 1000 sample files, 1000 phrases, 5700 photos, 150 magic borders, 200 backdrops, 100 frames, 100 objects and 300 fonts. A nice, juicy bundle, indeed!

Print House

For those unfamiliar with Print House, its most distinctive feature is the Notebook. Taking up much of the left hand side of the screen, its role is two-fold: context-sensitive help for the current task and a repository of ready-made images, styles and objects which you can drag and drop on to your drawing. You can use Print House's tools entirely from within the safety of the Notebook, or you can access them directly from the Toolbox and the new Property Bar. Now a standard feature in Corel programs, the Property Bar displays user-controllable properties for the currently selected object. If you get lost at any point, you can click on the Guide Tool (previously called the Key) to return to the first page of the Notebook and thence regain your bearings.


Figure 3. Applying styles from the Notebook.


Figure 4. Using the Coloring Wizard

Print House offers a standard repertoire of drawing tools, including a Shaper for manipulating Bezier curves. The tools are powerful without offering an overwhelming variety of options, and you can achieve some imaginative effects with little effort; a quick glance at the Notebook gives you the possibilities of your current tool. This time around, there are two interesting new tools: the Symbol Tool, which places characters from symbol fonts onto your page, and the Symbol Sprayer, which spatters characters over the page as you drag the mouse.

With version 3, Print House's main change is a streamlined user interface. All the Wizards and pretty well all the dialog boxes are now part of the Notebook, so the drawing window remains in full view all the time. As you dabble with the Wizards, you can preview results instantaneously in the drawing window. Other new features include a background layer and on-screen rulers.

Photo House

Corel has enhanced Photo House's interface in line with that of Print House; the dialog boxes are now part of the Notebook, and special effects instantly display on the full-screen image. There are some nice special effects, useful re-touching tools and two selection tools, Rectangular and Freehand. These are very basic, allowing only one active selection at a time. The lack of a circle selection tool is also a major limitation. As I said in my review of the original Photo House, you need to cultivate a keen eye and steady hand to make the most of Photo House's selection tools. This remains true with Photo House 2.


Figure 5. Photo House's introductory screen.


Figure 6. Applying special effects.

New features include a Text tool, support for objects and frames, and support for third-party plug-in special effects and pressure-sensitive tablets. There is an Image Sprayer, which works similarly to that of Print House, except that the images spattered consist of a series of bitmap images covering different themes (e.g. pumpkins, gears, fruit, faces and clouds). There are 25 new brushes that mimic real-life painting tools (e.g. paint brushes, airbrushes, spray paint and charcoal rubs).

You can launch Photo House directly from Print House by simply double-clicking on an embedded image.


Figure 7. Choosing and applying a brush preset. (Power Sprayer on the cheeks)


Figure 8. Spattering pumpkins with the Image Sprayer.

Corel Family and Friends

CF&F replaces the Namelist feature of previous versions of Print House. It has three components -an Address Book, a Calendar with a reminder facility and a List Book. This last is a simple database for creating lists of all kinds, such as CD collections, recipes or assets. You can link any Address Book entry with any Calendar or List Book entry.

CF&F can be launched directly from Print House or Photo House, but has an altogether different interface. I found it took a while to get used to, with confusing icons, ambiguous input screens, and many loose ends, inconsistencies and just plain irritating features. At version 1.0, it is every bit as buggy as version 1.0 programs are reputed to be. To list some of the problems I encountered -when you link an Address Book entry to a List or Calendar record, CF&F presents the addresses in record order rather than alphabetic order, making it difficult to locate specific records. You can't sort lists or format fields (e.g. numbers always have 6 decimal places), and the List Book happily accepts incorrect data types in any field (e.g. text in date fields). Even though it does reject the incorrect data before updating the database, it doesn't provide any warnings or error messages.

You can use the information in both the Address Book and the List Manager in mail merges with Print House. While it is definitely a very buggy program at this stage, for home users with only a limited number of records and not too stringent expectations, it will serve its purpose.


Figure 9. CF&F's Address Book.


Figure 10. CF&F's List Book.

Assessment

The changes with Print House and Photo House are subtle, but go a long way towards making them much easier to use. Both programs work similarly, so once you've learnt one program, the other feels like an old friend. There are lots of sample files, all of which you can use as they are, or customise to suit yourself. CF&F at this stage isn't intertwined with the other two programs, and is a lightweight, buggy product in comparison. However, if you are after an entry-level drawing program and some basic image-editing tools, you should definitely consider Print House Magic.

Reprinted from the June 1998 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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