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Review
Created: March, 2000
From
brochures to pamphlet and from company letterhead to business
cards, a successful marketing and promotional campaign demands
both quantity and quality.
But they both come at a price that is high for small companies
struggling to build and gain ground on their competition.
Corel's Ventura 8 is ideal for a small business that needs to
publish professional-looking documents with a tight marketing
budget. For the price of the software and ensuing printing costs,
anyone can design and lay out a limitless number of documents
to cater to any audience. An address change or a change to a
lineup of products can be adjusted in a matter of seconds without
having to pay someone to do it at a high hourly rate.
The key to Ventura 8's ease of use and functionality is that
the Corel family of products works together seamlessly. Anyone
familiar with Corel's WordPerfect or even Microsoft's Word will
quickly adapt to Ventura's interface.
The key difference is that text cannot simply be typed in, it
must be placed within a box. This is an extra step but makes
things easy to lay out, since a box of text can be resized and
moved easily.
Another major difference is the necessity of using images to
complement the text. While a word-processed document may use
an occasional image, special consideration must be given to
an attractive use of graphics when designing marketing material.
Integration is a key feature.
Ventura 8 interacts well with Corel Draw and Photo-Paint 8.
With a few clicks, you can quickly jump from laying out your
document to editing an image. Photo-Paint 8 is bundled with
Ventura and can edit bitmap images to accompany your designs.
In addition, if you have another graphics application that uses
plug-ins, Corel can use these without leaving the Ventura interface.
To get you started, Ventura comes with 1,000 photos, 40,000
clip art images, 750 floating objects, 1,000 fonts and 80 templates
for brochures, menus and newsletters. The templates provide
a sample design, you simply replace the company's name, logo,
address and promotional material with your own. Ventura also
has the ability to publish to the Internet. You can create documents
and save them in HTML (hypertext markup language), the Web's
file format, or use Java to view a document in its original
form.
This last feature requires a longer download time and more processor
power for the Web surfer, so it should be used with caution.
At $479 US ($719 Canadian), Corel Ventura 8 is not cheap. But
it's an inexpensive alternative to paying to have documents
professionally designed. Of course, to maximize its use and
woo a customer, you must have the time and creativity to design
your publications. But if you have an eye for design and the
need do all the work in-house, Ventura can get the job done.
Reviewer's rating: 4 / 5
Comments: Corel Ventura 8 is an effective publishing program
to design professional-looking documents and save the trouble
of getting expensive, promotional material made.
System requirements: A PC with a Pentium processor running
Windows 95, 98 or NT 4, 16 MB of RAM, minimum 80 MB of hard
drive space, CD ROM drive, SVGA display.
More info: http://www.corel.com
Price: $479 US, $719 Canadian
Buy now:
Corel Ventura
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Adding RAM is easy, 
