With each version of Office, Publisher appears to have a tougher job on its hands. Why use it when you can just load up a newsletter template in Word?
That argument is blown out of the water if you’re using a professional printer. In the Backstage view sits the "Save for a Commercial Printer" command, which creates high-resolution PDFs and controls the colour-printing mode.
Even if you’re using an inkjet, Publisher will create more attractive documents than Word. When you’re dragging a photo around the workspace, for example, pink lines appear to show what it could align with – a margin, say, or another photo.
Publisher has always allowed objects to be dragged off the page to the "scratch area" to be grabbed later, but now you can instantly hide the scratch area to make the bleed’s impact more obvious. Publisher’s photo-editing tools are the same as Word now, addressing one of its traditional weak points. Support for ligatures and OpenType fonts are also huge pluses.
But the biggest improvements stem from the introduction of the Ribbon. This wasn’t implemented in Publisher 2007, which made hunting for a particular tool tricky. Now, you only need to hit the Mailings tab to see Mail Merge commands or the Page Design tab to take control of colour schemes.
Meanwhile, the new Page Navigation pane makes it easy to rearrange the order of pages, and gives you a thumbnail view of the publication as you go.
Our only gripe with Publisher 2010 is that it isn’t included with more of the suites: businesses that choose the Volume Licence scheme get it bundled with both Standard and Professional Plus, but consumers must either buy Office Professional or stump up $188. When Word is so good at knocking out newsletters and brochures, that may seem pricey, but if you create frequent newsletters or brochures for professional output, it’s worth the investment.