CompuServe Messages

Steve, It depends on the quality that you are looking for, the skills you (or your wife) want to develop and the cost. First off, if you are doing full size posters you will have to go with a professional system with a long learning curve and big $$$. If all you want are flyers or newsletter type publications then there are a number of low end options open to you. The first step you could do would be to use a paint program. For graphics, I think most people would agree that a PAINT program is easier than a structured DRAW program but the printed quality of the DRAW program is better after all is done. If the project has a lot of graphics and you aren't too concerned about having HiRes quality then go with a paint program such as DPaint. It will allow you to do logos and *simple* text layout but it would look amateurish. The second level would be to include a wordprocessor such as FinalCopyII or ProWrite. Each of these provide basic text and graphics layout and you can import paint files to print up with your docs. FCII also has built in structured graphics capabilities for simple hilites, etc. So a paint program and a wordprocessor will give you cost effective, simple but adequate results. There are also entery level DTP programs that combine everything in one package (ie. Gold Disks' PageSetter which I have not used). The next step would be a desktop publishing program and possibly a structure draw program. Each of these will give you professional quality at the expense of more $$$ and difficulty. A full system would include all these programs and more. Basically, it comes down to what you want for how much. It would be best to start simple and work up. I hope this helps. Andrew