The Bottom Line
Creates attractive, interactive forms with databases as well as brochures, greeting cards, labels, and presentations. Has easy-to-use but powerful drawing tools.
Pros
- Flexible drawing and page layout
- Low-cost shareware
- Easy-to-use database management
Cons
- Windows only
- Documentation sometimes limited or vague
Description
- Publisher: Creative Stars, Inc.
- Versions: PageFocus (standard), Pro, 2 (for ODBC databases), Draw, Reader (free distribution)
- OS Requirements: Windows 98/2000/NT4/Me/XP
- Draw and edit graphics with fills, patterns, bezier lines
- Layers, object libraries
- Graphic, field, table, button, and checkbox objects
- Text and graphic database management
- Database import/export using ASCII
- Full-screen presentation/slide show option
- Spell check, optional European dictionaries
Guide Review - PageFocus
PageFocus is a desktop publishing/illustration/database management tool. It consists of two programs - the editor for designing documents and EX for browsing and data entry/database management. The best way to learn this program is to open the sample files first in EX to see how they work and then in PageFocus to see how they were designed. While the program can be used for straight page layout and drawing tasks, its strength is in its use as a forms creation and database program. For example, create an attractive invoice to match your other marketing materials but with data entry fields, that when used with EX will calculate totals and store names, dates, and invoice numbers. The drawing tools can create nice, often complex illustrations.
This review is for an earlier version. Version 5.02 of PageFocus Draw (desktop publishing and drawing) and Version 8.02 of PageFocus Pro (Desktop publishing with form and database management) were released on May 31, 2011 and are available for download.