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On the other hand, there were some issues that tempered my enthusiasm for the Sophie's Cards 3.0. The program, by default. took over my computer when it was running. The Finder menu disappeared, and there was no obvious way to get back to full Finder access without quitting the program. For a multitasker like me, that proved frustrating. There were workarounds, but they seemed kludgy and PC-like. I longed for a provision to hide Sophie's Cards and return to the Finder without quitting the program.
I found the application's interface design functional and not unattractive, but not closely following Mac OS appearance conventions. It looked sort of like a Mac program, but not quite. Sophie's Cards was developed in Filemaker Pro 6.0, a program with which I have no experience, and that may be where the appearance derives from. The Command-C (Copy), Command-V (Paste), and Command-X (Cut) buttons did not work in Sophie's Cards. Proprietary buttons are provided in the My Words and My Words & Pictures modules for this purpose, but it's not nearly as convenient.
Sophie's Cards 3.0 was also not exactly a scintillating performer speed-wise on my 550 MHz G4 PowerBook. Interface panel switching and card configuration updates were annoyingly sluggish, and scrolling excruciatingly slow. This is more an observation than a criticism, since in fairness, while the developers cite a 500 MHz CPU as the minimum supported specification, they recommend at least a 1 GHz processor. I was inclined to agree. The program was usable on my 550 MHz machine, but the slow response made it far less pleasant then it would be with a faster computer. The developer recommends that for the fastest possible performance you quit should all other programs before starting Sophie's Cards. The more memory and processing power available, the better. Happily, the program seemed very stable.
Last month, Vi Preiss of Sophie's Cards, Inc. contacted me to say that Sophie's Cards 4.0 had been released, an extensively upgraded version, with more printing choices such as "frameable" art and postcards, more selection options such as envelope icons, more speed, more content, more control...but still easy and intuitive to use.
I was flattered to hear that the developers had explicitly endeavoured to address the criticisms from my review, most notably that version 4 runs with full access to the desktop, and OS X menu bar.
Would I be interested in revisiting the program with another review? You bet! Pre-Christmas also seemed an excellent time to review a greeting card creation application.
I'm happy to report that Sophie's Cards 4.0 is significantly improved from version 3.0. Full Finder and menu access make the program immensely more enjoyable and convenient to use, and much more lively on the 550 MHz PowerBook thanks to that speed optimization. It's still no jackrabbit on that old machine, but response times have been cut considerably.
Cut/Copy/Paste still doesn't work with keyboard shortcuts or the edit menu. Scrolling in the Choose window is still slow, and selection response sluggish, although a lot better than with the previous version on both counts. I wish there was live scrolling through the Choose window libraries. There is also an annoying bug (at least I think it's a bug) that causes the scrolled column to return to the top when you make a selection. Happily, the desired selection stays selected.
The beauty of a program like Sophie's Cards is that making your own greeting cards with a computer and color printer can save you money if you send a lot of cards, and perhaps more importantly allows you to create personalized cards with just the right image and sentiments expressed.
One of the biggest distinctions between Sophie's Cards and other greeting card creator applications I have reviewed here such as Script Software's Easy Card Creator and Econ Technology's Portraits & Prints, is that as I noted above, Sophie's Cards incorporates its own library of images and text that you can use rather than imagery and/or copy of your own, while still allowing you to use your own material if you prefer. It's nice to have options.
The selection of Sophie's Cards card images provides plenty of attractive and tasteful choices that can be mixed and matched using the program's Choose pane, which is arranged in four columns representing the front, left inner, right inner, and back panels of the card. The photography is generally spectacular, with a wide selection of genre themes.
You should be able to find a suitable card image for any occasion in the library. Occasion types that may be selected include Anniversary, Announcement/Invitation, Apology, Birthday, Congratulations, Engagement, Farewell, Father's Day, Friendship, Get Well, Holiday, Just For Fun, Miss You, Mother's Day, Riddles For Kids, Sympathy, Thank You, and Valentine love.
One enhancement I would suggest is that the "Holiday" database be broken up into separate categories for different holidays. As it is, Christmas images and text are mixed in with Easter, Seasonal greetings, and even Hallowe'en, and seemingly listed at random. That, combined with no live scrolling makes the selection process less enjoyable than it might otherwise be. Something to work on for version 5, perhaps.
Using Sophie's Cards is reasonably easy and intuitive. The basic steps are:
Select an Occasion (including holidays) and the program offers you a menu of appropriate images and verses. You can apply a particular color or style on just one or all words on a card or envelope. Text can be positioned with several options, superimposed over front cover photos, and on the inside faces and the back of the card in portrait or landscape format.
--OR--
Select a Sophie's Cards photo, and add your own text using My Words.
--OR--
You can import your own pictures to create a completely personalized card using My Words & Pictures.
The cards created by Sophie's Cards are very classy and professional-looking, complete with thumbnails and information about the front panel image on the back, along with attribution of the verse/text selections used, and a Sophie's Cards logo.
The program will print to standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper, but of course will work best with proper card stock paper such as available from Avery or Epson, for which size configuration options are provided in the menus. You can keep track of cards that you have sent with the Card History feature.
You can specify landscape or portrait oriented cards with full or small photos, and with or without cover text. There is also a custom envelope printing template with fields in which you can enter "to" and "from" addresses with your specified font, size, font color, and text alignment. You can also import addresses.
The built-in content library makes Sophie's Cards one of the biggest applications you're likely to have on your Mac. The online installer file download is 525 MB, which makes it impractical for bringing down on a dial up connection, which the developer explicitly does not recommend. The installer fits nicely on a CD, which is how my review copy was delivered. Demo CDs are available. Of course, if you have broadband, online downloads will be no problem.
Although identified as version 4, Sophie's Cards, more than five years in development, is actually pretty new, its first public release being version 3.0 earlier this year. Free upgrades of both images and verse are promised for the future, with version updates of the program to be published at about 12 month intervals.
System requirements:
Any Mac with at least a 500MHz PowerPC processor (1 GHz or better recommended) running Mac OS X v10.2.8 or higher
1 GB of available hard disk drive space
A photo quality inkjet printer.
The font Helvetica must be in your computer's (i.e., root) font collection (i.e., not a user's font collection) for Sophie's Cards to function correctly. The program uses this font to render certain screens, but not to print cards. Helvetica is included in the MacOS, and was automatically installed on your machine when the MacOS was installed.
Sophie's Cards also installs its own set of custom fonts in your computer's font folder. These fonts should also remain at the root level to prevent unexpected results. Fonts installed in the computer's font collection are available to everyone who uses your Mac, while fonts installed into a user's font collection are available only to that user. Only the fonts displayed in the Sophie's Cards font format screens are available for printing cards.
You must have Quicktime version 6, or higher, installed on your computer to view images in Sophie's Cards.
If you are looking for a greeting card creation program for the Mac, you really should check Sophie's Cards out. Notwithstanding my criticisms, this is a very cool card creation application, and its content database puts it in a class by itself, and capable of making very classy-looking greeting cards.
The downloadable version is a fully enabled demonstration copy that prints watermarks on the back of cards, and front and back of envelopes until it is registered. The program terminates after 14 days if it is not registered. Registration eliminates the watermarks. You can register at any time before or after the expiration to fully enable the Program.
Sophie's Cards 4.0 sells for US $39.95, a reduction from the previous price of $44.95.
For more information, visit:
http://sophiescards.com
Sophie's Cards is also listed on CNet, Softpedia and Apple Products Guide.
Charles W. Moore
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