McClatchy-Tribune News Service

My standard poodle has decided that the kibble I feed him is not up to his standards, he being a gourmand of le French kibble. So, I am helping him find a new home, where he can be treated like the haute dog he is. For the task, I chose PrintMaster Platinum Edition, a five-CD desktop publishing program to create an animated e-mail that specifies what Poodle requires to maintain his dietary needs.

The task takes all of three minutes: I find a recent photo of Poodle, use the program's animation template, type in a message, and, before you can say "voila!" the message is sent to a dozen or so potential owners (heaven help them).

Sending animated e-mail is only one of hundreds of tasks PrintMaster performs, and you don't have to be an expert desktop publisher to perform them. There are some 20,000 templates, 600 fonts and nearly 300,000 images you can use to create:

Greeting cards, scrapbooks, calendars, gift wrapping, mailing labels, birth announcements, photo albums, party sets, craft projects, business and personal letterheads, cards and envelopes, certificates, awards, menus (Poodle was especially interested in this feature), posters and signs ("Wanted: A new home for Poodle"), newsletters, brochures ("The joys of owning a standard poodle"), banners ("Welcome to Stockton"), CD, DVD and mailing labels, greeting cards ("Congratulations on your lovely new poodle"), postcards, masks, paper airplanes, coloring books, paper dolls, mobiles, and many more projects.

You can either use the templates that are provided for every occasion under the sun, or you can design your own. Your own photos, drawings and etchings can be scanned and imported into your projects. You can use your photos to present digital slideshows (great for Poodle's mom back in gay Paree), create e-mail-ready newsletters, transfer your projects to CDs or DVDs, and even save your projects as pdf files that can be opened on any computer that has the free version of Adobe Reader installed (which includes most PCs and Macs).

In short, you're not going to find a desktop publishing program that's easier to use, has this many features and allows you to find your standard poodle a new home. Just because I didn't have the heart to pawn him off doesn't mean you have to be a softie, too.

The 5-CD PrintMaster Platinum Edition set will run on Windows Vista, XP, 98, Me and 2000. To order, send $29, plus $6 for shipping, to WashingtonCD, PO Box 351531, Los Angeles, CA 90035, or online at www.washingtoncd.net.