Jay J. Nelson

Every once in a while, I come across an application that does so much, and so well, that I can't understand how it can have such a low price. At $40, SOHO Labels 5.0.3 is an unbelievable bargain.

Hundreds of features

GridIron's Flow 2.0.2 Essentials is the greatest free utility for creative professionals ever-and the paid versions, which provide additional functionality to the core application for a monthly subscription fee-are even better.

First the basics: Flow 2 is a systemwide project management tool that functions as a workflow tracker, project manager, and revision keeper. Think of it as a beefed-up Spotlight focused specifically on the challenges facing creative pros. It tracks every file your project team creates, updates, moves, exports, or places into another document, and it can show you the relationships between them. It also tracks time spent on projects, provides unique tools for collaboration, and lets you roll back a document to any previously saved version. While the previous version of Flow could track a single user on one workstation, this upgrade tracks all the members of a workgroup, no matter where they are in the world.

It's unusual to find creative software that is valuable to both experts and beginners alike. TypeDNA 2.0 is one of these rare products that help users of all levels find the right fonts from their collection. As its name implies, TypeDNA performs its magic by analyzing the shapes and other details of your fonts so it can suggest fonts that are appropriate for common uses. It can also show you fonts that are similar or complementary, or that contrast with a chosen font--even among fonts that aren't currently active on your system.

I'm an unabashed font geek, and have been since the Mac's beginnings. However, like many designers with thousands of fonts, I'm often overwhelmed when I need to choose fonts for a project. I may remember a specific font that I think would be suitable, but can't remember the names of similar fonts that may work even better in the project. TypeDNA aims to help by suggesting fonts in my collection that are similar to the one I remember.

Even under the best of circumstances, font management is complicated. Fortunately for creatives, the formerly crippling font problems in Mac OS X have mostly been ironed out by the current crop of font management software.

Products such as Suitcase Fusion 3 capably weed out problem fonts and duplicate fonts, organize and categorize your fonts, and can auto-activate necessary fonts when you open a document. As with all professional font managers, it lets you create sets of fonts for various purposes, manage system fonts, preview and export fonts, explore technical font details, and so on.

I don't particularly like my handwriting-neither did my third grade teacher. Maybe that's why I'm attracted to professional fonts that look like handwriting. Or maybe it's because they're just plain awesome.

Fonts that resemble handwriting are as old as the Macintosh itself-the first Macs included Susan Kare's 72-dpi bitmap font Los Angeles, and Apple includes the font Lucida Handwriting in Mac OS X.

Before Apple's LaserWriter Plus printer came along, the only exposure the general public would have had to the word "dingbat" was Archie Bunker's use of it to insult his wife, Edith in the 1970s sitcom, All In The Family.

But starting in 1985, Apple's laser printers included a resident font called Zapf Dingbats -- designed by legendary font designer Hermann Zapf -- and the world began puzzling over just what the heck a "dingbat" is, and why they were called Zapf.

If you're creating a CD or DVD as a gift, you may also want to print artwork on it that's worthy of your vision. When I want something nicer on my disc than a few words scrawled with a marker, I turn to my trusty inkjet printer.

However, I never use paper labels on discs, and here's why: I don't trust them. No manufacturer can convince me that their adhesive will last as long as the disc, through repeated bakings in parked automobiles and endless playings in high-temperature slot-loaded optical disc drives. I will not give someone a potential time bomb that could destroy their disc drive, and I certainly don't want one for myself.

'Tis the season to be printing address labels, not to mention package labels and envelopes. There are several powerful and creative products online that will give you beautiful and festive results, ranging from free to $50.

At the free end is Avery DesignPro, an application for creating documents designed to print on Avery's huge variety of labels. It lets you merge contacts from Address Book onto labels, and import photos and playlists from iPhoto and iTunes. It also has some clever graphic capabilities such as placing text on a curve, and includes a sizable collection of clip art. If your needs are fairly modest, Avery DesignPro may fill the bill for you.

If you work only with basic word processing documents, then the Print dialog in Mac OS X is really simple: just tell it which pages, how many copies, and to which printer, and then you can relax and sip your latte.

But when working with a complex application such as QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign, there are dozens of choices based on what you've created, what kind of printer you're using, and what process you use to produce your final product. Here's a down-and-dirty overview of what you need to know--and what you can ignore--in QuarkXPress's Print dialog. (If you're in InDesign user, see this overview.)

If you work only with basic word processing or text documents, then the Print dialog in Mac OS X is really simple: just tell it which pages to print, how many copies you want, and which printer to print from. Easy. And maybe also tell it to scale the pages to fit the paper. Still easy.

But if you work with a complex desktop publishing application such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, there are dozens of choices based on what you've created, the kind of printer you're using, and the process that will be used to produce your final printed product.

If you work only with basic word processing or text documents, then the Print dialog in Mac OS X is really simple: just tell it which pages to print, how many copies you want, and which printer to print from. Easy. And maybe also tell it to scale the pages to fit the paper. Still easy.

But if you work with a complex desktop publishing application such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, there are dozens of choices based on what you've created, the kind of printer you're using, and the process that will be used to produce your final printed product.