Want to try your hand at web design or photo editing but put off by the high cost
of the software and steep learning curve. Well you need not worry.
Serif is one of the UK’s leading independent software developers and publishers, having been around since 1987 and with over 6 million customers it is a prime example of a British business at its best, competing in the world most competitive industry. All of their software products costs less than £80 and are very powerful and easy to use, which is what makes them so popular and winners of over 200 awards.
Serif’s software range includes;
PagePlus™ - Desktop Publishing
PhotoPlus™ - Image creation/editing
DrawPlus™ - Drawing application
WebPlus™ - Web design
MoviePlus™ - Video editing
PanoramaPlus™ - Creating Panorama’s
Digital Scrapbook Artist™ - Creating scrapbooks of pics
Recently they introduced their latest free versions, Starter Editions (SE), which are essentially cut down versions of the full software that lets you try out the features you would find in their top line products. The Starter editions include PagePlus SE, WebPlus SE, DrawPlus SE, PanoramaPlus SE, Digital Scrapbook Artist Compact.
I’ve used the full version of WebPlus X4 that costs £79.99 and was greatly impressed with it, so we decided to give WebPlus SE a test run and see how it faired. The user interface is the same clean manageable one, all of the essential features are present, including 5 templates to get you started, there’s also both a flash and JavaScript gallery. They’ve also included the attach HTML feature which allows you to add HTML snippets that you find on the web.
As you would expect there are limitations, there’s no free hosting to get your site on the web, all websites are limited to 5 pages, there is a nag screen on all the features that have been disabled. The disabled features all have red lines going through them. The impressive PhotoLab and Filter Effects are also disabled which I thought was a bit of shame some reduced usage would have been great.
The bottom line is though, if you’ve never tried web design or been put off by some other high end software, WebPlus SE will easily show you how to create an impressive website in minutes and why Serif software is so popular. You don’t need to know code, everything is What You See IS What You get, you can design as you please and let the software take care of the rest.
Most of their software comes in 2-3 versions, the Starter Version (free), the Essentials Version £29.99 and the top line “X” version £79.99. So you can dip your toes in where it suits you.
To find out more about the free Starter Editions and to download them visit the free downloads page.
