[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

A major distinction between Word and Publisher is the focus. With Word, the
overall focus really is words and broad issues of document layout. Hence,
there are lots of tools that facilitate working with words. Formatting is
important, but not as important as content.

With Publisher, the focus is page layout and getting each page formatted in
a more or less precise and deliberate way. It strength is fixed format
documents such as newsletters, greeting cards, and brochures. Desktop
publishing in this sense doesn't mean publishing books or coordinating
chapters. (The Master Document feature in Word while invitingly interesting,
continues to be a great way to corrupt documents, even in Word 2007,
unfortunately. It's a great idea whose implementation remains flawed.)

The advantage of Publisher over Adobe's offerings is that some of us don't
do well with Adobe's mindset and vocabulary. Hence, if you speak
"Microsoftese" well but don't speak Abobese, then Publisher offers a more
modestly priced and [for some of us] an easier-to-understand alternative. If
there aren't tons of Publisher books, that might be because the market for
Publisher isn't very large. But, it might also be because Publisher is very
intuitive and doesn't really require big thick books in order to use &
understand it. Just my own two cents...

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com


"grammatim" wrote in message
...
I was serious when I asked why there weren't any Publisher 2003 books
-- it looks from the chapters in the Office 2003 books as though it
can do certain things well, but the blurbs claim it's a "desktop
publishing" application: yet AFAICT it's not made for "publishing"
anything more extensive than a brochure? It ought to be able to do the
things that are supposedly done by Master Documents in Word, and we
have an idea of how well _those_ work. (Again, FrameMaker provides the
model; Adobe's supposed replacement for it, InDesign, isn't.)

On Apr 5, 1:44 pm, "JoAnn Paules" wrote:
You could download the trial version of Publisher. This would allow you to
open that file *plus* try Publisher out for yourelf. If you don't like it
(and I can't imagine that), you can always let it expire. I think you'll
be
pleased with how much nore creative you can be with Publisher. :-)

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"

"nikogee" wrote in message

...



I received a Windows Publisher document and can not open it. I have
OFFICE
HOME & STUDENT-