Publisher 2007 had it...Publisher 2010 has it better: Crabby's Daily Tip

Common to Publisher 2010 & 2007Improved for Publisher 2010Read more about it
E-mail merge: Before Publisher 2007, you set up mailing addresses by hand. But now, when Publisher 2007 came out, the new E-mail Merge feature made it easy-as-pie. The Mailings tab on the Ribbon makes it even more efficient to create, manage, and store a single customer list in Publisher. Combine and edit customer lists from multiple sources, including Excel, Outlook, Word, and more. Then personalize your publications and marketing materials for additional impact. Create a catalog merge
Graphics and images: Publisher is probably the best Office program for working with all sort of art. Use the new photo pan, zoom, and crop technology to easily replace images while maintaining the layout and look of your document. Now you can also add captions and choose from a gallery of caption layouts for your photos and easily fine-tune every picture to help your publication look its absolute best. The Picture Tools contextual tab
Design templates: Maybe you're not sure where to start. Publisher has always helped with that, providing lots of templates. Now, choose from a library of hundreds of customizable design templates and blank templates for popular print and email publications such as brochures, flyers, catalogs, business cards, postcards, and newsletters. Also, when you're connected to the Internet, you can access hundreds of Publisher templates available on Office.com right from within Publisher.
Adding flair with fonts: Publisher 2007 came with plenty of fonts to help you say what you want and how you want.

Now, Publisher 2010 delivers new tools that help you transform ordinary text into fine typography. Use the stylistic sets, stylistic alternates, true small caps, ligatures, number styles, and more that are available in many OpenType fonts that come with Publisher to get a different look without finding new fonts. You can also use additional OpenType fonts that are available through other companies. Put your own creative flourish on your publications.

OpenType fonts

New typograhic styles

Like what you see? Download the free Publisher 2010 Beta and see what all the fuss is about.

— Crabby 

Office Blogs Comments

Comments: (9) Collapse

  • Publisher 2010 has eliminated tools that power users need -- and that existed in 2007. For example, you can no longer keep the styles list open permanently in the leftside bar -- crucial if you're working on a big document and need to manage styles. That new pulldown in the middle of the ribbon is for occasional styles management -- not for serious work. MSFT blew it on this one. The other problem is large document management -- unless you install the 64-bit version of Office 2010, Publisher will not handle big documents. (And you can't install 64-bit Office 2010 because most of add-ins you used to use will break....) Real problems here, and cause to look for a better publishing system.

  • Nick -I talked to our Dev over here in Pub and they are not aware of any performance issues with “big documents” using the 32bit version vs. the 64bit version. It would be nice to get some more details about what the problem is with handling big documents in that version.

    A PM also siad that maybe you have add-ins that did something special for your large documents and the fact that they may not work on the 64bit version is what you're talking about?

    Will you let me know (and try to give more info about it all)?

    Thanks- Crabby

  • You are totally insane.  Publisher got way worse. The sole reason why I bought publisher 2010 was to work on my web site design.  It turns out Microsoft Publisher 2010 does not give you web site templates. It doesn't even give you real web site templates to download.  I lost my money!  I called their customer service departments in India and Phillipines and they told me the news.  Microsoft screws up something good once more!

  • @J Veaz: The web page templates for Publisher 2007 work with Publisher 2010. If found EIGHT here: office.microsoft.com/.../CT010104338.aspx

  • Crabby -- Cf. "Using Microsoft Publisher 2010," Brien Posey, Que, Copyright 2011 (go figure!), chapter 5, Working with Longer Documents. This is the only discussion about the 32-bit limitatation that I've seen. In the next couple of weeks I'll be compiling 9 25-page docs into one big one. Will let you know what Pub 2010 has to say about it!

    Can you tell me what the biggest doc is that your Dev folks have composed in Publisher 2010?

    The new Styles interface is really a big problem. Constant clicking back and forth to check style attributes when 2007 just showed them to you "live" in a sidebar. There's no way in 2010 to bring up the styles in a sidebar. Very odd and unfortunate. Doesn't feel like the developers actually work on longer docs that apply several styles.

    Thanks for your response! I just found it! Be nice if you had an "e-mail me new updates" tool -- I found out you replied via GigaAlerts.

  • Nick - I talked to my contact on the Publisher team and he is goping to check with the devs. Regarding Styles, he suggested you just add Styles to the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) - just right click in the Styles section on the Ribbon and click Add to QAT. Sure, it's not quite the same as it was but it's a way to make it better.

    Regarding the email updates, it's something we're working on; this site is a new platform for us and we're still working out the kinks...

    Thanks for writing - Crabby

  • Why will publisher not send my e-mails, i go right through the wizard process hit send message using my e-mail account, but e-mails do not get sent, any suggestions?

  • @Wayne: You must have Outlook 2007 for Publisher 2007 to send email messages successfully. You didn't say what version of Office or what OS you're using so I can't really diagnose. The best thing to do is visit the Microsoft Answers site and post your question. Be sure to give as much detail as possible. (Microsoft Answers is a forum where users like yourself as well as experts in the field ask and answer quesitons - it's free, and the Publisher one is here: social.answers.microsoft.com/.../threads )

  • I have to agree with Nick and others - not having the ability to have styles in a task pane is a HUGE hindrance to doing the kind of work I do with Publisher. This should be fixed ASAP. Quick Access Toolbar is no help whatsoever for me. Styles are MUCH more important to me than the page navigation to the left. I'm a Microsoft fan, but if the ease of use goes out the window there's just no reason to choose Publisher over competitors.

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