If you're happy with the hundreds of superb layouts that Microsoft provides, you'll be happy with Publisher 98. But if you want to create your own distinct publications, you should probably move up to a high-end package such as Adobe PageMaker. Wizardry Like earlier versions, Publisher 98 lets you create publications by having you answer prompts from a wizard. But the new version replaces Microsoft's rigid wizard interface with a more flexible kind that resembles FrontPage's style gallery. With the new wizards, you make initial choices from layouts and color schemes, but you can change them or the whole design at any time, even after a publication is complete.
Documents created by the wizards have dummy text and sample graphics.
You click in a text field to insert your own text, and you click on a graphic to bring up Microsoft's ClipArt gallery, where you can choose from thousands of images. You can also add your own clip art to the gallery. After modifying a wizard's output to match the style you want, you can save it as a template for new documents, but you can't modify the choices you see when you run the wizards. Also, optional cursors display the words move or copy so that you know what you can do with the current selection. On the left side of the screen are the wizard's formatting options, which you can close if you want to make document-wide changes.