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Review: Business Card Composer - BeLight Software

Submitted by jcost on Sat, 10/14/2006 - 00:05.

Have you ever had the need to print up your own business cards? Perhaps you have just started your own business, and you need an

inexpensive way to promote yourself to your new contacts. Maybe your company has changed hands, and you need something to hand out during the transitional period. There could be many reasons to print your own, and BeLight Software Business Card Composer, on the Mac is the easiest way to do it.

Features
- Over 23,000 built in clip art images (700 with the downloadable version) and over 400 templates.
- Integration with OS X Apps - Address book & iPhoto.
- Support for all of the major business card stock paper.
- Create custom card sizes, for non-standard paper.

Easy Creation
I tested the software out by creating some business cards for this web site & it's accompanying podcast. I am constantly working with software and hardware companies, and have recently been expanding, and I need a way to keep my contact info up to date with them.

Creating a new card is quite easy. You can use the wizard to create some pre-designed cards, or use a blank template and create your own.

The pre-designed cards are very nice. They show off all of the capabilities of Business Card Composer. Even if you choose your own layout, the templates are sure to spark some creativeness in you.

You can simply enter in your contact info into a template, or let Business Card Composer import it from an address book entry. Additionally, you can create business cards for your whole organization, all with a few simple steps.

Next, you choose your paper size or create a custom template. The app supports almost every major template, from over 20 manufacturers, including all of the Avery cards. I didn't have any of the Avery card stock, but I did have some off brand cards, and they lined up and printed flawlessly with my Epson CX5400.

Clipart Galore
While you are working with the layout and getting your cards looking good,
you can choose from over 700 built in clip art images, or 23,000 if you purchased the boxed copy. If you need to use your own design, you can simply drag and drop it right onto the card, or bring it in from iPhoto.

If you don't have the image you need, you can do an internet search, and it pulls the images right into business card composer, right into the same viewer that shows the clip art.

Business Card Composer also includes some basic drawing tools, just in case you need some pre-defined shapes and lines.

As expected, you have full control over the layout, fonts, and colors. It uses the Inspector built into OS X, and if you are familiar at all with Pages or Keynote, you will be right at home, and can literally create a very good looking card within the first 5 or 10 minutes of launching the app.

Probably one of the most powerful features of the app is the ability to print multiple designs on one sheet, as well as printing out cards for multiple people, simply by selecting their names from the built in address book. If you are printing cards for multiple people in your business, this is one feature that separates it from the rest.

Conclusion
Business card composer is a fantastic program that allows complete customization over all facets of card creation. It integrates nicely with iPhoto and Address Book, and this is key, since it will significantly reduce the time it takes to create cards for multiple people. If you have a decent color printer and get some high quality heavy card stock, Business Card Composer will pay for itself after your first run of cards. Highly Recommended.