shanen0
Level 1 (14 points)
Desktops

Q: What is the best software for making business cards?

Death by a thousand paper cuts from business cards? Too many choices is no choice at all? At least it seems impossible to make a meaningful choice.

 

Problem background: I want to make a new business card. I searched in the App Store for "business card" and there are somewhere around 100 results. Searching on the Web is even worse, as expected. At least the App Store results are for programs that are probably still in existence.

 

Bad answer: The program you use. I'm going to dismiss you as a shill pretending to be a customer of the software you profit from selling. My apologies if I'm wrong, but I think you should blame the shills. (I don't blame the shills because at least I understand their motivations. Even if love of money is a bad motivation, it is still easy to understand. Side effect of reading about Amazon?)

 

Medium answer: A list of business-card-making programs you have tried with the positive and negative features of each one. I'm going to thank you for your effort, wonder why you went to such lengths, but still suspect the quality of your data, even if you are a really nice person.

 

Pretty good answer: A systematic comparison system for apps. (Perhaps sponsored by Apple with some incentives?) One way to approach it would be to ask users of a business-card program to try two other programs and compare them. Another approach might be to intercept people who initiated such queries as mine and ask them to test several programs. Again, incentives would help. The objective would be to create a kind of matrix of comparisons of large numbers of programs. Superior programs will consistently win in their small tests, and inferior programs will tend to lose. The key is to distribute the requests to cover the less well known programs...

 

Even better answers? Details available upon polite request, but I'm also curious about your motivations in asking. I just want to make some business cards without too much suffering.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, Mac OS X (10.7.5), null

Posted on Aug 27, 2016 3:53 PM

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shanen0

Q: What is the best software for making business cards?

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  • Helpful answers

  • by FoxFifth,

    FoxFifth FoxFifth Aug 27, 2016 4:51 PM in response to shanen0
    Level 7 (25,966 points)
    iPhone
    Aug 27, 2016 4:51 PM in response to shanen0

    Possible horrible answer: I haven't even used it for business cards (and am thinking how difficult could it be) but have used it for labels. It's free and works very well for labels and has a section for business cards. Worst case you are out $0 and 5 minutes time to try it: http://www.avery.com/avery/en_us/Templates-%26-Software/Software/Avery-Design--P rint.htm

  • by FishingAddict,

    FishingAddict FishingAddict Aug 27, 2016 5:33 PM in response to shanen0
    Level 4 (1,542 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 27, 2016 5:33 PM in response to shanen0

    The best software for you to create business cards in 2016 is NONE.  Simple create an account with a web printing service like VistaPrint (http://www.vistaprint.com/business-cards.aspx) and use their online tools to design what you want in the browser, order, and have them at your doorstep in a few days.

  • by shanen0,

    shanen0 shanen0 Aug 27, 2016 8:47 PM in response to FoxFifth
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 27, 2016 8:47 PM in response to FoxFifth

    I don't want to say it was a horrible answer, but the other one probably was. You don't sound like a shill, whereas he definitely came off that way.

     

    However, both of your answers were pretty misdirected. It actually takes much more than 5 minutes to prepare a good business card. I have probably used the Avery software at least once in the past, and definitely used HP's similar software, and the main advantage they offer is that you can focus on a single card and their software will handle the positioning on the other nine (on a typical 10-card sheet). Been a while, but I'm pretty sure the HP software actually handled the double-sided case, too.

     

    For the time being, I just did it the old-fashioned way, editing in two columns and carefully comparing the proofs with the card stock before the final print. These were pretty simple cards without any fancy images or complicated font work. The results were not up to the level of good, but the time was way over 5 minutes. I actually did four variations, but that level of control is unlikely in any of the dedicated programs. (These days I don't give out cards fast enough to justify printing many 10s at a time. Now back in my sales days...)

     

    However, I still wish there were a good answer. Obviously not the same time I've wrestled with this superficially minor problem.