Software Review: Christian Greeting Card Factory
Greeting card software is such a weird niche to me. I think partly it's generational—the act of giving greeting cards seems to be less common than it was, and more and more people (of all ages in my experience) are forgoing the act of including cards with gifts as time goes by. I think this is probably because we're more connected than we used to be. I suppose the act of using greeting cards grew from the practice of letter writing, and since that has mostly moved online, giving decorative cards seems out of touch and unnecessary, especially when we have better ways of sending each other pictures, sentiments, songs, video, etc. This is a shame in a way, because looking at greeting card art throughout the years is an interesting window into the styles and customs of the time.
That said, there's probably always going to be a card section in most stores, at least as long as gift cards remain popular and need to be shoved into something. I don't think most of us really fret over which ones we're going to buy as long as they match the sentiment we're going for, so buying dedicated software for making custom cards is going to be left to hard-core card senders only. And that of course leaves out all the folks who would simply use an online card maker, of which there are TONS. How many of you even purchase software anymore? The few necessities, like office products and the ever-growing Adobe suite, are all going subscription only, and have scaled-down free versions for people who don't need full functionality. I've purchased a few things myself for specific hobby needs, but I'm weird and I like retro stuff, so I don't think I'm a typical consumer.
So when one of my family members found the "Christian Greeting Card Factory" at a local thrift store for a whopping two dollars, we all giggled and marveled at the novelty of not only a dedicated software package for making cards, but a niche religious one at that! And of course I had to install and review it. So if you're interested in old software and kitschy clip art, click below!
That said, there's probably always going to be a card section in most stores, at least as long as gift cards remain popular and need to be shoved into something. I don't think most of us really fret over which ones we're going to buy as long as they match the sentiment we're going for, so buying dedicated software for making custom cards is going to be left to hard-core card senders only. And that of course leaves out all the folks who would simply use an online card maker, of which there are TONS. How many of you even purchase software anymore? The few necessities, like office products and the ever-growing Adobe suite, are all going subscription only, and have scaled-down free versions for people who don't need full functionality. I've purchased a few things myself for specific hobby needs, but I'm weird and I like retro stuff, so I don't think I'm a typical consumer.
So when one of my family members found the "Christian Greeting Card Factory" at a local thrift store for a whopping two dollars, we all giggled and marveled at the novelty of not only a dedicated software package for making cards, but a niche religious one at that! And of course I had to install and review it. So if you're interested in old software and kitschy clip art, click below!
Despite the fact that this software was released in 2001, it installs and runs just fine on Windows 10. Once you've run through the installer and opened the program, you get to chose what kind of project you're going to make.
Don't you just love those retro icons? As you can see, there's a lot more than just greeting cards here. The options are: Greeting Cards, Devotionals, Announcements, Invitations, Stationary, Labels & Stickers, Postcards, Certificates, Electronic Greetings, Programs and Bulletins, Posters & Flyers, and Crafts. Choosing any one of these will take you to another menu where you get to narrow down what type of thing you're making:
There are a ton of pre-made designs to chose from, which you can then customize further once you get taken to the main editor window. These designs are all gloriously dated and reminiscent of the WordArt feature that used to ship with MSWord back in the day. Below is a sampling of some of the wonderful retro goodness you can find:
I do unironically love these. They are not great examples of genius design, but they give me warm and fuzzy feelings for some reason.
Once you've made your choices, you'll be taken to the main editor window, where you can really customize your card, add and delete images, change the text, font, etc. This is the fun part!
A quick note on the image above: obviously the angel image wasn't part of the original software. It was drawn by user Lil_extra on Reddit and has gone viral since. This program doesn't allow you to directly import images of your own choosing--you can navigate to your own directories on your PC, but it doesn't pick up any images that aren't in the program's propriety filetype. You can, however copy and paste some things, and that's how I got that one there. I also tried c&ping text from the Cursed text generator, but it came through all jumbled (in the wrong way), so there's a limit to what you can bring in. The instruction manual says that the software is compatible with other Art Explosion products, but I don't have any of those, so I wasn't able to test this.
There's a menu on the right that will help you with all the stuff you want to add. Click the icons shown below to access, from top to bottom, Graphic Tools (add clip art, backgrounds, borders, or import from an attached scanner or camera), Text Tools (add more text or a pre-saved sentiment), Drawing Tools (freehand lines, ovals, rectangles, circles, etc. the usual), and Editing Tools (for editing selected images).
Graphic Tools
This is probably the tool that I was most excited about. I have a soft spot for clip art from all eras, so I was eager to see what sorts of funky images were included with this package. And this software certainly delivers! There are a TON of images to chose from, sorted into categories and sub categories, and they come in all sorts of styles. Under every category, there's an additional "Fine art" subcategory, but what this really means is that the images there are more photographic and/or traditionally drawn rather than vector clip art images.
I had a ton of fun going crazy with these. Once placed, you can resize them, group, or arrange them.
Text tools
These are pretty straightforward. You can edit the size, color, font, weight, and justification of any font you place, or any that are included already.
You can also use the vector tools on the left-hand side to color the images with different kinds of gradients, or even with patterns. The one above I've applied a swirly pattern to. There are also a few hundred fonts included on the installation CD, but the software doesn't pull from those. You'll need to install them on your system before you're able to use them in your card designs. They're pretty basic, but some of them were cute, so I nabbed the ones I liked and added them to my ever-growing font collection.
"Sentiments" are a special collection of text with an "outside" and "inside" greeting, meant to be plopped into your projects whenever you like. The program comes with over 700 of them programmed in, but you can also add your own if you want.
Drawing Tools
The drawing tools offer basic vector options that you'd find in any standard graphics program. All freehand drawings you make will be converted to a vector, which you can then change the width, style, color of, etc. You can add different arrows and patterns that are offered to them, but you can't apply textures to lines. Shapes such as ovals, rectangles, circles, etc. can be more fully customized with photos and textures. Honestly I didn't use these much, except for making solid backgrounds and such. I had more fun with the clip art images and adding custom text to everything.
Printing
Once you've made your design, it's time to print it out. The one exception to this is the "electronic greetings" category, which adds an additional option, "Send as electronic greeting..." This option ties into your system's default email program, but I don't have that set up on my PC, so I presume it plops an image in there, and then you're good to go.
I guess 2001 was before home duplex printing was common or something, because this program assumes that you're going to be flipping the paper by hand, and there's no way to change that. It was a bit fiddly, but eventually I got through and managed to make it work with my newer printer by just clicking through the prompts quickly and then letting my printer handle the rest. Unfortunately, this means that it won't print to PDF, because anything more than 1 page in length gets stuck on waiting for more input, and my PDF printers can't handle that.
You can save any of the work you've done in a proprietary format for editing later if you so wish. I personally prefer more software agnostic options, but since this software is probably aimed at folks who prefer having an easy button, that's probably not appropriate in this situation.
Final thoughts
As mentioned above, I don't think greeting card programs are for everyone. But I did have a load of fun making funny cards to send out to my family members just for fun. The program certainly delivers on what it promised it would, and is great for hobbyists and anyone who loves to play with old software.
If you're interested in trying it out yourself, it's available on the Internet Archive here:
Christian Greeting Card Factory
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