Most people who use Microsoft productivity software recognize the name of Microsoft Publisher, which is an easy-to-use desktop publishing program. What you may not know is that the program is more Realtor-friendly than ever.

Realtors are among Publisher's primary users, so the company knows that anytime you are sitting in front of a computer, you'd rather be selling real estate. Here's how Publisher helps you design and create professional-looking marketing materials so you can go back to doing what you do best - working with people.

"Publisher has really been targeted to small business in general because they are typically not designers," explains Katie Jordan, senior product manager for Microsoft Publisher, "so they want a tool that creates professional output. It's designed so you can be productive immediately."

If you've haven't tried the new 2002 version, Publisher is offering a free 30-day trial especially for Realtors.

Pop in your CD, and open the product to over 8,500 customizable templates or wizards so that you can begin to create flyers, brochures, postcards and newsletters in a snap.

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"If you pick the postcard wizard, it gives you a choice of several design templates," explains Jordan, "then you have text boxes to enter your information. The wizard pane lets you add a place on the back of the postcard pane that can customize the postcard, like add a customer address. Within that same task pane, you have options for color schemes, like Coldwell Banker blue and white, and you can use the fonts that the designer has put together. We try to build in design expertise to help users that want to create a professional-looking document. You have a placeholder, so you can go back and use the same card that you printed as Just Listed, and print it out as Just Sold instead."

You can even import pictures and your logo. "A dialog box pops up to enter your name, company color scheme, address and logo, and when I close that, every publication will include that information automatically," continues Jordan. "We prepopulate with your personal information. Now you have a postcard with graphics and text and personal information, and then you are ready to print to postcard paper from your desktop, or you can e-mail the file to a printing company."

Publisher staff know quite a bit about how Realtors work and plan to incorporate their knowledge for future upgrades of the product, and perhaps, one day, a Realtor-centric Publisher.

"One-third start with templates and add their information and they are done," says Jordan, "another 1/3 use templates and add information and customize a little, and the last third start from scratch. So we have blank postcards for them."

"Some Realtors are more sophisticated, but the program is not a complicated one that a professional graphics designer would be using," notes Jordan. "One thing that makes it easy is its consistency with office applications. Ninety percent of Publisher users also use Word. Because of that, Word or Outlook are products people use everyday, we are consistent with our toolbars, similar to the way you work in other applications, we can easily share information. If you have text in Word, you can insert from Word to publisher so there is a lot of integration and feeling of familiarity."

What Publisher does not do is try to compete with real estate-specific software like Top Producer which includes extensive customer relationship management software.

"We are a full desktop publishing program," explains Jordan, "and we do let users bring in mail merge from your database into Publisher where you can easily do a mail merge."

"We are just getting started in what we need to do to make Publisher more appropriate starting with a focus on design," says Jordan, "so we're looking at a real estate-specific template gallery on the next version. With the current version we are talking about some ways to make these templates today."

In terms of the immediate benefits to brokers and larger franchise organizations which spend billions building a brand, Publisher can reinforce those identity standards at the local level.

Realtors have been using several versions of Publisher since 1991, and the new 2002 version made its debut at the NAR convention in November, 2002. If you don't have a new computer with Publisher installed (it comes free with the XP business edition), the program reassuringly still comes shrink-wrapped, so you can either buy it online or from your local software store, and pop a CD into your computer for a cost of about $129. If you are upgrading from a previous version, you may qualify for a $50 rebate, which may be worth your while.

At any rate, be sure to try the free 30-day trial first.