REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 11, 1996 — Whether you’re hosting a holiday party, remembering your best friend’s birthday, or surprising Mom and Dad on their anniversary, you can now conveniently create personalized cards, banners, invitations, calendars and more – all on your home computer! With Microsoft® Greetings Workshop for the Windows® 95 operating system, you can make your own great-looking personal expressions right on your PC.
Greetings Workshop is an easy-to-use desktop publishing program for the home developed by Microsoft Corp. and Hallmark Connections
™
, the technology brand of Hallmark Cards, Inc. Using Hallmark Connections designs, messages and expertise, you can make just the right greeting to celebrate seasonal and personal events. You will enjoy hearing friends and family exclaim,
“You made that?”
“In today’s fast-paced world, families are searching for convenient ways to stay in touch and take special notice of life’s milestones,”
said Robert Bach, vice president of marketing, desktop applications division at Microsoft.
“Creating greetings at home gives families another way to send personalized messages. Microsoft is excited to be working with Hallmark Connections to bring users the quality of Hallmark in the convenience of their home.”
Mary McClure, vice president and general manager of consumer product technology at Hallmark, said,
“We created the Hallmark Connections brand to help consumers meet their personal expression needs using technology. We are delighted to have this working relationship with Microsoft, the company that understands better than any other how people use computers and how to develop easy-to-use software.”
Make Every Occasion Special and Personal
With Greetings Workshop, you can design great-looking projects for every occasion using the wealth of Hallmark Connections designs and messages provided. You can create more than 7,000 ready-to-print projects: cards, party invitations, event announcements, thank-you notes, celebratory banners, flyers, awards and more. You can select from more than 2,000 greetings, or you can create your own from scratch. You also get more than 4,000 graphics, 200 photos and 100 fonts, plus borders, backgrounds and more. You can personalize any greeting to match the unique character of the event you’re celebrating. With the new Microsoft Picture It!
™
personal imaging software, you can also create a collage of your favorite photos and add it directly to a calendar or a card in Greetings Workshop.
Greetings Workshop also helps you keep track of important dates. Do you tend to forget Aunt Traci’s birthday? With Greetings Workshop, just set your reminder, and it will pop up automatically when you start your computer. You can specify how far ahead of the event you’d like to be reminded. These special occasions can be added automatically to calendars you create. You can even create a family newsletter – with your own text, graphics and photos – to let your loved ones know what’s going on.
Very Easy to Use
Even if you have little experience with computers and software, and no knowledge of graphic design, you’ll find Greetings Workshop quick and easy to use. Rocky, your friendly guide, walks you through each step as you create your Hallmark-quality greetings. There are no complex menus or hidden commands to remember. It’s like having a professional consultant advise you as you create your project. (Naturally, you can choose to override design suggestions in favor of your own ideas.)
With Greetings Workshop, there’s no moment of doubt as you wait for your project to emerge from the printer. What you design on-screen is what you’ll get on paper. A special animation sequence even shows you how to feed paper into your type of printer for the second side of a project – something no other program does.
That Extra-Special Touch
To help you get in your most creative frame of mind, Greetings Workshop offers Ideas from Hallmark, which suggests great ways to celebrate various occasions. You’ll find everything from suggestions for finishing touches for special cards – such as unique papers, lace, ribbons or confetti – to tips for planning an unforgettable birthday party.
We’ve included sample papers and envelopes from the Hallmark Connections Home Computer Papers line in the Greetings Workshop box so that your first project can have an extra-special look. Add color, texture or thickness to any Greetings Workshop project with these special papers.
And More Online!
For more great ideas, users with Internet access can go online using a direct link to the Greetings Workshop Web site (http://greetingsworkshop.MSN.com/) . There you can find the very latest in design and project ideas and read the latest news from Microsoft and Hallmark Connections. You can also update the designs, messages and content with add-on packs such as Alternative Humor, Cat Lovers and Dog Lovers. New projects are downloaded to your home computer and integrated into Greetings Workshop automatically. No searching for new content is required. All online content is regularly updated, giving you unlimited versatility in your creations.
Pricing, Availability and System Requirements
Greetings Workshop for Windows 95 is scheduled to be available in October 1996 on CD-ROM for approximately $29.95.
System requirements are as follows:
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A multimedia personal computer with a 486/66 or higher processor
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Microsoft Windows 95 or later
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8 MB of RAM
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30 MB of available hard disk space
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CD-ROM drive
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Super VGA 256-color display
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Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device
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Audio board and headphones or speakers required for sound
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Hayes-compatible modem required for Internet access
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Hallmark Cards Inc. is the world leader in the personal expression industry. Serving about 45,600 retail outlets domestically, Hallmark is the world’s largest manufacturer of greeting cards, creating about 21,000 greeting card designs and messages and about 9,000 related products annually.
Microsoft, Windows and Picture It! are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Hallmark Connections is a trademark of Hallmark Licensing Inc.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
To receive Hallmark press releases by fax, call (800) 758-5804, ext. 392093.
