NOTTINGHAM, UK & NASHUA, NH – ISTE 100 member Serif Inc., a leading developer of professional and consumer-oriented desktop publishing, design and graphics software, today announced the launch of PagePlus X5 for educators and students. The newest version of the company’s desktop publishing software helps students easily create high-quality materials to support curriculum lessons, compelling posters and brochures to promote school events, yearbooks and other eye-catching printed documents and e-documents.

PagePlus X5 is a full-featured desktop publisher for schools that is powerful, easy-to-use and inexpensive. The program’s tools inspire students to create exciting digital and printed documents or slideshow presentations to creatively communicate their ideas, appropriate for every grade level or unit. Further, the ability to open, edit and output PDFs in PagePlus X5 means it is even easier for students to share and present work across all subjects. The software’s capabilities combined with its affordable price make the high-quality desktop publishing technology more attainable for budget-conscious district administrators.

“PagePlus is one of the best packages available to students for opening, editing and exporting designs using the industry-standard PDF format, so they can share attractive designs with other classes, parents and the larger school community,” said Colin Hussey, Business Manager for Education at Serif. “Desktop publishing can be integrated into virtually every lesson across a district, which increases the value of PagePlus. The program is so versatile that you can use it to design documents from scratch – for older students learning computer skills and design concepts – or from templates, for younger students more focused on supporting core content of their classes. Teachers and learners new to desktop publishing will appreciate the intuitive help options, while everyone, including experienced designers, can benefit from PagePlus X5’s higher quality output, more advanced desktop publishing features and increased ease of use and efficiency.”

Previous versions of PagePlus have been available in the Design Suite along with Serif’s leading design tools – PhotoPlus, WebPlus, DrawPlus, MoviePlus, Digital Scrapbook Artist – and the helpful Teacher Resources. Students of varying ages and abilities rely on the wide range of graphics tools in the Design Suite to quickly bring their creative ideas to life.

Educators will benefit from new features including:

• PhotoLab & Image Cutout Studio – Students can edit their photos directly in PagePlus, without having to open a separate image editing program. It’s easy to cut out part of an image, edit and add effects, correct photos or even transform photos into a pencil sketch or a painting in just one click, so students can let their imagination run wild.
• Photo frames – To save time, students can now easily add multiple photos to a document in just one click. For a creative touch, they can even frame images with photo-quality picture frames or create their own photo frames from scratch.
• PDF import, edit & export – For printed work, classes can save as a native file, or import, edit and publish PDFs with commercial print settings. To present and share research and ideas, they can export as a PDF slideshow, adding sound and video for an exciting multimedia presentation.
• Compatible with Office 2007 – Compatible with Microsoft™ Office, pupils can import Word documents and Excel files directly into PagePlus to quickly present research and ideas for project work.
• Advanced OpenType Font Features – Learners can add style and flair to text with beautiful ornaments and swashes, easier to read fractions, paired characters and more.
• Get More Templates – Groups and individuals working in all subject areas can make documents with the new themed layout templates in PagePlus X5.
• Enhanced Ease of Use – Editing complicated designs is easier than ever to engage every level of user. Objects glow when students hover the cursor over them. A new rotation lollipop handle makes it simple to spin text, graphics and images, and lots of other improvements make everyday tasks effortless.
• Editable Master Pages – Teachers can make projects more efficient by promoting objects from a Master Page and customizing them on a normal page without affecting other layouts that use the original Master Page object – ideal for neat and consistent designs from page to page.
• More Advanced Drawing Power – Students can achieve more flexible and subtle effects by adding styles and transparency to the outlines of shapes and pictures, independently from the main object, detaching outlines from objects and changing how the fillable area of a shape is calculated.

Pricing
PagePlus X5 is available as a single copy at $59.95 or as a key part of the integrated Design Suite. The Serif Design Suite License pricing is available for qualified education institutions in the US and Canada. A single user copy is $149, and site licenses start at $2,200. Serif Authorized Education Resellers can advise on all aspects of Serif’s education program and have access to special discounts and promotions. More information is available from Serif at http://www.serif.com/education or by contacting edusales@serif.com.

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About Serif
Serif develops and publishes the award-winning software range which includes PagePlus™, PhotoPlus™, DrawPlus™, WebPlus™, AlbumPlus™, MoviePlus™, PanoramaPlus™ and Digital Scrapbook Artist™. Founded in 1987 with the aim to develop better value alternatives to high-end design and publishing packages, Serif has been repeatedly praised for its powerful yet easy-to-use software which enables businesses, educational establishments, and ordinary PC users to achieve professional-quality results – whatever their level of experience. With over 6.5 million customers worldwide and over 200 independent awards and accolades from respected industry publications, Serif has over 200 employees at its head office, development and European sales centre in Nottingham, UK and its North American sales operation in New Hampshire, US.