Sending feedback and reporting problems in Publish

Every program has rough edges somewhere, and the quickest way to get one smoothed is to tell the people who make it. Publish by Zaweba has two places for that in its Help menu: Help > Send feedback and Help > Report a problem. Both send a message to Zaweba from inside the app, so you don't have to go looking for an address.

The important part is what doesn't happen. Nothing is sent unless you click Send. Publish doesn't quietly report on what you do, and there's no account involved. You write a message, you decide to send it, and only then does it go.

Which one to use

Send feedback is for opinions and ideas. A feature you'd like, a template that would help your club, a menu that's hard to find, or simply that something works well and you'd like more of it. Report a problem is for things that go wrong: a crash, an export that comes out differently from the screen, a command that doesn't do what it says, or a file that won't open.

The distinction helps the message land in the right place, but don't worry too much about picking perfectly. A clear message in either is far more useful than none.

Writing a useful report

A good problem report answers three things. What you were doing, what you expected, and what happened instead. For example, exporting a print-ready PDF of a two-page newsletter, expecting the picture on page two to run into the bleed, and finding a white strip down the edge. That's enough for someone to try the same thing and see it for themselves.

Be specific about the steps. Which menu you used, roughly what was on the page, and whether it happens every time or only once. If it only happens with one publication, say so, because the problem may be something particular to that file. Describing it in plain words is fine; you don't need technical terms.

For feedback, the most helpful messages explain the job behind the request. Rather than asking for a particular button, describe what you were trying to make and where you got stuck. There may already be a way to do it, or the answer may be better than the button you had in mind.

Working offline

Publish is an offline app, and plenty of people use it on laptops that aren't always connected. If you send feedback or a report while you're offline, the message is kept and sent later, once a connection is available. You can write it while the problem is fresh in your mind, at the moment it happens, and not have to remember it for later.

Why it matters

Publish by Zaweba is free software made for the jobs ordinary people do: flyers, newsletters, menus, certificates and cards. The people using it are the best judges of what makes those jobs easier, and reports from real use are how odd behaviour gets found and fixed. A short message about a template you wish existed, or a problem with a particular printer, can shape what comes next.

When you're reporting something that went wrong, it also helps to keep your work safe in the meantime. Undo will usually take you back to before the problem, and saving a copy of the publication before trying the same action again means you won't lose anything while you work around it.

Both menu items take a minute to use, and both stay entirely in your control.