(FORTUNE Magazine) – I'm a word guy--not an artist or professional designer. In fact, I get panicky at the thought of trying to turn a blank page into a newsletter, flier, or brochure. But sometimes I have to do that to earn my living, or I get volunteered into doing it because I'm also a computer guy, and we're supposed to know that stuff.

In short, I'm the guy that Microsoft Publisher 97 was designed for.

The latest release of the $80 desktop-publishing program for Windows 95 makes it a snap for the graphically challenged to create professional-looking documents with text, drawings, tables, and photos. Even better, Microsoft has turned this old friend into a slick Internet publishing tool that will build a World Wide Web site from scratch or turn any document into a Web page.

Publisher 97 works its magic through aptly named Page Wizards, miniprograms that hold your hand and walk you through the design process. First you decide what kind of document you want--a newsletter, brochure, catalogue, letterhead, invitation, calendar, sign, business form, or resume. You can also pick from a variety of specialty items, ranging from gift certificates and theater tickets to paper airplanes and origami birds.

That accomplished, the Wizard asks a series of questions about style and typographic preferences. You can choose among 20 kinds of newsletter, say, from Corporate Dignified to PTA Modern. Thumbnail illustrations show how each design will look, and a text box describes the impression it's meant to convey. After all, if you're running a funeral parlor you don't want a brochure with exploding balloons and comic book typefaces.

Depending on the document, the Wizard may also ask for your company name, address, and phone number. When you're through, Publisher chugs away for a few seconds and creates the document, including frames filled with dummy text and temporary graphics. Now it's your turn: Just zap the dummy text and paste in your own. Next click on the graphics to replace them with the drawings and photos you want--either from Publisher's extensive clip-art collection or from yours.

This is terrific for people like me. But if you're the creative type, you're not stuck with the choices Microsoft's designers give you. With a few mouse clicks, you can change anything and everything: move text and graphics, add new elements, and switch typefaces. Or you can start from a blank page if you enjoy fooling with margins, frames, rulers, and grids. Publisher comes with a tasteful collection of typefaces, tools for drawing lines, squares, and circles, and a feature called Word Art that lets you bend, squish, rotate, shade, and shadow headlines to your heart's content.

Publisher 97 doesn't have the advanced typographical controls of the industry's heavy hitters, PageMaker and QuarkXpress, each of which costs about eight times as much. It can't produce the separations that high-resolution, four-color commercial printing requires. But it does a fine job with desktop printers of all kinds and with the gear used by print shops for black and white images.

Where Publisher 97 breaks new ground is Internet connectivity--an obsession at Microsoft these days. Its Internet Wizard creates a Website by treating it like a multipage newsletter or brochure. Simple menus let you choose the size, style, and organization of your Website. When you're through customizing it with messages, graphics, and links, Publisher converts the whole shebang into the hypertext markup language (HTML) that Web-browser programs understand.

Now the real magic. To get your Website onto the Web, just tell Publisher the address of your Internet provider's Web server, your user name, and your password. Publisher makes the connection and uploads your pages and graphics. I tried this with my local Internet provider and America Online--in each case, my Website was ready to browse in minutes. Having struggled with FTP file transfers and other esoterica of manual Web publishing, I can only say that this is amazing.

There are some limitations. Publisher wasn't designed for complex Websites and can't produce the HTML codes that wrap text around pictures. When you try to wrap text on a Publisher page, the program turns the text block into a graphic element that takes too long to download and won't adjust properly when users resize their browser windows. For more than the basics, you'll be better off with a full-featured HTML editor such as Microsoft Front Page or Claris Home Page.

The bottom line: Publisher 97 won't win every feature war, but it gets you into desktop publishing with a minimum of investment of your most important asset--your time. For information, contact Microsoft at 800-426-9400 or point your browser to http://www.microsoft.com.