Designing your own personalised Christmas cards can easily be achieved with an inexpensive desktop publisher.

1. Launch your desktop-publishing program. Select ‘Create a New Document', Greeting Card and opt to use a wizard. This will allow you to choose the orientation of the card and any text written in it. Press Create and your template will appear onscreen.

2. To personalise your text with different fonts, colours, shadows and backdrops, right-click it and select Properties. Now click ok and drag it to a suitable position. To add borders, click Object, Add Image Object. Right-click the object frame and select ‘Go to Borders'. From here, select a border and click Open.

3. Drag the border to fit the card, then right-click it and choose ‘Send to the Back' to prevent it obstructing your text. Now it's time to add some images. Repeat step 2, this time choosing ‘Go to Clip Art' instead of ‘Go to Borders'. From here you can select a relevant folder and add in any images you like.

4. When you're happy with the front of the card, use the buttons at the top left to view the inside of the card. Follow the steps above to alter the fonts and add images or borders. When you're happy with your creation, save the file and hit Print to start creating copies of the greetings card.