Hallmark Studio Greeting Card program not working on my iMac after updating to Sequoia 15.3

I love Swift Publisher. I use it for all my graphics projects. InDesign was too complicated.

Understand that Hallmark Card Studio has always focused on Windows users. The Mac version is simply a port of the Windows app that hasn’t been updated in years. It’s still version 22 and was last update in July 2022. It is apparently just icing on their cake. It’s not even been updated to a universal binary that supports Apple Silicon but requires Rosetta 2 to run the Intel version on M series Macs. They can’t be bothered.

I have been checking the Hallmark Card Studio for Mac website every couple of months. Checked again today 7-26-25 New on the site and in red type: FULL macOS 15 (Sequoia) COMPATIBILITY UPDATE COMING SOON.

Not sure how long that means, hope it will still be compatible with OS 16 coming soon (as well)

This is the best Hallmark software history I can put together from online info. You can correct me please.

Hallmark card software development used to be done by an outfit named Creative Home in Calabasas CA. They no longer exist or were swallowed up or bought by Avanquest. Avanquest owns Nova Development and Hallmark software is now being done there.

Nova does most of their work in Windows and has only one app for Mac, an architecture design app that looks like it runs on Apple silicon. Their Windows products look old, many are still tagged as running on Win 10 so most likely have not been touched for a while. Several have mentioned the current Hallmark app. for Mac has all the 'hallmarks' of being taken from the Win version which is God awful in itself but does work on Win 11.

Why Hallmark goes to these outfits for software is puzzling, there are so many great young Mac developers out there that could whip this out in 6 months from scratch. Swift Publisher comes to mind. The pot of gold that Hallmark has of course is the pre designed cards. Shame a decent Mac app can't be developed around it.

Luck to us all.

Not surprising. The Hallmark bag of gold is the suite of premade cards. The program itself is a piece of cake, look at Swift Publisher which is what Hallmark design software should look like. Hallmark should sell the premade cards to a real developer.

I just looked on line. They have the same message they always do.

• Compatible with macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and later including the latest macOS 14.1.1 (Sonoma)
• FULL macOS 15 (Sequoia) COMPATIBILITY UPDATE COMING SOON

I am running Sequoia 15.7 and it is still crashing upon opening. Two days ago from support@avanquestnorthamerica.freshdesk.com I received a reply that they will be releasing a new version that will be compatible with OS 26 Tahoe and Sequoia and wanted my email to send me a code for it. I have not yet received that code.

The only faint hope we have is that the website for the Mac version still advertises a future update. From past history October, November is sometimes the timing for new updates. Not sure whether it's Avanquest or Broderbund that Hallmark goes to for development, have heard both or someone else ...

The Hallmark brand is certainly not benefiting from this continuing fiasco of continual downtime for updates.

Mark ******s <mj****l.com>

11:20 PM (5 minutes ago)

to Avanquest

So I went to the site and it stated Now now fully compatible with macOS Tahoe 26 & macOS Sequoia 15, which is great.   Then I click on purchase download and I get this.  I already have one that does not work with 15, so what is going on?

Please confirm that your current Mac device is using macOS 10.14 (Mojave) through macOS 14.1.1 (Sonoma)

This software is NOT COMPATIBLE with macOS 15 (Sequoia).

I will update when I know more.

[Edited by Moderator]

I contacted Hallmark asking if a patch at no cost (or low cost) would be available for users who purchased the software to use with the latest Sequoia OS prior to this update. I was told no and I must repurchase the entire program. Not very good customer support.

I did purchase the new program and it ran up great. The problem I have is that the printing is messed up. The front and the back are good, but the inside is upside down. So what that tells me is that they did not try and print this at all. When you look at it it runs the same as always, but you can tell even from the print preview the inside of the card is upside down. Has anyone been able to make it print properly? When I worked with Customer service they said the following.

 I will raise the concern about it based on the picture you sent. As of the moment, if the quarter-fold printing won't work, most likely this might get addressed once there is an update or patch fix for the program.

​

lkrupp wrote:

Yeah, the Broderbund version is a nasty Windows port that doesn’t even look like a Mac program. I got bit too. Botton line? These outfits don’t consider macOS a major part of their business and support it only as an afterthought.

I saw a reference on one site to a program called "Cardia" (by Addison Software), on the Mac App Store.

Cardia ("Welcome Hallmark Orphans!") supposedly "works flawlessly with Sequoia", "is actively updated", and "was developed by Macintosh fanatics." The downside is that it is just a program for creating cards. It doesn't include any clip art or photos – you have to supply all of that.

Here's a link to the vendor's description.

https://www.addisonsw.com

Apparently an outfit called Red River, who sells blank cards, asked the developers if they could write something like this.

https://www.redrivercatalog.com/cardshop/help/cardia-greeting-card-design-printing-app-for-mac.html

Disclaimer – I have no interest in either company, and haven't used the program. I just thought this information might be of interest to some people in this thread.

That would work, but it defeats the purpose of having a Macintosh if you have to deal with the dreaded tasks of setting up a Windows installation and keep it running with it's daily appetite for security updates. And you don't get the ease of use of a Macintosh interface. On the other hand, the Macintosh version of the Hallmark app is just a poorly done port over from Windows so it might not be that far of a jump.

Previous owners of V22 should get a free one time upgrade to V23 or whatever they are calling it. Got mine today.

Also upgraded the OS to Tahoe and the V22 works just fine with it.

agholler wrote:

Hello,

I'm just getting back on this. I had purchased Hallmark for Mac like you and it stopped working with Mac 15. They can't sell a software that is said to be compatible with Mac when it is not. I will reach back out to them.

Adam

Looks like it's not compatible with Sequoia just yet. From their Web site :