- Best Home Desktop Publishing Software
- Free Desktop Publishing Software
- Best Desktop Publishing Software For Mac 2018 Holiday
- Easy Desktop Publishing Software
- Best Publishing Software 2018
Microsoft has never released Publisher on Mac, but we’ve taken a look at the best alternative desktop publishing software for Mac in 2018. MS Publisher is different from Microsoft Word because it focuses more on Desktop Publishing (DTP) than traditional word processing software on Mac. Scribus is a free desktop publishing software. Sketchup 2018 crack for mac. It is specially designed to publish documents. It has a number of page formats and templates to choose from. You can insert frames, text, text box, various geometrical shapes, barcodes, etc. Use different fonts, insert images, export as EPS, PDF, SVG, and Image. Page layout and desktop publisher for Mac. This software provides all you need to create effective desktop publishing materials, such as flyers, brochures, catalogs, magazines, booklets, newsletters, calendars, posters, menus, cards, Facebook and Twitter covers, ad banners and many more.
Swift Publisher is a page layout and desktop publishing app for Mac. This software provides all you need to create effective desktop publishing materials, such as flyers, brochures, catalogs, magazines, booklets, newsletters, calendars, posters, menus, cards, Facebook and Twitter covers, ad banners and many more. After comparing 10 desktop publishing programs' layout tools and capabilities, we believe Xara Page & Layout Designer is the best one thanks to its many professional-looking designs, typography capabilities and importing compatibility. We were impressed that even with its many graphic design and layout tools it is well organized and easy to use.
Our editors independently research, test, and recommend the best products; you can learn more about our review process here. We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links.
The Rundown
- Best Overall: Adobe InDesign CC at Amazon, “The first app you should look at…whether you’re looking to publish a book, magazine, poster, or a simple PDF report.”
- Runner-Up, Best Overall:Quark Xpress at Quark.com, “Offers every modern publishing tool and can help you create physical and digital documents, as well as iOS and Android apps.”
- Best for Vector Graphics:Adobe Illustrator CC at Amazon, “Lets you create anything you can think of, including logos, icons, hand drawings, and more.”
- Runner-Up, Best for Vector Graphics:Affinity Designer at Serif.com, “A smart and fast app that can help you with concept art, icons, illustrations, patterns, and web graphics.”
- Best for Photo Editing:Adobe Photoshop CC at Amazon, “Robust features for enhancing photos, illustrations, and artwork…also lets you design websites, mobile applications, and other assets.”
- Runner-Up, Best for Photo Editing:Affinity Photo at Serif.com, “Does not make you sign up for a subscription, which is refreshing and will please budget-conscious users.”
- Best for Beginners:Belight Printworks at Belightsoft.com, “Software and a huge number of copyright-free images for all of your publishing needs.”
- Best Budget:iStudio Publisher at Apple.com, “A supreme value for novices and users that don’t need the extra bells and whistles.”
- Runner-Up, Best Budget:Pixelmator at Apple.com, “This alternative is here to save you cash and still bring you most of the features you need to edit and create imagery.”
- Best Free:Apple Pages at Apple.com, ”Combines both word processing documents and page layout (including some graphics tools) in one program.”
- Runner-Up, Best Free:PearlMountain Publisher Lite at Apple.com, ”If you’re based outside the U.S. and want an inexpensive publishing app for Mac.”
- Best Free Alternative to InDesign:Scribus at Scribus.net, “Text frames, floating palettes, and pull-down menus, all without the hefty price tag.”
- Best Free Alternative to Illustrator:Inkscape at Inkscape.org, “Optional extensions, so you can add on the tools you need without the bloat of those you never use.”
- Best Free Alternative to Photoshop:GIMP at Gimp.org, “Capable of handling layers, filter and effects, and includes the majority of the editing tools you'd expect from paid software.”
- Best Software Suite:Microsoft Office for Mac at Amazon, “This industry-standard comes in an Office 365 subscription for computers, tablets, and phones.”
- Best Free Alternative to Microsoft Office:Apache OpenOffice at Openoffice.org, “If your desktop publishing needs are basic but you also want a full suite of office tools.”
Our Top Picks
Best Overall: Adobe InDesign CC
![Best Desktop Publishing Software For Mac 2018 Best Desktop Publishing Software For Mac 2018](/uploads/1/3/3/2/133276897/131334177.png)
If you need to create and publish physical or digital documents, Adobe InDesign CC is the first app you should look at. Whether you’re looking to publish a book, magazine, poster, or a simple PDF report, InDesign can take on the task.
Inside the InDesign app, you will find a toolbar on the left side with tools to let you build out and modify documents and pages, including those for selection, drawing, typing, shapes, transformation, and navigation.
During the past few years, new features have been added to InDesign CC including better document previewing, document presets for smartphones and tablets, document analytics so you can see how many people have read them, support for digital endnotes and annotations, HTML code exporting, and much more.
Like other Adobe products, InDesign CC is an expensive subscription-based application, which can be paid monthly or pre-paid per year. Other design apps like Quark Xpress and Affinity Designer are available at lower prices or without subscriptions.
Runner-Up, Best Overall: Quark Xpress
In the publishing software world, Quark has a long history of being a top Adobe InDesign competitor — Quark’s first publishing products, released in 1981, actually predate Adobe entirely. However, Adobe is at the top of the design food chain these days, and Quark has become more of a middle-tier competitor.
Xpress 2018 is the most recent version of Quark’s publishing software and the most full-featured app they've ever released. Xpress offers every modern publishing tool and can help you create physical and digital documents, as well as iOS and Android apps. The 2018 version of Xpress specifically adds in features including OpenType controls, new color fonts support, the ability to directly import InDesign documents, an updated PDF print engine, better HTML5 code exporting, and unlimited Android app creation.
Quark Xpress’ biggest selling point is the fact that you don’t have to subscribe like you do with Adobe InDesign, so once you buy a single license for $399, it’s yours forever. Xpress also claims to have a more intuitive user interface and less clutter than InDesign, so it’s worth trying both out before you commit to one.
Best for Vector Graphics: Adobe Illustrator CC
When it comes to creating and modifying vector graphics, no software is better known than Adobe Illustrator. Vector graphics are incredibly useful in publishing because they can be scaled to both small sizes (for mobile phones or small icons) or large sizes (for billboards or big prints).
Illustrator lets you import, modify, or create new graphics from scratch. A toolbar on the left side of the screen features all kinds of tools: selection, typography, reshaping, symbols, drawing, painting, graphing, slicing, moving, cutting, and zooming. These effectively let you create anything you can think of, including logos, icons, hand drawings, and more — as long as you know how to use it, of course.
In the past few years, Adobe has added a ton of new features to Illustrator CC. These include increasing the size of anchor points, letting you import multiple-page PDFs, syncing and browsing with Dropbox, adding the ability to create up to 1,000 artboards on a single canvas, supporting the new MacBook Pro touch bar, and more.
Like the rest of the Adobe suite, Illustrator CC is a somewhat expensive subscription-based application, which can be paid monthly or pre-paid per year.
Runner-Up, Best for Vector Graphics: Affinity Designer
In the universe of graphic design software, almost every app in this category wants to position itself as easier to use and cheaper than Adobe Illustrator. This is the case with Affinity Designer, a smart and fast vector graphics app that can help you with concept art, icons, illustrations, patterns, and web graphics.
While Affinity Designer may not have every feature found in Illustrator, it does have just about everything you need for the majority of graphical projects. Notable features include the ability to zoom in on a graphic to one million percent (no exaggeration), a rich color palette and boundless gradients, brush stabilization, crazy-good curve control, advanced grids, and capable text and font editing.
But the things that really sets Affinity Designer apart is the cost. It's just $50 and doesn't require a subscription, making it an attractive option for anyone on a budget. If you’ve never used Adobe products and you’re not tied to the Adobe suite in any way, Affinity Designer is a great alternative.
Best for Photo Editing: Adobe Photoshop CC
Photoshop is one of the most popular photography applications in the world and for good reason. Since its initial release in 1990, Photoshop has continued to evolve and has robust features for enhancing photos, illustrations, and artwork. On top of this, it also lets you design websites, mobile applications, and other digital assets that are highly important to businesses.
Photoshop CC is the newest version of the app, and it’s as fully-featured as ever. New features include a Select Subject tool that lets you select prominent objects in images (like people, animals, or food), better brush performance and organization, new font variations, group layer arranging, and the ability to paste plain text with no formatting.
At the time of this writing, Photoshop is the least expensive subscription in the Adobe suite. If your photo editing needs are light, you might also be able to use Adobe Photoshop Elements, which does not require a subscription. We’d also encourage you to explore non-Adobe photo editing options like Affinity Photo and Pixelmator, which are featured below.
Runner-Up, Best for Photo Editing: Affinity Photo
Adobe Photoshop has been the gold standard in photo editing for years. But since Adobe's recent switch to a subscription-based business model, even some longtime users are looking for a more affordable alternative. Affinity Photo is one of these newcomer competitors that's giving Photoshop a run for its money. This lesser-known software has just about every feature you can think of for photo and image editing, including professional-level adjusting, RAW editing, Photoshop file (.PSD) editing, panorama stitching, HDR merging, batch processing, digital painting, 360-degree image editing, and multi-layered compositions.
One of the coolest things about Affinity Photo is that it offers four “Personas” (Photo, Liquify, Develop, and Export), which you can change between depending on what you’re looking to do. So when you select a Persona, the tools on the screen change. For example, when you are in the Export persona, you have more control over how you export your images to other formats.
If you’ve only ever used Photoshop, but want to make a change, Affinity offers more than 200 free tutorial videos to help you get started. Like its sibling Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo costs just $50 and does not make you sign up for a subscription, which is refreshing and will please budget-conscious users. And for all the features you get with Affinity Photo, $50 is a serious bargain.
Best for Beginners: Belight Printworks
If a heavy-duty publishing software like InDesign or Quark Xpress seems intimidating, it may be time to look at Printworks from Belight, a friendly and very easy-to-use Mac app. Printworks’ primary purpose is for page layout and desktop publishing including brochures, business cards, calendars, labels, and greeting cards.
Most people use Printworks by starting a project with one of its more than 500 templates for any publishing project you need to accomplish. From there, you can add text, images, and more. Speaking of photos, Printworks is preloaded with 2,000 clip art images and 100 image masks which can help you add all sorts of photos and art to your project. If you need more photos or fonts, you can buy an astounding 40,000 images and 100 fonts from Printworks for just $10.
At just $30, Printworks is a good deal and much less of a commitment than diving into Adobe products. And for $40 total, you’ll end up with software and a huge number of copyright-free images for all of your publishing needs, an even better deal if you’re just beginning in design.
Best Budget: iStudio Publisher
If cost is your number one concern when choosing publishing software, iStudio Publisher may be what you're looking for. For under $20, iStudio gives you a well-built and versatile app for publishing all kinds of documents, including newsletters, brochures, flyers, booklets, invitations, menus, cards, and posters.
All the basic features you’d want in a publishing app are here, including text columns, text wrapping, quick document previewing, shape size and alignment, color fill, shadows, and paragraph styling. For power users, there are a few features including custom page sizes, master pages, two-page spread editing, and drawing shapes. And iStudio Publisher has more than 60 templates so you can easily start on a project and then fill in photos, text, and artwork.
While it may not be the most full-featured publishing option, iStudio Publisher is a supreme value for novices and users that don’t need the extra bells and whistles. Mac users have given Publisher a 4.2 out of 5 star average on the Mac App Store and have raved about this as a much lower-cost alternative to Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.
Runner-Up, Best Budget: Pixelmator
Both Adobe Photoshop and Affinity Photo are great options for photo editing, but if those two apps are outside your budget, then look to Pixelmator and Pixelmator Pro. This alternative software is here to save you cash and still bring you most of the features you need to edit and create imagery.
Pixelmator costs only $15 and offers all the basics for photo and image editing, including the ability to touch up photos, sketch, draw, paint, add text and shapes, and more. If you're used to using Photoshop, you might notice missing some features like the Patch tool and History Brush are missing. (If you’re not a power user, that likely won’t be an inconvenience.)
On the higher end, Pixelmator Pro costs $30 and has more features and more parity with Photoshop. On top of offering more advanced features like real-time effects, Pixelmator Pro is built to seamlessly run on Macs released after 2012 and takes advantage of Mac hardware acceleration. This makes Pro a much better choice if you’re looking for more features and have a powerful Mac to run it on.
Best Free: Apple Pages
Pages, the word processing component of the Apple iWork suite, combines both wordprocessing documents and page layout (including some graphics tools) in one program—with different templates and windows depending on the type of document. It can also handle Microsoft Word files. Pages ships with new Macs and is a free download from the Mac App Store for most Mac users. A Pages mobile app is also available for Mac mobile devices.
Pages for iCloud can be accessed online, free by you and your team to work in collaboration on the same document. A free iCloud account is required for access.
Runner-Up, Best Free: PearlMountain Publisher Lite
If you’re based outside the U.S. and want an inexpensive publishing app for Mac, PearlMountain Publisher Lite may be right for you. This app is free and offers you more than 40 templates for document creation and covers most of your basic publishing needs, including fliers, business cards, menus, newsletters, calendars, posters, books, and more. This consumer-level software comes with helpful wizards and templates to jump-start the design process, and it includes photo editing, drawing and text tools that make it a good all-in-one package for simple desktop publishing and print creativity.
Note: We wouldn’t recommend this software to U.S.-based users because it does not have templates for U.S. paper sizes like 8.5 by 11 inches.
While Publisher Lite is free, you may want to test it out and then upgrade to PearlMountain’s Publisher Plus, which costs just $20. Publisher Plus offers more than 170 document templates, more than 200 clip art images, and more than 200 backgrounds. One especially nice feature is that you can export all of your work in Plus to PDF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, and PSD file types in case you want to use other design programs as well.
Best Free Alternative to InDesign: Scribus
Probably the premier free, open-source desktop publishing software application, Scribus has the features of the pro packages — but for free. Scribus offers CMYK support, font embedding and sub-setting, PDF creation, EPS import/export, basic drawing tools and other professional level features. It works in a fashion similar to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress with text frames, floating palettes and pull-down menus, all without the hefty price tag.
Best Free Alternative to Illustrator: Inkscape
A popular free, open-source vector drawing program, Inkscape uses the scalable vector graphics (SVG) file format. Upgrade to quickbooks 2018. Use Inkscape to create text and graphics compositions including business cards, book covers, flyers, and ads. Beyond its wide set of standard and advanced features, Inkscape's functionalities are always expanding with optional extensions so you can add on the tools you need without the bloat of those you never use.
Best Free Alternative to Photoshop: GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)
GIMP, which stands for 'GNU Image Manipulation Program,' is free, open-source software that provides advanced tools for working with high-quality images. This software can handle retouching, restoring and creative composites and is considered one of the best free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop. It is capable of handling layers, filter, and effects and includes the majority of the editing tools you'd expect from a paid software.
The 2.10.6 version is now available for free download. Please be aware that the learning curve for GIMP is somewhat steep, making it a better option for advanced users rather than beginning editors.
Best Software Suite: Microsoft Office for Mac
This industry-standard software packages comes in an Office 365 subscription for computers, tablets and phones. Programs share the same file formats with Windows users, including Word, PowerPoint, Excel and other components.
Best Free Alternative to Microsoft Office: Apache OpenOffice
Some say Apache Open Office isbetter than Microsoft Office. Get fully integrated word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database tools in this open-source software. Among the many features, you'll find PDF and SWF (Flash) export, increased Microsoft Office format support and multiple languages. If your desktop publishing needs are basic but you also want a full suite of office tools, try OpenOffice.
The top desktop publishing software programs for Windows users have all been around for a while. That's because they are powerful programs backed by knowledgeable companies. Ease of use, time-saving features, and industrywide acceptance are some of the key attributes, although not every desktop publishing software program has them all to the same degree. These programs are the major players in desktop publishing and graphic design for commercial, in-house, small business, and freelance designers.
Adobe InDesign
What We Like
- Powerful, industry-standard application.
- Part of the Creative Cloud suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, and related high-powered creative applications.
- Easy to install and manage through the Creative Cloud app.
What We Don't Like
Best Home Desktop Publishing Software
- Subscriptions can be pricey.
- Adobe applications tend to be resource-intensive.
- No native Linux version.
Many people feel that Adobe InDesign is the clear leader of the digital publishing pack and that it has reached the 'Quark Killer' status envisioned when Adobe first released it.
InDesign is the successor to PageMaker, the original desktop publishing software program. It is subscription software available through the Adobe Creative Cloud.
InDesign CC (2018) includes new endnote capabilities, font filtering enhancements, improvements in the hyperlinks panel performance, UI enhancements, and much more.
QuarkXPress
What We Like
- Powerful, industry-standard publishing environment.
- Plugins to editorial content management systems.
- One-and-done licensing model.
What We Don't Like
- Relatively constrained ecosystem.
- The Quark star has been slowly fading for a decade now.
In the late '80s and '90s, Quark usurped the desktop publishing community's first love, PageMaker, with QuarkXPress. Once the undisputed king of desktop publishing software applications, Quark's premiere product — QuarkXPress — is still a powerhouse publishing platform.
With the most recent release, QuarkXPress adds new shape tools, transparency blend modes, UI enhancements, smart text linking, automatic table of contents, and responsive HTML5 publications for multidevice output.
QuarkXPress 2017 is sold with a perpetual license (no subscription required).
Free Desktop Publishing Software
Adobe FrameMaker
What We Like
- Optimized for complex technical publication.
- First-in-class support for XML content.
- Part of Adobe's suite for technical communications management.
What We Don't Like
- Not connected to Adobe's Creative Cloud environment.
- Expensive as a stand-alone app.
Best Desktop Publishing Software For Mac 2018 Holiday
Adobe FrameMaker is a powerhouse desktop publishing/XML editing software for corporations and others who produce technical writing or complex documents for web, print, and other distribution methods. It's overkill for individuals and small businesses, but for in-house, big-business publishing, it's a top choice.
Framemaker is capable of publishing multilingual technical content and supports mobile, web, desktop, and print applications. Publish the content as responsive HTML5, mobile app, PDF, ePub, and other formats.
Adobe FrameMaker 2017 release for Windows is available as a standalone product or for a monthly subscription fee.
Microsoft Publisher
What We Like
- Easy-to-use frames-based document designer.
- Depending on your Office subscription, you may have access to it for no additional cost.
- Capable of generating reasonably good content.
- Library of wizards and templates to assist with design.
What We Don't Like
- Not optimal for complex long-form documents like technical documentation or book-length works.
- Requires very specific usage behaviors, which aren't well-documented, to support high-end commercial printing.
Easy Desktop Publishing Software
The entry-level desktop publishing application in the Microsoft Office suite is Publisher. It is popular with individuals, small businesses, and schools. It is not as feature-rich as the other software programs on this list, and it doesn't support as many formats, but it is useful for generating publications and includes page parts such as sidebars, calendars, borders, advertisements, and more.
Best Publishing Software 2018
Publisher 2016 is available as a standalone product, and it is included with an Office 365 Home or Office 365 Personal subscription.