Basic Desktop Publishing Software
I have done a lot of newsletters, flyers, etc. using Microsoft Publisher on a PC. What would be a good option for this in OS X? Does Publisher have an OS X version? I'm looking to avoid the cost of, say, Adobe Pagemaker but hoping to still have a lot of flexibility with graphics and text.
Also Publisher doesn't do all that well with web page construction although they've made some strides.
Ideas? Suggestions?
Also Publisher doesn't do all that well with web page construction although they've made some strides.
Ideas? Suggestions?
Comments
<a href="http://www.stone.com" target="_blank">Stone Studio</a>, specifically, Create. It does page layout, illustration, and web layout. It's simple to figure out, has pretty deep feature set, and it's not expensive either. This and other applications like it are far better than Publisher.
There are tons of these kinds of applications for the Mac. Check out <a href="http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/" target="_blank">Apple's software downloads</a>, <a href="http://www.versiontracker.com" target="_blank">Version Tracker</a>, or <a href="http://www.macupdate.com" target="_blank">MacUpdate</a> for more titles.
[added]...then again, maybe <a href="http://www.apple.com/appleworks/" target="_blank">AppleWorks</a> will do the trick for you.
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: BuonRotto ]</p>
But if you still wanna go cheap i suggest Deneba Canvas. It's a great program, and it can do color correction, illustration and page layout. It might even be able to do web pages. and it's $300 cheaper than InDesign.
Stay away from Stone Studio Create, for the time being at least. It's a decent product but it's too new doesn't allow for bleeds and is just a layout app, wheras Canvas is an all in one. Plus Canvas has been around for a while and most of the Prepress shops should have a copy.
this would leave me to believe that he wants some nifty features but doesn't really want spend a lot of cash to get them, basically.
quark, indesign and pagemaker are all pure page layout programs. that's what they do well, nothing else. anyone saying otherwise is selling you something stinky.
stone design... well, don't no squat about it other than it's fairly cheap. i wouldn't hold my breath for printer support though.
canvas is not bad as far as a swiss army knife approach goes. Has bitmap editing capabilities, web features, yada yada yada. Been around for a while and you might get lucky and find some printer out there that knows what to do with the files it generates.
corel draw. avoid it like the plague.
illustrator and freehand are old pros at print stuff. pretty much the king turds on $hit island of drawing programs depending on where you're located. Both are fairlly similar in features and flexibilty but freehand can do mutipage layout and has better web mumbo jumbo.
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: running with scissors ]</p>
Easiest and least expensive (free) is AppleWorks. Don't laugh. It offers many features if you takea second to learn them.
After that, I would make the money and time investment to learn InDesign. Stone Studio is a distant third. Difficult to learn.
I don't think anyone's helped you here much !
If you want to keep your printer happy, you will have to use Quark 4 (NOT version 5) ! See if you can get a v4 CD off a dealer cheap.
There are no other alternatives - that's why the majority of design studios use it ! It will, of course, run in Classic, but since it will probably be your only program running in Classic, this isn't such a problem. Carbonised version by the years end, apparently.
Quark has a difficult learning curve, but there are some excellent books for it available.
Proof of the pudding, as they say - pretend you want to be a designer or artworker, ring up a few agencies specialising in design & repro work, and tell them you use one of the other packages listed above.... "thank you, we will be in touch"...
quark , even an older version like 4.x is going to be pricey not to mention limited in what it can do. we're not talking about an anual report or a 40 page sales catalogue here, just newsletters, letterhead, and the like. if he goes with quark or even indesign as you suggest, he will still need some sort of drawing or image editing app to do any descent work. besides, who wants to get stuck doing all their design in a layout program? not me.
this is only true, for the most part, when dealing with production type jobs. a design firm couldn't give a $hit what program that you used as long as the work looks good.
Anyway, if you want to do single page jobs, Freehand or Illustrator is fine, but not multi-page. I once had the nightmare of trying to sort out a multi-page Freehand file for print - if you send a Freehand file to a repro house, they will EPS it and drop it into Quark !
No program will really do great print & web - if you want simple web and print, use Appleworks, but don't plan on sending files out to anyone...
Yes, Quark 4 won't be that cheap - but no more expensive than Freehand or InDesign<hr></blockquote>
quark 4 will cost you at least $350-$450.
freehand with a competitive upgrade $129
[quote] - and there isn't a lot you can do in Freehand that can't be done in Quark - transparency is the only one that springs to mind. Quark doesn't just do layouts!<hr></blockquote>
your kidding right? complex vectors. superior art and font manipulation. Multi page layout, exports flash, gif, jpgs, psd, tiffs among many others. intergrates well with other macomedia and adobe apps. and yes it does transparency.
[quote]Anyway, if you want to do single page jobs, Freehand or Illustrator is fine, but not multi-page. I once had the nightmare of trying to sort out a multi-page Freehand file for print - <hr></blockquote>
freehand does multi pages fine. in fact i've known designers that use it exclusively for art and layout purposes without a hitch. i'm not talking about a simple brochure either, 30+ page anual reports. now that's not to say the way i do things, but hey, to each thier own. if you had probelms with pdfs and freehand i'd say who ever set up the doc in the first place f'd-up. not the app.
[quote]if you send a Freehand file to a repro house, they will EPS it and drop it into Quark !<hr></blockquote>
what's your point? they tend to do that with all files wether they came from freehand or illustrator or photoshop. quark has som great features and support for those guys that work the prepress side of the fence. great, good for them. it's part of their work flow. that doesn't mean we have to use quark too.
[quote]No program will really do great print & web - if you want simple web and print, use Appleworks, but don't plan on sending files out to anyone...<hr></blockquote>
hahahahahah. appleworks. good one. your killing me. that's a joke right?
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: running with scissors ]</p>
In my experience I've met quite a few designers who have never learnt Quark properly, and therefore try to justify their ignorance by damning Quark. Quark does multi-page stuff better than anything else, and that is what this chap wants to do. You can't do web in Quark or Freehand, so that's another issue. Freehand & Illustrator are GREAT for some types of artwork, generally single page stuff, logos and the like - 'self-contained' artwork, if you will. But if you want to do multi-page stuff, you need Quark. No program does both, unfortunately.
I agree, Appleworks is xxxx !
<a href="http://www.ragtime-online.com/" target="_blank">get ragtime here</a>
<strong>er, I may be missing something, but how is Freehand or Illustrator going to help him do web stuff, apart from the image side of things. Can't do HTML in Illustrator !</strong><hr></blockquote>
as far as illustrator goes, your right, but freehand can. not to shabby huh? both apps can export images as gifs, jpgs, and pngs. plus they also allows you to assign image maps and optimze images. there are numours free or inexpensive web apps out there that work on the mac, freeway springs to mind for more complex css bs. or hell, just start coding in textedit if need be.