The winner is BeLight Software Swift Publisher

MacFormat issue 188 November, 2007

By: Christopher Phin

A new wave of software offers desktop publishing at affordable prices. We test six of the best titles

The whole desktop publishing revolution started on the Mac in 1985, and today, though you'll find Apple kit in server rooms, science labs and office desks, its natural home is still on a professional designer's desk, helping to create beautiful pages for print and the web. The best bit, though, is that the last two decades have slashed the cost of ownership and helped create software that's more accessible to folks who haven't the time or inclination to wade through a doorstop-sazed manual.

So we've decided to set aside QuarkXpress and InDesign and check out six of their up and coming rivals. We've spent weeks with these applications, linking and flowing text, creating master pages and templates, cursing at typographical controls, wrestling with open source 'help' files, creating everything from a business cards to multi-page document, and generally trying to break things. A few years ago, many of these features were no more than the blue-sky dreams of Adobe and Quark software engineers: now they're available to everyone. Read on for our definitive guide to costumers-focused DTP applications...

DESKTOP PUBLISHING SOFTWARE   Apple Pages BeLight Software Swift Publisher iCalamus SPECIFICATIONS Source www.apple.com/uk www.belightsoft.com http://icalamus.net Price inc VAT £55 $50 (£25) €129 (£87) Bundled clipart 0 23,000 0 Bundled fonts 0 0 0 Master pages Yes Yes Yes Grids No No Yes Guides Yes Yes Yes Layers No Yes (2) Yes iPhoto integration Yes Yes Yes Text styles Yes Yes Yes Tables Yes Yes No Linking text frames Yes Yes Yes HTML export Yes (via iWeb) No No Manual Electronic Electronic Electronic

DESKTOP PUBLISHING SOFTWARE   Scribus Software MacKiev The Print Shop Stone Create Design SPECIFICATIONS Source www.scribus.net www.mackiev.com www.stone.com Price inc VAT Free £40 €149 (£74) Bundled clipart 0 19,500 51 Bundled fonts 0 240 0 Master pages Yes No Yes Grids Yes Yes Yes Guides Yes Yes Yes Layers Yes No Yes iPhoto integration No Yes No Text styles Yes No Yes Tables Yes No Yes Linking text frames Yes No Yes HTML export No Yes Yes Manual Electronic Printed Electronic

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