 Desktop Publishing on the Mac
November, 2006
By: J. D. Biersdorfer
Q. I am a former PC user who has converted (happily) to the Mac.
I’m looking for a Mac program that is comparable to Microsoft Publisher. What are the choices?
 A. There are plenty of Macintosh desktop-publishing
programs that let you freely arrange text and pictures for newsletters, brochures and postcards as you
can with Microsoft Publisher.
Apple’s own Pages 2 program ($80 at www.apple.com) has plenty of templates for creating a
variety of projects.
If you find Pages too limited for the types of designs you want to create, a full-featured desktop-publishing program can give you plenty of power to create.
Professional-level programs like Adobe InDesign (www.adobe.com) or QuarkXPress (www.quark.com) have tools to make your own print and Web designs, but they
come with a professional price tag of $600 or more.
You don’t have to fork over the big bucks just to get desktop-publishing software
for simple projects, though. Several Mac programs for home users are available, including the Print Shop for
Mac ($60 at www.mackiev.com)
and Swift Publisher ($40 for a CD or $35 to download at www.belightsoft.com).
If you’re feeling technically adventurous, there’s also the open-source software
Scribus, a free desktop-publishing program for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux systems at
www.scribus.net.
Although the program does not include any personal tech support and is a work in progress,
some may find the price is just right.
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