What Software/Platform for Print Publishing?

Howzer asks: "What's the deal with publishing these days? I remember clearly the old Quark vs Pagemaker wars, the winner being Quark, on a Mac, end of argument. But that was the late 90s. These days the three products I seem to be hearing about are Quark, Publisher, and InDesign. I'd love to get some opinions on platform/software and the current state of play, as it seems I may have to have an opinion on this soon. I thank you, the designers who'll soon be working for us thank you, and the people who'll be reading our 120 page glossy monthly magazine thank you." What publishing software gives you the best performance and features for the money?

Comments

Scribus on X

[chipperdog]

It's not quite as refined as Quark, but it has much potential, and each 'official' release is making great strides.
Save yourself over $2k, compile Scribus in *BSD or Linux.

Re:Thought of one who works for a Quick Printer

[phavens]

heh... How about with some formatting...

OK short story is that I've used Mac, Linux, NeXtstep(OPENSTEP), and Windows... and Used various programs from Aldus Pagemaker, Adobe Framemaker for NeXT, Create, Gimp, TeX, Quark, Adobe Pagemaker 5 on (to now 7), InDesign 1.5 on... Coral Draw, Freehand, Illustrator, Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop and Publisher since 95 AND working in a print shop as it's graphic artist for the last 8 years I've come to a few conclusions.

Quark is over-priced, over-buggy, and over-outdated. (Note last version I bothered trying to use was 4.1 outside some 5.0 time at a Kinkos)

Pagemaker is vry easy to use but have numerous little things that like a Mac you can get used to always doing the ritual you have to do to get it to work. But it's easy to use and I'll suggest it to anyone... noting the cost.

Publisher is great for a business to do some quick papers... it's getting there in the area of getting the job to the press... but I only suggest it either to businesses or non profits trying to save money.

As for the Mac vs Windows war... ther eis very little diffeence in speed and intuitiveness... both can be just as fast an dintuitive... give some use. As mch as I hate to say it... Micro$oft has gotten better at not crashing as much... and Apple is still too expensive for the masses... and most print shops and starting to be even service bureaus.

As for graphics... Photoshop is the clear winner. Paintshop Pro is cheap and powerful... but clumbersome. Corel has some natural drawing programs... but not enough power. The gimp has promise... if they ever simplify. Photoshop is just eh winner in this catagory.

For illustration... I've seen 3 main programs used.. and worked with all 3... Corel Draw, which is ok... just don't expect Service Bureaus and Print Shops to have an easy time with the file... Macromedia Freehand, really could have promise... it's a nice layout and actually it's eps output and files sent to tshops have "fewer" problems but... Illustrator, time and again this programs power, accuracy and abilities make it the choice that I've stuck with.

So what do I use (if you couldn't tell):
Photoshop for photo touch up and image manipulation
Illustrator for logo creation, complicated jobs that require a lot of tricks and graphic work (see creavet)
Pagemaker for page layout and most design. It's simple and fast to use day in and day out.
InDesign has a lot to offer and it's gotten a lot better from the program that used to gather dust on my hard drive. It's power with the text allows me to step back from how much I used Illustrator and I'm able to do even more elaborate things easier.

As for Linux... I'd use it more if the programs that ran on it where more intuitive... and or powerful. So given the state of progress so far... maybe 5-10 years down the road.