Discover the best desktop publishing software in 2024. We’ve reviewed & ranked them for you.
Desktop publishing software is used to create visual communications, such as brochures, business cards, greeting cards, posters, web pages for professional or personal printing online or on-screen.
It helps to increase productivity, helps in enhancing the appearance of the produced documents, reduces the cost of production, can customize all kinds of projects, and also helps you to manage the presentation as well as the content in it.
But what’s
Best Desktop Publishing Software in 2024 – Overview
The following are some of the best desktop publishing software available. Let us discuss each one in detail.
- Adobe InDesign — Best overall (Editor’s Choice) (Get 65% Off)
- Affinity Publisher — Best value
- Canva — Best for beginners
- Microsoft Publisher — Best for Windows
- Viva Designer — Best compatability
- Xara Page and Layout Designer — Best Word Processor / DTP app
- Scribus Software — Best for Linux
- Swift Publisher — Best for Mac
- Lucid Press — Best free desktop publishing software
- QuarkXPress — Best Pioneer
10 Best Desktop Publishing Software in 2024
1. Adobe InDesign (Editor’s Choice)
Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing software for Windows and Mac. InDesign comes from the base of Adobe PageMaker and can be used to publish all sorts of editorial products, such as books, journals, and magazines.
The main feature of this software is multilingual support, the advanced management of OpenType fonts, the capacity to manage transparent effects, and its capability to integrate with the other products offered by Adobe Systems.
You can return the focus to a single document, handle pages of different sizes, add the text and paragraphs to multiple columns with various ease-to-use tools, and easily change the flow of the objects. With this software, you can also create interactive multimedia elements with audio and video.
You can easily streamline your process with the tools built for working in teams. You can collaborate up to 3 times faster with your team. The application integrates with all the other apps of the Adobe Creative Cloud platform and Experience manager. This enables you to share your content, fonts, and graphics across projects.
See the full Adobe software list here.
- Get a 65% discount on Adobe InDesign here or start a free 7 day trial.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ You can work with versatile projects. | ➖ Limited PDF editing options. |
➕ Built-in automation features help to speed up your work. | |
➕ Adobe Support is available. |
2. Affinity Publisher
OS Compatibility Windows| Operating System Windows 10 or higher | RAM Minimum 4GB | Processor Apple with M1
This particular technology was brought out by Serif, which offers cheap and affordable alternatives to various Adobe products. Affinity Designer is a close match to Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Photo is a direct alternative to Adobe Photoshop, and Affinity Publisher can be used in place of Adobe InDesign.
Affinity Publisher is the fastest, smoothest, and most precise form of image editing software available. It will revolutionize the way you work. You can edit and retouch images, create full-blown multi-layered compositions, or make beautiful raster paintings.
You can create content for books, magazines, marketing materials, and social media content. This publishing application gives you the power to combine your text and graphics so you can present a very attractive page layout that is ready for publishing.
Affinity Publisher is an easy-to-use software that comes with a much affordable price tag. It comes with all you want in desktop publishing software. The biggest advantage of Affinity Publisher is that it does not work on the subscription model and you have the software available for US$49.99 at a one-time cost. The only disadvantage is that it might feel a little bit unorganized if you have already used InDesign.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Easy to Place. | ➖ Does not support InDesign Document files. |
➕ Integrates with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer. | |
➕ Does not require a subscription. |
3. Canva
OS Compatibility Windows/Mac | Operating System Windows 10 or higher, MacOS 10.14(Mojave) or higher | RAM Minimum 4 GB RAM | Processor Intel or Apple M1
Canva, a website with streamlined graphic creation tools, was established in 2012. With its drag-and-drop interface, you may access more than a million images, vectors, graphics, and typefaces. Canva is not tough to use: both experts and novices can easily manage its features. The design and visuals of both print and web media can be accomplished using Canva’s easy-to-learn tools.
Canva is available for the web, iOS, and Android. Canva provides you with a wide range of amazing free photos, illustrations, and icons making it possible to plan your work in the best possible way. If you think such great features would be difficult to share, it’s actually easy: Canva offers you the simplest way to share and export your files with an easily-accessible share button and it is compatible with almost all devices.
Canva offers a free plan for anyone who wishes to create amazing designs. The other pricing plan of Canva includes Canva Pro for $119.99/year. This plan is available for one person who wishes to explore its various features such as premium stock photos, graphics, free templates, cloud storage, and many more. This plan is suitable for individuals, entrepreneurs, and freelance designers.
If you wish to opt for another option where it offers unlimited features for more than one person, Canva for teams for $149.90/year is a great choice. This plan comes with all the Canva Pro features and it allows you to collaborate with more than one person. Yes, at this price you can join with five people (including yourself) and for more members, the prices vary accordingly.
This is a great platform where it offers exceptional features for both beginners and pros or for anyone who wants to create amazing designs in the simplest way.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Professional templates | ➖ Free version offers limited features |
➕ Easy to use | |
➕ Great pricing plan |
4. Microsoft Publisher
OS Compatibility Windows | Operating System Windows 10 or Higher | RAM Minimum 4 GB RAM | Processor x64-bit Intel Pentium or AMD processor running with a SSE2
Microsoft Publisher is a Desktop Publishing Software developed by the Microsoft corporation. This is a part of the MS Office package. The newest edition of the software is known as the MS-Publisher 2007 and is available in the MS Office 2007 professional. The look and the appearance of the software are more or less in line with MS Office. It displays all the toolbars and menus available in the 2003 version.
The main advantage of Microsoft Publisher is that it has a lot of pre-published editions that are available in it. You can create a newsletter, brochures, invitation cards, banners, greeting cards, and more in it. You can prepare all this with the help of a wizard available on Microsoft Publisher.
It has many color schemes, which can be applied to any of your publications. You can also prepare your own color schemes with it. If you don’t want to use the wizard, you can prepare customized publication with the help of the blank page that comes as soon as you log into the interface.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Compatible with other MS Office software. | ➖ Incompatible with Adobe products. |
➕ Great layout tool. | ➖ Comes only with Windows OS. |
➕ Easily available. | |
➕ Stunning templates. | |
➕ Makes grammatical corrections. |
5. Viva Designer
OS Compatibility Windows/Mac | Operating System Windows 8 or higher | RAM Minimum 4 GB RAM | Processor Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64
VivaDesigner is a desktop publishing software that is available for both desktop and web. Although the software is extremely costly, it is extremely powerful and easy to use as well. The concepts available in the Desktop Publishing software help you to improve your document management.
VivaDesigner can be considered equivalent to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. In fact, it offers more functionalities than these high-end DTP programs and is used in the media sector and by major corporations to create professional print documents. VivaDesigner is not a word processor that comes with page layout options, but it is the ultimate desktop layout program available. Despite having innumerable functions, you will find the structure extremely clear and it is much easier to use.
VivaDesigner runs on all the major OS platforms such as Windows, Linux, and Mac. The file formats are identical across platforms. This will enable users to swap documents between any operating system. A free version of the software is available to use, but the paid version has got a lot of other added features to it.
Complex documents, such as brochures and price catalogs can be created using VivaDesigner. You can also further edit these documents in InDesign as well.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Runs on the Windows, Linux, and Mac systems. | ➖ Complicated for standard users. |
6. Xara Page and Layout Designer
OS Compatibility Windows | Operating System Windows 7 Vista or Higher | RAM Minimum 1 to 500 MB of RAM | Processor Intel Celeron or AMD Sempron
Xara Page lets you to create your own print products, design logos, create business cards, create attention eye-catching posters, and keep in touch with innumerable people all around the globe, while sending them a unique poster of your own creation.
You can create your products by using a wide variety of available in-built templates. The templates can be customized and used according to your requirements and are available at the rate of US$89.99.
You can customize the line height and spacing or let the text flow alongside various shapes and run across pages. You can also optimize the photos with brightness and contrast tools, as well as add new details to the image. You can also create impressive logos, illustrations, and other elements like shadow, transparency, and gradient effects.
You can also change the color of the entire documents with the help of fill colors, As well as change the color of the images through the drag and drop option.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Integrates with other Xara software. | ➖ Lack of Mac version. |
➕ Regular tutorials from developers. |
7. Scribus Software
OS Compatibility Windows | Operating System Windows 2000 SP4 | RAM Minimum 512 MB of RAM | Processor Pentium 3 or higher
Brought into the fray by the Scribus team, Scribus is a program that can be installed on Windows, Mac, and Linux Operating systems. It is a user-friendly software with a lot of robust features. Some of the features could be CMYK colors, spot colors, or ICC color management. It supports a huge number of file types, but the file format of this software is XML-based.
Scribus can be used to design marketing flyers and posters and has features that include vector drawing tools, emulation of color blindness, and import and export for many file types. You can also save your work in PDF format. This way, you can have a hard copy of your work. If you are a graphic designer, you can use this software to create business cards, marketing brochures, or flyers for books.
But unfortunately, you cannot import files from other apps like InDesign or QuarkXPress, but it is a great choice as it is available for free. There is an impending support team available with it as well because the software has been around since 2003.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Available for free. | ➖ Lack of spell check option. |
➕ Goes well with Windows, Mac, and Linux OSs. | ➖ Does not look elegant when the fonts are changed. |
8. Swift Publisher
OS Compatibility Macintosh | Operating System macOS 10.12 or higher | RAM Minimum 500 GB RAM | Processor Intel 64 bit Processor
Swift Publisher is an intuitive desktop publishing software available for Mac machines. This software is capable of creating attractive brochures, calendars, CD labels, eye-catching business invites, and business cards. You can create the layout and print for all these with Swift Publisher.
Available for US$19.99, it contains nearly 500 templates of diverse print projects, that include catalogs, business cards, social media templates, and address labels. You also receive additional templates for free.
Swift Publisher allows you to edit two pages simultaneously. This function is specific to this desktop publishing software and is very convenient to work with magazines, newspapers, and books. There are a few powerful tools that are available in the software that will make your work much easier. They are:
Master Pages is a powerful tool that is found in the best DTP software and is useful for creating repeated content, such as headers and footers, page numbers, and common backgrounds for your documents.
The Text Box tool is used to add regular text to the document, You can also add text using the circular text and vertical text tool, which might be very useful for creating labels and brochures. You can also customize the text styles based on your requirements and save it for future use as well.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Affordable software. | ➖ Not suitable for complex layouts. |
➕ Special templates are available for disc media, labels, envelopes, and cards. | ➖ Lacks professional desktop publishing tools. |
9. LucidPress
OS Compatibility Windows/Mac/Linux | Operating System Windows 7 or higher or Mac OS 10.10 or Linux 64 bit | RAM Minimum 2 GB RAM | Processor Intel Multicore or AMD X 64
Creating beautiful content does not require the need for a professional designer. The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for anyone to create and design personalized content so you can grow your own brand and business. You can create your own customized, attractive content so you need not wait to get it to your prospective customers.
There is nothing to download with LucidPress as it is cloud-based and the basic version of the software is free to use, but it does seem to be limited for some serious publishing works. The paid version of the software has some enhanced features that allow you with some more enhanced features that help your content look more attractive than before.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Professional Templates. | ➖ Interface Lags at times. |
➕ Innumerable Pages and Documents. | ➖ Sharing is quite complicative. |
10. QuarkXPress
OS Compatibility Windows/Mac | Operating System Windows 7 or higher | RAM Minimum 4 GB RAM | Processor Any core processor based on organization requirements
QuarkXpress is graphic design software that helps you to produce print designs, web designs, layouts, and tables digitally. It is quite easy to use. It is ideal for people involved in graphic design, content creation, marketing, and whatever else in the printing business. It was first released by Quark in 1981 and has been owned by them ever since.
Even if you do not have any technical knowledge when it comes to editing and designing, the drag and drop feature of the software makes the entire designing process look simple and uncomplicated.
It is combined graphic design software that combines the creation of designs, editing of images, and production of illustrations. It also has specialized tools for editing photos that also incorporate layers. QuarkXpress is a leader when it comes to the provision of intricate tools for web design. This is the first software that has web designing tools that enable the users to design a website without the need for HTML and CSS codes.
It is a highly advanced Graphic Design software that has tools to create mobile apps as well.
QuarkXPress comes to you economically, which is why it is treated as a leading platform in the industry. In fact, it is named as an alternative to Microsoft Publisher. It can be availed for a one-time payment with no monthly recurring fees. Educational institutions and non-profit organizations can also receive some discounts with the package.
Pros |
Cons |
➕ Best layout creation tool. | ➖ Expensive. |
➕ Feature Rich. | ➖ Crashes occasionally. |
➕ You can work with InDesign files. |
What is Desktop Publishing Software?
Desktop publishing software or DTP software is for creating and publishing editorial projects. The primary use of this software is to create layouts, texts, images, and graphics to arrange the elements of the projects in a document of your preference. It is great for creating publications, e-books, magazines, and web pages.
This software allows you to create and manage the professional design of a document and its typography while enabling you to create basic documents such as business cards, menus, brochures, and books.
Basic Features of Desktop Publishing Software
This desktop publishing software comes with a wide variety of design-focused features. These are easy to use and are straightforward for beginners. In addition, this software offers creators features such as importing, exporting and sharing the projects easily to different platforms. Basic features of DTP include:
Editor
The editor in a DTP software encompasses a variety of designing capabilities which includes editing images, borders, texts, and more.
Templates
This DTP software includes prebuilt templates which come with fully formed material designs. These templates include newsletters, articles, and other types of materials. It allows you to choose the one to suit your needs and it enables you to edit further.
Formats
This software possesses predesigned publishing formats which help you to choose or create standard and digital designs to export and share. The optimization of print is based on the size of the design and it ensures that the quality of the print is not lost during the printing process.
Adaptation
This DTP software includes the layout adaptation features. This automatically formats images and content to fit perfectly into the document without leaving any extra or left out space.
If you want to fit an image in a column of a newspaper, then you can simply drop it in that place, and it will automatically scale and fit in the area. This makes the user spend no time formatting or resizing the image.
Preferences
This feature is for designers who often work on similar or specific projects. This minimizes the time that you spend searching for the specific layout that you often use. This will automatically save the preferences, which makes them easier for you. As a result, you can use the layout multiple times without having to start over from scratch every time.
The Benefits of Desktop Publishing Software
If you want to keep up with the changes and trends in the business market, as well as customers’ expectations, word processing software alone may not be useful.
Every time you need to prepare a marketing flyer or a web advertisement campaign, it may be very time-consuming and costly for you to hire another agency to do the work.
Instead of taking expert help to get the work done, you can better explore the opportunities of page layout programs and become much more flexible.
Better Page Layout Functionality
The best thing about DTP software is its functionality. You can edit two pages simultaneously, create repeated content with a single click, import any number of images, and integrate with specialized software for more eye-catching lettering and typography. There is just one software that allows you to do all these things.
Cost
The major advantage of DTP software is the benefit of cost-cutting. When you hire a professional to create a marketing flyer or prepare a certain layout, the charge is assessed per project. When companies decide to try desktop publishing software, they only need to pay for it once.
WYSIWYG
It stands for “What You See is What You Get”. This very well goes with the DTP Software. What you see on the screen will be the final document that looks in the printed form. If you have ever created a project as a Word file and printed it, you will understand what it means. The Page layout can be optimized and enhanced without the need to see it on paper.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is the best desktop publishing software available?
Adobe InDesign is the best desktop publishing software that is available so far in the market. It is available for both Windows and Mac machines.
Which is the most simple-to-use desktop publishing software available and why?
LucidPress is a simple and easy-to-use desktop publishing software. The reason is that you do not need to install anything on your computer. It is an open-source and free-to-use software available on the web.
Which desktop publishing software is available for Mac machines?
Adobe InDesign, Swift Publisher, Scribus, and Lucidpress are all available to Mac machines.
What type of software is used to create professional looking documents or pampletsor books?
Desktop Publishing Software can be used to create professional looking documents, brochures and pamplets.
Best Desktop Publishing Software Summary
The market for Desktop Publishing Software is vast and offers options to you based on various requirements, like your budget. It is a challenging and time-consuming task to find the best one for you and your needs, but we have listed a few options based on the feedback of customers who use this software.
We would recommend the Adobe InDesign software based on the consumers’ point of view and the robust features it provides.
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