Indesign alternatives?

[LocalHero1953]

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Does anyone have experience of apps for book layout other than Lightroom? I have no major gripes with LR, except that it is not easy to integrate text and images, which is where I want to go. 

Indesign is obviously the way to go - except for the price!

Scribus is free. I tried it once but found it a bit clunky; I didn't have a real project to help me learn it, so perhaps I should give it another go. 

Affinity Publisher is cheap and gets rave reviews. I'm just not sure if it is really "wonderful" or "given its low price, it is wonderful"

[zeitz]

Do you want to get the book published?  If the answer is yes, you may want to stick with the industry standard.  You may also need both Illustrator and Indesign depending on the complexity of the book.  Lightroom is a raster graphics program and is ill suited to publishing.

[fotomas]

I always preferred QuarkXpress over Indesign. But I also took first steps with Affinity Publisher. Looked not bad at the first glance. But haven't tried a book with it admittedly.

[LocalHero1953]

4 hours ago, zeitz said:

Do you want to get the book published?  If the answer is yes, you may want to stick with the industry standard.  You may also need both Illustrator and Indesign depending on the complexity of the book.  Lightroom is a raster graphics program and is ill suited to publishing.

Thanks, but no, I don't. I want to make books and zines myself.

Edited January 17, 2021 by LocalHero1953

[LocalHero1953]

3 hours ago, fotomas said:

I always preferred QuarkXpress over Indesign. But I also took first steps with Affinity Publisher. Looked not bad at the first glance. But haven't tried a book with it admittedly.

QuarkXpress also has good reviews in its current incarnation. But it is quite pricy as well. If I was paying that much I might as well use Indesign.

[Anbaric]

I haven't used Publisher in anger, but I have all three packages in the Affinity suite and my impression is that they are generally good at any price, not just the low price they sell for. The only major criticism I've seen of Publisher is the lack of proper support for footnotes. The only problem I've come across with layout myself is when importing vector PDFs generated in third party software, where Illustrator was fine but Affinity Designer made a real mess of the text placement (Inkscape did a better job). I suspect these won't be issues for you.

[NZDavid]

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Pages for Mac is excellent and does heaps. Like all software, it's quirky and takes a while to get what you want but it is very capable. There is plenty of online help available. We used Publisher for our association magazine in print and it's clunky; Pages is much neater.

After our March lockdown, I re-designed the newsletter as an e-magazine in Pages. See: http://rtanz.co.nz.

 

Edited January 18, 2021 by NZDavid

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks, but I use a Windows PC, so Pages isn't available.

[zeitz]

Pages, Microsoft Word and Text Document in Open Office (free) are essentially the same thing with varying levels of capability.

Edited January 18, 2021 by zeitz
wrong information

[LocalHero1953]

I seriously hope, for the sanity of Mac users, that Pages isn't similar to Word in its handling of text and images together😵

[Guest Nowhereman]

19 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

QuarkXpress also has good reviews in its current incarnation. But it is quite pricy as well. If I was paying that much I might as well use Indesign.

I agree with that sentiment. Also, Indesign, as an industry standard, has much more in terms of online resources in case you run into problems in doing something. Whenever, I had problems I was able to find a solution on free sites. However, I have no experience with Affinity. One reason I went with Indesign was that much of the way of working and commands were similar to its predecessor, the now ancient Aldus Pagemaker, which I had used.
________________________
Frog Leaping photobook

[wattsy]

Pages is a bit crap for serious publishing purposes (though my main gripe – the way the software flows copy from one text box to another and across page breaks – may not be an issue for your use). QuarkXpress was great back in the days of Mac System 6/7 and when it was a true industry standard but it now seems to be a bloated mess that tries to do everything (even outputting to HTML at one point). InDesign is not perfect but is powerful and stable and Imo worth the cost.

Edited January 18, 2021 by wattsy

[fotomas]

vor 19 Stunden schrieb LocalHero1953:

QuarkXpress also has good reviews in its current incarnation. But it is quite pricy as well. If I was paying that much I might as well use Indesign.

Depends on how much books you want to make or how long you want to use it. Quark you buy once and can use it forever. Indesign you have to pay forever or you can't use it.
Guess after about 2 years Quark may be cheaper. For one book Indesign should be cheaper if you cancel the rent afterwards. But then you can't open your files any more.

[zeitz]

54 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I seriously hope, for the sanity of Mac users, that Pages isn't similar to Word in its handling of text and images together

Word processing software is not really designed for more than one graphics per page.  Multiple graphics can be done, but it can be frustrating trying to seize control from the background automation features of the word processing software.

Another option is to use presentation software, such as Power Point, Mac's Keynote or Open Office's Presentation (free).  You have superb control of text and graphics objects in these vector graphics programs; you can cut text from a word processor and enter them on a presentation page.  Then you can export the final product as a .pdf file.

The Windows world must have an equivalent of Pages/Keynote/Numbers included free with the OS that doesn't require the purchase of Microsoft Office.

[LocalHero1953]

4 minutes ago, zeitz said:

Word processing software is not really designed for more than one graphics per page.  Multiple graphics can be done, but it can be frustrating trying to seize control from the background automation features of the word processing software.

Another option is to use presentation software, such as Power Point, Mac's Keynote or Open Office's Presentation (free).  You have superb control of text and graphics objects in these vector graphics programs; you can cut text from a word processor and enter them on a presentation page.  Then you can export the final product as a .pdf file.

The Windows world must have an equivalent of Pages/Keynote/Numbers included free with the OS that doesn't require the purchase of Microsoft Office.

Windows has MS Publisher. My limited experience of it is that it is OK for very basic stuff, but has limits. If I can find something more capable at a reasonable price (Affinity Publisher is about £50) I would go with that.

An example use case I have in mind: a book of photos and long poems that would flow over a number of pages. As I move or resize the images, I want the whole book to reflow. Powerpoint can't do the reflow across pages, Word just loses pictures or moves them at will. Publishing software is designed for this. And I want to output as an ebook/pdf and to a printer. 

[zeitz]

You might want to add Scribus (open source; ie free) to your list of publishing software candidates.

[Tom R]

I have Affinity Publisher and have been able to make some Master Pages that reproduce this kinds of boilerplate arrangements that satisfy Blurb's layout requirements. That being said, I am less than confident that I know enough about this tool to make complex layouts. 

The OP mentioned "professional publications." For publications that have printer's standards, I have always used LaTeX (and its many packages, geometry, memoir, etc.). In that regard, I see the following link: https://redskiesatnight.com/books/pod/latex-templates-for-pod-publishing-with-blurb-com/ that might be fruitful---but only if you're comfortable with non-WYSIWYG interfaces and you're making something that is to conform to Blurb's standards.

This is an interesting topic, and I'll be curious to see what others might find.

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, zeitz said:

You might want to add Scribus (open source; ie free) to your list of publishing software candidates.

I did - see my OP. I had a less than happy experience with it, but perhaps I didn't give it a good enough chance.

Edited January 18, 2021 by LocalHero1953

[LocalHero1953]

48 minutes ago, Tom R said:

I have Affinity Publisher and have been able to make some Master Pages that reproduce this kinds of boilerplate arrangements that satisfy Blurb's layout requirements. That being said, I am less than confident that I know enough about this tool to make complex layouts. 

The OP mentioned "professional publications." For publications that have printer's standards, I have always used LaTeX (and its many packages, geometry, memoir, etc.). In that regard, I see the following link: https://redskiesatnight.com/books/pod/latex-templates-for-pod-publishing-with-blurb-com/ that might be fruitful---but only if you're comfortable with non-WYSIWYG interfaces and you're making something that is to conform to Blurb's standards.

This is an interesting topic, and I'll be curious to see what others might find.

Interesting that you mention LaTeX - which I've heard of but never used. From a read of the intro on their website it looks like it does not deal with design and style, just properly defining and structuring content. I guess that's what you mean when you say "publications that have printers' standards" i.e. that must conform to standard designs, such as scientific journals. In the example you linked to, the writer designed the book in Scribus to start with. I'm not sure I want to use a two stage process if Publisher can give it to me in an integrated app.

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[LocalHero1953]

I was going to download Affinity Publisher for their 90 day trial period. But they're offering it at half price at the moment: £24. No brainer.