On Thu, 7 Jun 2007, Nathan Aubrey wrote:

> Someone just asked me about Microsoft Publisher. I don't even know what 
> it is!

Microsoft Publisher is a "desktop publishing" software.

Desktop publishing software generally offers a graphical interface for 
organization and layout of content (text and images and etc) usually for a 
printed product such as a newspaper. Some desktop publishing software also 
has good word processing features too.

In the proprietary world, the main alternatives to Microsoft Publisher are 
Quark Xpress, Serif PagePlus, Adobe PageMaker, and Adobe InDesign. Quark 
(which I used in college) and InDesign are considered to be the best.

> Is there a linux equivalent for this thing? And what is it?

The main equivalent is Scribus. I have used it a lot, but it is sluggish 
to me.

Two other alternatives are: passepartout (which is getting new life since 
being moved to GNOME developer community) and laidout (which is new to 
me).

Some can use OpenOffice or Kword (with frames) to do similar work but not 
really adequate. Also vector graphics editors can be used for same 
purpose, but not easily (because are weak at managing and linking lots of 
text). ROFF and TeX aren't really applicable since layout design would be 
a lot of work and lots of trial and error (while real DTP is WYSIWYG). 
Imagine using any of those to create a 40-page newspaper with 200+ 
articles :) While LyX is my book editor of choice, it is not usable for 
real DTP (desktop publishing).

If you try laidout (or anything else), please share your review with us. 

  Jeremy C. Reed
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