It’s only available when you have Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer installed. Perhaps the coolest feature of Publisher is known as ‘StudioLink.’ This feature allows you to do your photo editing and vector drawing without switching programs, with all the tools you’re used to in Affinity Photo.

Affinity Publisher showing an imported editable PDF It also allows you to import InDesign files saved in the IDML (InDesign Markup Language) format, which makes switching programs a breeze. It has all the tools you’ll need to create beautiful documents of any type and shares a lot of the same terminology used by InDesign. Serif’s Affinity line of programs has become a strong competitor against Adobe’s Creative Clout line, and Affinity Publisher is an excellent alternative to InDesign CC. But if you’re still working with colleagues using InDesign, they won’t be able to open your Quark files. If you’re planning to build interactive digital documents, the latest versions of QuarkXpress can do the job.įor those of you transitioning away from InDesign, QuarkXpress can read your existing IDML source files without issue. Since they’ve lost ground to InDesign, they seem to be focusing far more heavily on the digital design features of QuarkXpress than on traditional print tools. Whether you’re designing a simple 2-fold brochure or a full-length book, you’ll find QuarkXpress more than up to the task.

Even now, though, it’s still a capable alternative.

It was the preferred document layout software for many designers until InDesign cornered the market. Launched in 1987 for the Apple Macintosh, it’s one of-if not the-oldest graphic design programs still being actively developed. QuarkXpressĪvailable for macOS and Windows, $395 / $625 / $795, plus free upgrade to 1 / 2 / 3 future versions respectivelyĪs you may have guessed from the hefty price tag, QuarkXpress is primarily designed for professional users.

Open source alternative to indesign