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Whether you're creating documents, newsletters or more adventurous projects, there are some good options
Microsoft Publisher 2010
Microsoft Word is great for creating documents, but for designing more advanced documents such as catalogues, brochures, posters or newsletters a proper desktop-publishing program is essential.
This gives you full control over page layout and design and allows you to create publications that can be printed by commercial printers.
Microsoft Publisher 2010, reviewed by Computeractive here, supports professional colour formats and uses the familiar Office ribbon menus.
The wide selection of pre-designed templates makes it easy to get up and running with a minimum of fuss, and live previews of styles makes it simpler to get the design just right.
At £120 it’s not cheap, but alternatives such as Quark Xpress and Adobe Indesign cost far, far more.
The alternative: Scribus
Scribus is in many ways much more powerful than Microsoft Publisher, offering some professional features found in tools such as Quark.
It’s not as easy to get to grips with as Publisher, but it includes excellent online help and guidance suitable for all levels of expertise.
The program comes with a small selection of templates to help you get started, too. It can create commercial-quality PDF files ready to send to a printer, and it’s also available for Linux and Mac OS X.
Scribus requires Ghostscript, which you can here
Total saving: £120
Download Scribus from here
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Why not Serif?
Pageplus X5 if you want to pay to full functionality or free version to try which would suit most people for occasional use. Both are cheaper than Microsoft.
Posted by Dozydora, 31 Jan 2011
Scribus is far better than Publisher
As you comment above Scribus is much more powerful (and professional) than Publisher, and in my experience just as easy to use. As you point out the standard documentation is excellent, and there are many, many great Scribus tutorials online - including your own. I do not understand how you could rate £120 worth of Microsoft's indifference above such a great free tool
Posted by Ian Ibbetson, 13 Apr 2011