MS Publisher alternatives?

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My mother just entered the world of Macs by replacing her PC with her first iBook G4. She loves it, except for the fact it does not have MS Publisher. Anyone know of any good equivallent alternatives?

I need something easy to use and aimed as consumers, not desktop publlishers like Quark Xpress or InDesign. I personally hate Publisher with a passion, but she isn't very good with computers, so needs something very simple.

Only things I can think of is AppleWorks or iWork (using Pages). How do they compare to Publsher?

Thanks for the help
 
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Cloudane

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They'd do the job I think... can't think of anything that really matches Publisher on the Mac.

Personally, if she has enough skill to use Publisher then I recommend taking the time to learn something professional like Adobe Illustrator or InDesign. Why not? It isn't a huge time investment, and once you know it you know it. It took me a week or so of watching a DVD on and off to learn enough of Illustrator to do 10x better than Publisher in half the time.
 
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I second that! Illustrator is more of a graphics application. Great for making clipart and stuff. InDesign is a full fledged pro level desktop publisher. Its the defacto standard right now and awesome to use.
 
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you have clearly not met my mother ;)

She uses it for her grade 2-3 children (she's a teacher). Her head would explode if I showed her Illustrator or InDesign. Plus there's the cost ($120 for appleworks...$1000+ for Illustrator!)

Don't seem to be any trial versions for iWork/AppleWorks - which would you recommend?

while on the subject - 'sif apple don't release trial versions!
 
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Cloudane

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Yes, the cost is a good point :D

You could also look at OpenOffice, that might have something similar to Publisher in it by now.

There was a trial disc of iWork included with Tiger - I'm not sure whether it's redistributable or not.
 
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thendis said:
My mother just entered the world of Macs by replacing her PC with her first iBook G4. She loves it, except for the fact it does not have MS Publisher. Anyone know of any good equivallent alternatives?

I need something easy to use and aimed as consumers, not desktop publlishers like Quark Xpress or InDesign. I personally hate Publisher with a passion, but she isn't very good with computers, so needs something very simple.

Only things I can think of is AppleWorks or iWork (using Pages). How do they compare to Publsher?

Thanks for the help

If your looking for a light weight dtp program that still does have quite a few features you might try DeskTopPublisher Pro from Metisinternational. It reminds me a lot of Page Maker. Very easy to use with quite a few features to it and you can get it for $20 instead of the hundreds others want. You can download a trial version to see if you like it.

http://www.metisinternational.com/
 
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thanks guys. you were a great help and allowed me to make a well informed decision.

I ended up stopping by Next Byte (AppleStore) and they showed me Pages. I ended up buying iWork. Although Pages is more template-driven than Publisher, it is still great for what she needs.

it's actually a deceptively powerful program. it looks really simple and crappy when you first open it, but once you scratch the surface you can do quite a lot. Plus it has great integration with iPhoto (which I think is 90% of the reason why she switched to Macs in the first place - she's obsessed with the darn program!!)

Only problem with Pages is that it doesn't have any drawing tools (not even a custom shape tool for crying out loud!), but everything else is fantastic, And the templates...whoa! The most impressive set of templates I have ever seen!

Thanks again :)
 

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