1.3.2.8 Desktop Publishing

Although a word processor can be used to author a brochure, or a magazine, such tasks expose limitations of word processors. For professional publishing work, most professionals rely on desktop publishing software. A desktop publishing program offers a wide selection of tools to perform formatting, layout control, page control and other flexibilities required in paper-based publications.

The standard tool for desktop publishing used to be Adobe's PageMaker (originally developed by Aldus, which merged with Adobe). However, the current standard is Adobe's InDesign. For those who are short of money or gungho for open source solutions, Scribus is an open source alternative that works in Windows and many other platforms.