What do you use?

[woody649]

I'm pretty certain I'm the rookie on this site. My recent debacles with Microsoft Publisher and Affinity Publisher have led me to wonder if maybe I just have the wrong concept for what DTP is all about.


After failing miserably at using Affinity Publisher to do the final formatting on a book, I took another crack at Microsoft Publisher. I watched a LOT of video "tutorials" on Microsoft Publisher, and it seems nobody uses it for anything more serious than brochures and business cards. I just don't get it. Decades ago, without even knowing what I was doing, I produced a full-length book, complete with illustrations, using the now sadly defunct Timeworks Publish-It! DTP software. Microsoft Publisher and Affinity Publisher cost orders of magnitude more than Publish-It!, and they just don't do the job.


InDesign and Quark are both out of my price range. Publish-It! worked a lot like Quark, but without the professional color management capability. I think I am going to risk the money on buying that Greenstreet Publisher 4.6 just to see if it is a worthy successor to Publish-It!. But I am curious. This place is a DTP-dedicated forum and from what I gather, pretty much everyone here other than me is a professional.


Is there anything other than InDesign or Quark that's suitable for doing book-length projects? I'm doing pretty well just using Word to format book interiors and LibreOffice Writer for the covers, but I would like to up may game a bit if I can find an affordable way to do it.


Does anyone here use Scribus? I have downloaded it, but everything I read suggests that it has a steep learning curve.