Page Layout Software for Book Publishers

Software for:

ONIX | E-commerce| Book Promotion | Affiliates | Page Layout | Ebooks

The three leading software packages that book publishers use for page layout are Quark Express, InDesign and Framemaker.

We recommend that our clients consider all three software options when choosing to standardize on a single software solution.

To learn about the pros and cons of each pack read this article and this article from the Aeonix Publishing Group. We also suggest that you visit PCMAG.com and read their reviews of each product: Indesign , QuarkXPress, and Framemaker. You should also read the Framemaker review at Creativepro.com.

If you are a publisher of directories you should have a look at the Media Services Group's Directory Database Content Management software. This module allows publishers to easily manage content with the resulting data flowing directly into Framemaker, InDesign or Quark.

What do we recommend?

• If you are doing educational textbooks Framemaker is a good choice.

• If you are new to book publishing I would choose InDesign due to its lower learning curve and superior typography.

• If your staff already uses Quark then upgrade to the latest version.

Which is the industry favorite?

• QuarkXPress has a larger market share.

• InDesign is gaining market share from Quark.

Framemaker

Framemaker is an Adobe product expressly designed for handling the publication of long documents such as text books in both standard page layout and XML format.

It has the steepest learning curve of the products mentioned in this section.

Who uses Framemaker? Many book publishing houses do.

InDesign

The successor to PageMaker has a lower learning curve than Framemaker or QuarkXPress.

Sample: Lightbulb Press

QuarkXPress

QuarkXPress is an industry standard with many third party add-ons (extensions) available to facilitate the layout of books.