How To › Software Linux Desktop Publishing Software Desktop Publishing Software Titles for Linux Share Pin Email Print Tetra Images/Getty Images Software Desktop Publishing Documents Spreadsheets Presentations Graphic Design Databases Animation & Video by Jacci Howard Bear A graphic designer, writer, and artist who writes about and teaches print and web design. Updated June 27, 2019 Unlike Mac and Windows, there are only a handful of Linux programs for doing desktop publishing. But if Linux is your preferred OS and you want to create fliers, brochures, newsletters, business cards, and the like, then give one of these programs a spin. Because there aren't many Linux options, this list includes more graphics software and office titles for Linux that are often used in conjunction with desktop publishing or to produce typical desktop publishing projects. Laidout laidout.org What We Like Unique features like a spread editor. What We Don't Like Outdated user interface. Limited import and export support. Few text features. Laidout 0.096 for Linux is a page layout program by Tom Lechner, a SourceForge.net Project. See this feature comparison chart for Laidout, Scribus, InDesign, and other programs. "Laidout is desktop publishing software, particularly for multipage, cut and folded booklets, with page sizes that don't even have to be rectangular." SoftLogik/Grasshopper LLC: PageStream Grasshopper, LLC What We Like Versatile use cases. Supports several languages. Lots of documentation over what every tool does. What We Don't Like It's not free. Trial versions don't seem to work. PageStream 5.8 for Linux (and Mac, Windows, Amiga, MorphOS) is a desktop publishing and page layout program for multiple platforms by Grasshopper, LLC. It also has integrated illustration tools. Scribus Dan Fink What We Like Free, open-source software. Mimics the user interface of similar programs. Built-in manual. What We Don't Like Lacks support for files made with QuarkXpress and InDesign. Missing a spell-check function. Tutorials for Scribus Scribus 1.5.2 for Linux (and Mac, Windows) is probably the premiere free desktop publishing software application. It has the features of the pro packages, but it's free. Scribus offers CMYK support, font embedding and sub-setting, PDF creation, EPS import/export, basic drawing tools, and other professional level features. It works in a fashion similar to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress with text frames, floating palettes, and pull-down menus — and without the hefty price tag. GIMP Gimp.org What We Like Similar to Adobe Photoshop. Updates are released frequently. What We Don't Like User interface is easily cluttered. Not ideal for inexperienced users. Our Review of GIMP GIMP 2.8.20 for Linux (and Windows, Mac, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris) is a popular, free, open-source alternative to Photoshop and other photo editing software. Inkscape Inkscape.org What We Like Well-organized toolset. Tons of great features. What We Don't Like Missing tools found in similar software. Buggy at times. Help documents are hard to read. Our Review of Inkscape Inkscape 0.92 for Linux (and Windows, Mac, and will run on FreeBSD, Unix-like systems) is a popular free, open source vector drawing program, Inkscape uses the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Use Inkscape for creating text and graphics compositions including business cards, book covers, flyers, and ads. Inkscape is similar in capabilities to Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW. Inkscape is also being used to create fonts. Continue Reading