Ask HN: Viable InDesign Alternative?

2 points by WritelyDesigned 10 years ago | 7 comments

There's been a decent amount of buzz around Mac apps like Sketch, Pixelmator, Affinity Photo, and others for replacing Adobe apps like Photoshop and Illustrator.

Some have gone so far as to ditch Adobe CC entirely and turn to these new-ish apps exclusively.

My question is: does anyone know of a viable InDesign alternative? I haven't seen one to date and wanted to know if there's one in existence or in the works.

seekingcharlie 10 years ago |

I haven't found anything that really beats InDesign itself for heavy print work, but I have been using Sketch for web marketing material (brochures, getting started guides etc) and it's worked so far.

I'm using the pixel dimensions of Letter paper, which is not really ideal, but does work if you need to print. Also, when you export your Sketch artboards to PDF, they're huge so I open the PDF's in Acrobat after to create compressed versions.

My workflow is 95% Sketch at this stage. I still use PS for image-editing and I keep Illustrator & InDesign installed, but honestly haven't opened them in months, since transitioning to Sketch.

hluska 10 years ago |

Have you tried Scribus?? When I used to publish a magazine, we started with InDesign and moved over to Scribus. It took awhile to get used to, but once we got it set up, it was extremely powerful!

My email is in my profile - use it if you need help!

WritelyDesigned 10 years ago | |

I have tried it in the past but wasn't too impressed at the time. I may have to give it another go to see if they've upped their game. Thanks!

therealmarv 10 years ago |

Is not this solvable by using google? ;)

http://alternativeto.net/software/adobe-indesign/

WritelyDesigned 10 years ago | |

Yea, been there, a couple of times, but I've yet to find anything "viable" (nebulous term, I know).

Things in common between the three new-ish apps mentioned above is a sleek, simplified UI, all with the essentials when it comes to features.

I've tried a number of the ones on the page you've referenced, but most are too big a step back.

My hope is that there's a Sketch-esque InDesign type app out there that I've missed among the latest and greatest. I'm coming to believe, however, that's only wishful thinking. ;)

therealmarv 10 years ago | | |

Scribus is powerful enough. Even magazines are beeing made with it. It is for sure lacking some features when compared Indesign but for every normal user who is willing to learn how Scribus works it offers at least for me everything I need from a DTP program.

therealmarv 10 years ago | | |

There was one tool which filled your gap perfectly in the past on Windows: It was called CorelDRAW, it was easier to use than QuarkXPress with its horrific (or beautiful?) shortcuts (or later InDesign) for the normal user out there.