Surprise! Mac Desktop Publishing Is Not Dead. It’s $45.

Brad, you did diss Swift Publisher, and with an elitist tone. Shame on you. The only comparison in the review is this:

”These days you can spend hundreds of dollars for Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign, both highly capable publishing software. Or, you can spend $45 on a very capable, efficient, and adaptable Mac application called Swift Publisher.”

I fail to see how that is an ineffective or unfair comparison. It’s accurate, right?

BTW, I use InDesign, which I love. And Swift.

Quark and InDesign users tend to be very snobbish and elite about their so-called ‘professional’ skills. With the exception of magazine publications or books, what Swift and Microsoft Publisher output is quite similar. Often it’s the layout and design skills, not the program, that makes the biggest difference.

As a printer for 17 years, I can testify that we’ll use what our customers bring, and charge accordingly. The elite users of Quark are a pain to deal with.

Granted, both are highly capable programs, but not for the faint at heart. The learning curve for Quark and InDesign is steep and the initial and ongoing costs horrendous for the average Mac user who wants to print up brochures or booklets.

Swift is highly recommended. The ongoing support of the developer has been nothing short of superb. Our print shop has four Macs, loaded with Quark and InDesign, and PCs with Publisher and Quark. We use Swift as much as we can. Would it help if they charged $199?

I’m not dissing the product, it’s fine for what it is, but the tone of this reviewer (not BeLight) seemed to compare it to the heavyweights rather than it’s peers, like Pages. I deal with professional designers and printers, and they cringe when a PS Publisher for Windows or a Pages file for the Mac comes in. Maybe it’s the expectations of the users more than anything. People tend to push the lightweight software they can afford beyond what they and their computer are capable of.

In response to Bradley Dichter, the original reviewer does not refer to books, nor do BeLight Software themselves. They major on what it actually does and it does that very well indeed. I’m able to output pdfs with bleeds which my printer can print from, the end result looking no different to earlier editions they produced on Quark from my paste ups.To dismiss a program on price alone is somewhat short sighted.

I have to agree. SP is no Quark or InDesign and not aimed at professionals, but highly capable for Mac users on a budget and with the need for a professional looking result. Quark is nearly $800. InDesign is almost that much. Both highly capable but certainly not value oriented for the Mac user who doesn’t live, eat, breath, and sleep desktop publishing.

SP does far more than Adobe’s original Pagemaker did just a few years go, and is much better at page layout than Apple’s Pages. Books and magazines should be done in Quark or Adobe, but most everything else can be done quite well in SP. $45 makes it an attractive value. I love it.

Swift Publisher is one of the all time values on a Mac. It’s NOT Quark Xpress or InDesign, of course. If you’re doing a book or a magazine, then you’re already at a professional level and need the more expensive tools. Swift doesn’t claim that territory. I’ve used it for a couple of years creating training materials, booklets, brochures for my company and you canNOT tell the difference between what I produce and what the more expensive Mac and Windows applications produce. Only an effete elitist would dismiss a tool as being inadequate based on price. Swift is a very capable program for ‘the rest of us.’

If you are sending work to a printer, they probably don’t have or even heard of Swift Publisher. They probably want a PDF file so they don’t have to deal with embedded images, referenced fonts, the creating application or even the platform (Mac or Windows) that created the file. It’s best to have a detailed conversation with your printer. As for Swift Publisher being professional and above the Apple Pages level and closer to the established professional choices of Adobe InDesign or QuarkXPress, one should see if it handles well embedding high resolution images for use in a book, trapping issues, separations, and page number options for chapters of a book. (can you auto-page number starting at something other than 1?) There are myriad other professional level issues, but my professional experience shows no $45 would be taken as serious.

I’ve used SP for a couple of years for a 12 page community newsletter (output pdfs direct to printers), other leaflets and posters as well as for headed notepaper. It’s a great program, similar to Pages 08 in many respects, but where it has the edge is its fantastic support forum. Talk direct to the developers, get answers almost immediately, request features which are added at the next update and so on. Apple can’t match that and that’s why I stick with SP.