what is the best free publishing software please?

In that case, a word processor is really all you need. MS Word has an option to create text boxes so you can float them anywhere on the page you want, like a page layout app. You can then float your pictures anywhere on the page around them. It's for your own use, so it doesn't matter if you use Word for a simple page layout.

I'm not sure if LibreOffice does that. If you have neither, than you may as well try the free LibreOffice first and see what it can do. There's also the free OpenOffice.

Instead of leaving you hanging without an actual answer, try here:

http://www.macupdate.com/find/mac/desktop%20publishing

I put desktop publishing into the search box. Some of the links only have "desktop" or "publishing" as a match, so really have nothing to do with what you want. Trying to put the phrase in quotes actually resulted in matches that weren't even close.

Anyway, Scribus in in that list. I've heard of it, it's free and a lot of users seem to like it. The only other free one is Cenon.

Shareware ones you could try are Desktop Publisher Pro and Page Layout Designer. That's also a few marked commercial or demo, which are iStudio Publisher, iCalamus and Swift Publisher.

Just to note, I haven't tried any of these as I use InDesign. But it's a place to start.

LibreOffice mimics a lot of what MS Office does, but as far as I can tell, it has no page layout option. Very big difference between word processing and page layout.

By publishing, do you mean desktop publishing such as Quark XPress, Adobe InDesign and the like?

If so, anything that's free isn't worth using. If for no other reason, if you intend to send your completed project to a press shop for printing, expect them to turn it away and have them tell you to get real software.

Pages in iWork is decent, but has no CMYK support. You can build pages in MS Word, but it's a word processor with a desktop publishing option shoehorned in. Also expect a professional shop to turn you away, or charge you a fortune to rebuild your Word document in a real DTP app.

You can maybe find something free that's worthwhile, and that's fine if you're going to print out a small number of copies yourself. Just don't expect to hand third string documents over to a shop and have them accept it.

The free LibreOffice suite, OS X, Windows and Linux

more free software too, good stuff

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