Lucidpress an alternative to inDesign?

ash

Member
Hi all,

I am on the hunt for new software, since Adobe pulled CS6 off the market and I am getting more and more compatibility issues with files sent to me by cloud users. :(

I have tried Scribus before, but the software feels slow and clunky. Has anyone a good alternative for inDesign (I can't really afford a subscription). I primarily need it for interactive documents, Printable items, like brochures, flyers, books, e-books, etc.

I am looking into Lucidpress at the moment, but it looks like there is no way of working offline, and no mentioning how your fonts will work with it :/

I used to use QuarkXpress, but they seem to be behind the times (I have not looked at it in the last 8 years though), in terms of inter-activeness.

Any comments are welcome, please let me know what you are using or if you have a suggestion for me :)
 
InDesign is the sole reason I even retain a CC subscription, to be honest. I could get by just fine without the other apps, but InDesign doesn't really play nicely with other software, or even with older versions of itself, and it's really unprofessional having to ask another designer or studio to sent me a back-saved IDML version. I don't really see there being a decent alternative to InDesign that also works with InDesign files but @hankscorpio might be able to advise.

You can get a single app subscription for ~£26 a month. If that's too much then you probably need to look at your pricing structure and up your rates a little bit.
 
Hi Paul, thank you for that, the one app subscription is stomach-able. In a perfect world I would look for inDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. But there are acceptable alternatives out there for the latter two. :)

Is anyone still using Quark? I just remember how painful the controls were and would love to know if there has been any improvement.
 
You'll probably find some people still use it, though I would suspect most agencies would use InDesign, so I'd expect to supply and be supplied files in that format the vast majority of the time.
 
Hi bigdave, :)
thank you for the suggestion, but it seems to be nearly discontinued and seems to be lacking the interactive (code support) bit. Interesting piece of software though, I've never come across before :)
 
I still use CS6 across the board and will continue to do so until it is out of date, to the point where I am losing out/ falling behind newer functionality so to speak. I haven't run into the problem of needing to upgrade due to the new version file types but I can totally understand the issue. If this is happening frequently then I guess you have little choice but to fork out the monthly subscription (I feel for you) as your hand is pretty much forced. If it is infrequent, then maybe you can occasionally ask a few of our kind members on the forum to save the files to a previous (CS6) version for you, assuming there isn't an NDA of course!
 
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Hey Ash, Lucidpress is a solid option to InDesign. Yeah, you have to be online to use it, but the upside is you get autosave, versions, backups, and can be accessed anywhere. What is also cool is that I can share my files with coworkers/clients super easy and it's easy for them to contribute and annotate the projects. As far as fonts, it comes with a standard set, but you can add any typeface you have. Super easy. To be fair, it doesn't have all the features that InDesign has, but it would certainly be worth getting the free account and checking it out.
 
Hey Ash, Lucidpress is a solid option to InDesign. Yeah, you have to be online to use it, but the upside is you get autosave, versions, backups, and can be accessed anywhere. What is also cool is that I can share my files with coworkers/clients super easy and it's easy for them to contribute and annotate the projects. As far as fonts, it comes with a standard set, but you can add any typeface you have. Super easy. To be fair, it doesn't have all the features that InDesign has, but it would certainly be worth getting the free account and checking it out.


Thank you for that :)
 
Hi Paul, thank you for that, the one app subscription is stomach-able. In a perfect world I would look for inDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop. But there are acceptable alternatives out there for the latter two. :)

Is anyone still using Quark? I just remember how painful the controls were and would love to know if there has been any improvement.
a lot of magazines use it in the UK as they use its template options for lighting fast layups.
 
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