Adobe InDesign vs. Microsoft Publisher

Adobe InDesign

773 Reviews and Ratings

Microsoft Publisher

45 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Adobe InDesign	Score8.9 out of 10	N/A	Adobe InDesign supports creating digital and print documents such as flyers, stationary, posters, and other types of media, with rich graphics, images, and more. Adobe InDesign is available standalone or as part of the Adobe Creative Suite collection of media management and creation products.	$31.49 per month
Microsoft Publisher	Score7.6 out of 10	N/A	Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application available with an Office 365 subscription, or as a standalone download.	$139 one time purchase

Pricing

Adobe InDesign

Microsoft Publisher

Monthly Plan: $31.49
per month
Annual Plan, Prepaid: $239.88 ($19.99)
per year (per month)
Annual Plan, Paid Monthly: $251.88 ($20.99)
per year (per month)

Microsoft Publisher: $139
one time purchase

Pricing Offerings
Adobe InDesign	Microsoft Publisher
Free Trial
No	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

No setup fee

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Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Adobe InDesign	Microsoft Publisher
Considered Both Products	Adobe Anthony Burke Public Information Officer in Corporate at Betty Hardwick Center (Mental Health Care, 51-200 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign Microsoft Word is probably the most popular word processor, and I've been using that since I was a little kid, but InDesign gives you all the word processing tricks and then some with the ability to arrange every small part of your layout. Microsoft Publisher is another product … Incentivized Helpful? Jennifer Hess Designer, Developer & CEO in Corporate at SOFO STUDIOS, LLC (Graphic Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign First, Microsoft products are notoriously difficult to work with, so the bar is already set pretty low. In my limited experience with MS Publisher in the past, the tools were not intuitive and the files did not save / share well outside of MS platforms. It has been many years … Incentivized Helpful? Veronica Rivera Graphic Designer at Capture Higher Ed (Marketing & Advertising, 51-200 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign The others do not include the robust features of Adobe InDesign. Some of the subscription or pricing models are not affordable or would be an additional cost. Adobe has the most flexibility in regards to pricing. Microsoft Publisher is the least recommended product and is not … Incentivized Helpful? Richard Avenius Senior Instructional Designer in Customer Service at Kerauno (Computer Software, 51-200 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign This product sits head-and-shoulders above a product like Microsoft Publisher. The layout of Adobe InDesign is far more intuitive, the functionality of the tool is far more robust, and the sheer efficiency of it's interface is lightyears ahead of what Publisher offers. As just … Incentivized Helpful? Ben Caplan Risk Manager, and Insurance Agent in Sales at Hummel and Plum Insurance Agency Inc. (Insurance, 11-50 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign is simply put, the best out there for the design of print and e-docs. Canva and Microsoft Publisher both have great features and benefits, but they don't have quite the robust tools and features that are sometimes necessary when designing an item. If you need something … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign is a more cohesive program with stronger features and control. It is best used for more indepth presentations and publications. I use it primarily because it allows for more creative and personalized layouts which is useful for showcasing the work I present to … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign's real benefit is it's integration with the other Adobe products, allowing you to work fairly seamlessly with multiple types of design file on a project. The creative cloud allows you to store and use assets quickly and efficiently on multiple projects and really … Incentivized Helpful? Janeil Harricharan Freelancer at Janeilh.com (Graphic Design, 1-10 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign Adobe InDesign may have a steep learning curve and advanced interface, but the functionality it provides is more advanced that Publisher. I used Publisher briefly for some brochures and flyers, and it is a good software for simple, quick solutions that do not require a lot of … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Adobe InDesign Publisher is something that we as an organization used to use at the beginning phase of our organization, and, as we grew and the team grew bigger and the needs increased, we needed a more professional tool. That's where Adobe InDesign came in. With Publisher, there was limited … Incentivized Helpful? Nathan Morimitsu Social Media and Marketing Adminstrator in Marketing at H2 Manufacturing Solutions (Aviation & Aerospace, 1-10 employees) Chose Adobe InDesign Publisher and Quark both work, but they don't play well with Adobe products, which makes you waste a lot of time converting Illustrator and Photoshop files into bitmaps for use in them. This can lead to issues with image quality, on top of wasting time and energy. The … Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Adobe InDesign InDesign is the most widely accepted layout software in the world. It has plugins for extending its abilities and has had a vast industry lead since Dethroning Quark almost two decades ago. Publisher is a Microsoft train wreck and just isn't cut out for heavy lifting. Affinity … Incentivized Helpful?	Microsoft Robb Auspitz Owner in Marketing at Groovy Hemp Company LLC (Internet, 1-10 employees) Chose Microsoft Publisher At the time I was not impressed with Quark Xpress. I always disliked PageMaker. I always considered it over-rated. I like InDesign and have always liked InDesign, if I have a need for more complex documents I'll go with InDesign over Publisher or Quark Xpress in a heartbeat. … Incentivized Helpful? Terry Goodman Secretary of the Annual conference in Professional Services at Holston Annual Conference (Religious Institutions, 11-50 employees) Chose Microsoft Publisher Publisher wins hand down. To be honest, In-Design can do things with more precision and perhaps a somewhat better final design. However, the learning curve is WAY too steep for In-Design. I have been using computers and publishing programs since the mid 80's. Publisher melds … Incentivized Helpful? Amanda Carpenter Administrative Office Technician at Lebanon Campus of Harrisburg Area Community College (Higher Education, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Microsoft Publisher Microsoft Publisher is more for beginners, or for basic needs, anyone with some familiarity with the Microsoft suite should be able to use it easily. If you’re looking to create something more graphic and advanced, you’d probably want to look into something like InDesign, which … Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

User Ratings
	Adobe InDesign	Microsoft Publisher
Likelihood to Recommend	8.8 (98 ratings)	8.0 (10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	10.0 (3 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	7.8 (8 ratings)	8.0 (2 ratings)
Availability	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Performance	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Support Rating	5.0 (64 ratings)	8.0 (3 ratings)
In-Person Training	10.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Online Training	8.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Configurability	8.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Product Scalability	9.0 (1 ratings)	- (0 ratings)