Best Alternatives to Microsoft Publisher for Mac

Microsoft publisher only available for Windows, not Mac. But you can open .pub (Publisher file format) file in Mac.

If you want to install Publisher in Mac use, Parallel Desktop software or Bootcamp Windows. Otherwise, use Microsoft Publisher alternatives for Mac.

Microsoft publisher available for Windows within MS Office or download Publisher separately for Windows PC.

Lucidpress (Free for Single user, Also available in Pro version)

LucidPress is one of the best software for Mac to create posters, brochures, magazines, and newsletters.
Free version only exports .pdf file format files in screen quality (not print quality) with the watermark. It also offers 15-day trial version, 50% discount for non-profit organizations, free account for students and teachers.

Swift Publisher ($19.99)

User-friendly desktop publishing software for Mac. Rearrange graphic elements like tables, images and text is really easy. It have integration with iPhoto. It allow you to export your files to JPEG, EPS, PDF, TIFF file formats.

Pages ($19.99)

It’s a part of iWork suite and its equivalent of Microsoft Word.  It has a lot of professional templates and layouts. creating tables and moving elements is really easy.

iStudio Publisher ($17.99)

A professional alternative to Microsoft Publisher. It’s easy to create brochures and documents using iStudio publisher.
Drag and drop images and text boxes on the page and export your work to PDF.

Disadvantages:-

• It only allows you to import and export PDF file format 9RGB or CMYK). So you can’t DOC, RTF, PUb and TXT files.

Scribus (Free DTP software)

Open source desktop publishing app for mac. Its have a lot of templates for Newsletters, Brochures, and Posters.

Disadvantages:-

• So long it’s not updated.
• You need to install Ghostscript on your Mac in order for Scribus to work.

LibreOffice (free)

Free alternative to Microsoft office for mac based on OpenOffice. Its allow you to open and edit publisher files. But you can’t export publish format.

QuarkXPress (Trial, Full version – $1134, Non-profit version – $299)

Best professional alternative to Microsoft Publisher. Its mostly used in the Newspaper industry.

Adobe InDesign (Trial, $29.99 per month, $239 per year)

Another great alternative. InDesign offer vector based tools to create books and magazines.

How to open Microsoft Publisher files in Mac 

• You can’t directly open .pub files in mac. Import that files into LibreOffice.
• Ask the file sender to export .pub file in different file format (File -> Export -> Change file format)
• You can convert .pub file using the online converter like Zamzar.