Try Before You Buy: Trial Software for Desktop Publishing

Professional level desktop publishing software is expensive. Reading reviews and getting the opinions of others are great tools to help you decide where to spend your money, but hands-on experience is even better. Fortunately, many software publishers make it easy to testdrive their products through free trial versions (which usually have some features disabled) and fully-functional time-limited copies. Before you start downloading all those free trials, get some tips on evaluating software with trial versions then go download.

Trial software is a great way to get a feel for what programs work best. Generally I like the ones that just have a function or two disabled. For some reason those 30-day trials (such as for QuarkXPress) make me feel pressured although if you're in a hurry they are a good option because they are fully functioning.