Newsletter Design Software for the Mac

Normally I wouldn't recommend doing desktop publishing in a word processor if you can avoid it. But Pages, the word processing component of Apple iWork, combines both word processing documents and page layout in one program -- with different templates and windows depending on the type of document. iWork also includes Numbers for spreadsheets and Keynote for presentations. It can also handle Microsoft Word files. iWork '09 was the 2010 About.com Reader's Choice Award Winner for Mac Office Suites and Pages '09 was first runner-up for Mac word processing.

Available as of 2010: Pages '09 for Mac

• iWork (Compare Prices)

For newsletters, brochures, fliers, and small catalogs you can get professional features at a low price. Some reviewers found it superior to Pages for these projects and comparable to high-end desktop publishing software in some respects -- but easy to use for beginners.

Available as of 2010: Swift Publisher 2.3.3 for Mac

The newest version of The Print Shop for the Mac by Broderbund has better layout tools, more graphics and photos (19,500+), more special effects and includes thousands more projects (9500+) such as multi-page booklets. It integrates with your Mac apps such as iPhoto, iDVD, and iCal. For longer, more complex newsletters you may find one of the other programs more suitable, but for simple newsletters as well as greeting cards, calendars, posters, and labels it's a good all-around creative printing program.

Available as of 2010: The Print Shop Mac

• The Print Shop for Mac (Buy Direct)
• The Print Shop Various Versions, including for Windows (Compare Prices)

Here's low-cost ($20) newsletter design software. It may not have all the fun extras but it does handle the text layout requirements of newsletters, has basic graphics tools, and lots of text effects for creating a newsletter nameplate and decorative headlines for newsletters, fliers, and other desktop publishing projects. And it may be a little easier to learn to use than some more powerful programs.

Available as of 2010: Desktop Publisher Pro v. 2.2.5 for Mac

• Desktop Publishing Pro (Company Store)
  
  

This professional-quality desktop publishing software defies the old saying that "you get what you pay for" because it's feature-rich and free. It does just about anything the much more expensive pro tools do, including serving as quality newsletter design software. A good choice if you need professional printing, it doesn't have all the fun extras like graphics, fonts, and tons of templates.

Available as of 2010: Scribus 1.3+ for Mac (and Linux, Windows)

 Overview of Scribus (About.com Linux)

Newsletter design is just one small aspect of this 3-in-1 page layout, illustration, and Web design package from Stone Design that features everything you need for professional newsletter designs including multiple master layers, text flow across blocks and pages, text wraps, automatic page numbers, text styles, and spell-check. It also supports PDF import and export, is a full-featured illustration program for great newsletter graphics, and you can publish your newsletter (or other project) to the Web. 

Available as of 2010: Create Version 14.0 for Mac OS X Leopard, Tiger & Panther

• Create (Stone Design Store)