Microsoft Publisher vs. Xara Designer Pro

Microsoft Publisher is well suited for almost any situation. It is something that I'm sure has far more advanced tools than I use or am aware of, but it is also very simple for entry-level users to create professional documents quickly. I have used it for very involved brochures in real estate scenarios and I have also used it for very simple "Construction Zone" signs at a job site under construction. There are so many uses for this program!

Incentivized

Really great for on-the-fly images for social media, blog posts, websites. It is extremely easy to use and new employees do not need to spend any time with training since its really intuitive. Less appropriate for graphic design like removing backgrounds, etc.

• Microsoft Publisher is just like Word, but Publisher, give much more features like multi page printing of single image and banner
• We have faced very much difficulties for picture control in Microsoft Word, but Microsoft Publisher has much advanced picture. Control features with multiple alignment and distortion correction function.
• We are also using Publisher for big banners for streets for promotion of our products, which is helping us on a very large scale advertisement with in-house design, designing, and printing of large banners easily

Incentivized

• Graphic art
• Social media imagery
• blog post images

• Formatting in general. It's a pain to refine a layout in Publisher in my opinion.
• Microsoft is so invested in their approach to software and making it look and feel like an Office 365 application that they inadvertantly cripple applications like Publisher.
• Earlier versions of Publisher gave you a lot more latitude and creative freedom. They were also much easier to work with. Not everything has to look like it's part of Office 365. They did the same ... thing to Access.

Incentivized

• load times
• windows not opening
• glitching when copying objects

We use this product 2-3 times a month and have not been able to find a comparable alternative.

Incentivized

There are a few quirks with Microsoft Publisher that make some functions a little tricky for new users at first, but most of our employees are able to figure out the quirks and work around them to use the product for their job. It is relatively high on the scale of usability.

Incentivized

While I have not directly used support for Microsoft Publisher, I have used their help files and found them to be useful. I have also found that most answers that I need can be found through simple web searches and chat platforms. In all though, there are very few times when the preloaded help files have not given me the answers that I need.

Incentivized

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 is not as user friendly if you’re not familiar with it at all. For basic needs the average employee should be able to use Microsoft Publisher with ease.

Incentivized

I like both and use both but for different things. Canva, I think has more templates overall. Support is better with Xara and my templates are already built in Xara. Also, detail attention is better in Xara. I have built very meticulous charts in Xara and even mocked up product designs here.

• Don't really have a way to measure ROI in my industry (Religious organization), but let me say, Publisher is at the heart of the way that I do things. If I did not have it, then my productivity would be crushed and the ability to communicate with individuals within the annual conference would be greatly diminished.
• Publisher allows me to produce quality, sometimes complex, documents in a simple and efficient manner.
• It has been my go-to program for the majority of my communication needs for more than 10 years. It would be difficult to do my job without Publisher.

Incentivized

• Less time on boarding interns
• Easy to copy templates for uniformity across the brand
• Quick downloads