Free / Open Source Desktop Publishing Software

  Amaya  is a free open source editor hosted by W3C. Features include: CSS and XML editing, scripting, built in validator, WYSIWYG and color coded XHTML editing. Amaya is written in C and is available for Windows, Unix platforms and MacOS X.

  GIMP - the GNU Image Manipulation Program  is a freely distributed program for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. This program offers many of the features of high priced raster apps ... for free.

  Inkscape  is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.

  KompoZer  is a free open source WYSIWYG HTML editor aimed towards advanced users.

  Krita  is a free painting and image editing application for KOffice. Krita contains both ease-of-use and features like guided painting, and high-end features like support for 16 bit images, CMYK, L*a*b and even OpenEXR HDR images. Krita supports many managed colorspaces, like rgb, grayscale, cmyk, lab, ycbcr and lms, in 8 and 16 bits per channel. Krita can import RAW images in 8 and 16 bits per channel and load and save the usual image formats: tiff, png, jpeg. Krita has a large array of tools such as freehand, line, rectangle, ellipse, polygon, polyline, star, bezier curve, duplicate, paint-with-filters, crop, move, transform, perspective transform, contiguous fill, gradient, text, color picker, pan, zoom, perspective grid, selection paint, selection erase, rectangular select, elliptical select, polygonal select, contiguous area (magic wand), outline, magnetic selection, bezier curve select and select by similar colors. All paint tools can be used in soft brushes, hard pencil, airbrush or eraser mode.

  Nvu  is a free open source HTML editor. Features include: WYSIWYG editing of pages, Integrated file management via FTP, tabbed editing, support for forms, tables, and templates, XML and CSS support, site management, built in validator, and more.

  Paint.NET  is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed for Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

  PDFCreator  is a free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application. Features include: Create PDFs from any program that is able to print, Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc, Send generated files via eMail, create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS, AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc, merge multiple files into one PDF.

  Scribus  is a free open-source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation. There is also a review of Scribus HERE.

  Xara Xtreme  for Linux is a powerful, general purpose graphics program for Unix platforms including Linux, FreeBSD and (in development) OS-X.