Preserving Design Perfection: 9 Tools for High-Quality PDF Brochures

Brochures have always been a vital tool for delivering information to a target audience. You may be selling a product or service, inviting people to an event, or simply aiming to spread awareness about a particular issue. In any case, brochures are an efficient way to achieve your goal. 

Up until a couple of decades ago, printed brochures were the ultimate marketing tool. They came in the form of folded pamphlets, strategically packed with a mix of text and visuals to draw in readers and build their interest in whatever it is you have to offer. With the growth of the internet and social media, digital brochures have begun to take a more significant role, as many consider them to be better for distribution and for the environment. 

In any case, physical or digital, all brochures begin with the design and creation process. For this, you need to have the right brochure design software that can bring your ideas into actuality. In this article, we will list eight of the top tools available today that can help you deliver high quality PDF brochures, preserving design perfection whether on the screen or on print. 

Criteria for Choosing Your Brochure Design Software

Choosing the right brochure design software is a crucial first step in producing professional and visually appealing brochures that effectively communicate your message. The good thing is that there is plenty of powerful software out there that can create compelling brochures. You just need to choose the one that will meet your own unique needs. Here are some of the most important criteria that you must take into consideration. 

1. Design Capabilities

High quality PDF brochures must be visually striking and able to convey your message right away. To achieve this, your software must offer an extensive range of powerful design tools that will let you bring all your visions to life. 

Some of the critical features that are non-negotiable are advanced layout tools, font design options, visual content integration, and template customization. For digital brochures, support for interactive elements like buttons and hyperlinks is a significant plus. 

2. Ease of Use

In general, complex design software offers more robust tools and a higher level of customization than those with very simple functions. However, you do have to take your level of expertise into account. It might be too ambitious to try and learn an overly intricate tool for just a single project. 

For most users, an intuitive and user-friendly interface will be really helpful. Look for brochure design software with plenty of ready-made but customizable templates, drag-and-drop functionality, and an abundance of tutorials and other learning tools. 

3. Template Selection

Creating a brochure from scratch requires a lot of effort, especially if you don't have much design experience. Even professional artists opt to work from an editable template to save time. In shopping for brochure design software, be sure to take a look at their template library, as well as the amount of customization that is allowed when using them. 

4. Collaborative Functions

In large projects where contributions to the design of the brochure would come from multiple participants, collaboration tools are a necessity. To ensure a smooth and efficient workflow, the brochure design software should provide the necessary channels for real-time collaboration, commenting, sharing options, and version control, among others. 

5. Cost 

Depending on the size of your budget, you can look for free brochure design software, or go for paid tools with more features for creating high quality PDF brochures. Most of the paid subscriptions offer a free trial period that you can use to test the software before signing up. Many also have free versions with limited features. 

At a Glance: Comparing the Top 8 Tools for High-Quality PDF Brochures

A Closer Look at the Top 8 Tools for High-Quality PDF Brochures

Adobe InDesign

Long-time users of the Adobe design suite would naturally turn to InDesign for any brochure needs. For starters, this tool integrates perfectly with all the other programs in the Adobe Creative Cloud, such as Illustrator and Photoshop. It is also the top choice for a lot of professional artists because it boasts some of the most advanced design features like alignment tools, grid systems, and typography. InDesign also excels in precision control, giving users the ability to fully tweak designs even to the smallest details. 

Because of the complexity of many of its features, Adobe InDesign is not highly recommended for beginners. They also have no free version available, as the software is only available through a monthly or annual subscription. However, they do have a 7-day free trial that will let you try out all the features at no cost.

Canva 

Canva is a very popular online design tool that can be used to create all sorts of output, from birthday invitations and social media posts to formal presentations and business logos. It is also a handy tool for designing brochures on the fly, with thousands of customizable templates in their library, as well as a massive selection of licensed photos, fonts, and other graphics that will certainly make your brochure pop. 

Canva has a very user-friendly interface and simple layout tools that beginners can easily learn. The platform also has decent collaboration features and can be accessible using any kind of device or operating system. They have a free version with limited features, which is sufficient for basic designs. Canva Pro, on the other hand, gives you full reign of all the features at only $14.99 per month.

Marq

Marq, formerly called LucidPress, is another beginner-friendly brochure design software that is surprisingly packed with a myriad of features that professional designers would also appreciate. Along with its extensive selection of pre-built templates and thousands of images and text options in different categories, Marq also has real-time collaboration and commenting tools that make it ideal for teams. 

Upon completing your brochure, you can download it as a PDF, PNG, or JPG file, preserving design perfection for printing or online posting. This design tool also integrates well with cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Drive. It comes with both a free version and a paid subscription. Some of the advanced features are only available on the paid plans.

Affinity Publisher 

If you have used Adobe programs in the past, you might notice strong similarities in Affinity Publisher in terms of layout and the overall experience. This tool is also relatively compatible with Adobe files. However, Affinity Publisher offers a lot more in terms of layout and design tools, and it also supports multiple file formats, like PDF, PSD, and AI. 

Unlike other brochure design software that comes with a regular fee, Affinity Publisher can be purchased at a one-time cost of $69.99, making it more cost-effective in the long run. Many users have noticed it to be a fast-performing software. You can also get the latest features and improvements through regular updates, which are included in the purchase price. If you are hesitant to buy, you can avail the incredible 6-month free trial and make up your mind later. 

Scribus

As an open-source design tool, Scribus is completely free to use and is accessible to anyone, making it very convenient. However, compared to many other free software that only offer limited features, Scribus offers an impressive arsenal of advanced capabilities suitable for professional desktop publishing work. You can achieve fantastic results with its ICC color management features, support for CMYK colors, and options to export into PDF.

Another great thing about Scribus is that it has an active community of users where you can get valuable support. Despite being a free service, it does not have usage restrictions, making it ideal even for commercial brochure projects. It is also highly compatible with other tools so teams won’t have problems with integration. 

Visme

One of the more popular design tools today, Visme boasts a large collection of templates, graphics, icons, and other visual elements that give your brochures an undeniable spark. It also allows for the embedding of interactive features like links or even animations, which are perfect for digital brochures. With a boatload of features, one would think it would be difficult to learn but quite the contrary, Visme is pretty easy to learn and use. 

Teams find Visme to be particularly useful because of its versatile sharing options and collaborative features. It also allows for extensive customization, although some of these capabilities are restricted to the paid subscription. 

Microsoft Publisher

Brochure designers who are well-versed in the other Microsoft products would find Publisher to be a natural choice. This tool is included with the Microsoft 365 suite, and it integrates perfectly with these other tools like Word and Excel. Much of the workflow would also be very familiar, which means not much learning is required. The drawback is that using it with other platforms can be a challenge.

In terms of design capabilities, there are plenty of high-quality templates available. You can pick from one of these templates and customize it to align with your brand or message. With Microsoft Publisher, preserving design perfection for both print and digital brochures would be a cinch. 

Venngage

Venngage is a very handy tool for crafting professional quality brochures within minutes. With its intuitive interface and extensive library of customizable templates, even users with no expert design skills will be able to whip up a sleek brochure in no time. Although this tool is capable of creating any kind of brochure, it focuses more on infographic-style output. You’d be amazed at how it can take chunks of boring, abstract data, and turn it into an exciting brochure that’s sure to have your target audience engrossed.

The free version offers plenty of tools for creating digital and print brochures. For companies and professional designers, though, the paid subscription gives access to a myriad of advanced tools and functionalities at a very reasonable price.

Inkscape

Many professional creators consider Adobe Illustrator to be the gold standard when it comes to vector design. Few would argue with that but the problem is that it is too pricey for many ordinary users. If you are looking for the capabilities of Illustrator without the steep price tag, Inkscape is the perfect solution. 

An open-source design tool, Inkscape is free for anyone to use. It is a vector graphics software that lets your imagination run wild with features like node editing, object creation and manipulation, and other robust editing tools. It is quite easy to use, and works on all the major operating systems. 

Final Thoughts

All the tools that we have mentioned above have their own unique features, and it's impossible to pinpoint the single best software for everything. Your choice would depend on your project requirements, design skills, budget, and a whole lot of other factors. Most of the tools offer a free trial, while others are entirely free to use. Take the time to explore them and find out which would cater to your needs the most.