Microsoft's quick-and-easy desktop publisher meets its open-source match in Scribus, which makes it easy to design newsletters, brochures, and presentation slides from scratch, or using included templates. In addition to the usual grid, hyphenation, and typography tools, Scribus lets you export your document as a PDF file, making it a good stand-in for Adobe Acrobat, too. Scribus can't import your existing Quark or InDesign projects, however.

Note: This link takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

--Scott Spanbauer