Master PDF Editor is a comprehensive PDF editor for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it seems pretty capable. ![]() It's made by a German pre-press software firm, so they have considerable commercial print experience. There's also VivaDesigner, which comes in free and paid-for versions (€129). Scribus is 'surprisingly good', and can open Indesign. ![]() Other competitors on the Mac include Pixelmator Pro.Īpart from Affinity, there are a couple of other good DTP apps. Affinity Photo is perhaps superior: and if you're using it for bitmap image editing and creation, then the PDF import problem is not an issue. GIMP is the standard open-source app, which works on all platforms. (Tip: you may need to ungroup everything before you can select individual items.) But it works well, and the visuals are familiar to Illustrator users. It only imports the first page of a PDF, so you'll need to split and rejoin the pages before and after editing (but that's easily done). A few tests show that it accurately outlines all the fonts, leaving you with editable vector objects. It used to be called "iDraw", but has changed owners. On the Mac, one artwork editor that does import PDFs of music is "Graphic" by Picta Inc. Future versions plan 'standalone' installation. Currently, on the Mac, it either needs to be run within XQuartz, or built using HomeBrew or MacPorts, which may be off-putting. Inkscape is the leading open-source package, for all platforms, but I haven't tried it. This may rule them out for many here, for the time being. This makes it impossible to place a PDF of music on a page, or edit the notation in a PDF to produce something beyond what notation apps can offer. However, they do have some quirks, not least of which is their inability to import PDFs accurately. ![]() There are versions for Mac, Windows, and iPad. And each one is available to buy at around the cost of one month of Adobe rental. Without doubt, Serif's Affinity suite have taken on the mantle (or picked up the gauntlet?) as professional vector artwork, photo editing and DTP tools. I can't speak much for Windows tools: I've focused on cross-platform apps, with the occasional Mac app. I thought I'd round up my findings of the various competitors, as music publishers often need other creative tools. Refugees from Adobe's subscription pricing may be looking for alternatives to Creative Cloud apps, particularly as old Creative Suite apps are coming to the end of their useful life.
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