YS2003 said:
For this question, let's forget the brand name as some of us have not-so-positive perception toward MS products.
Well, if you want honest opinions (without brand bias), then you should really not limit the choices.
First, there is no MS Publisher for Mac... given that, Publisher is a nonexistent app from my point of view.
For doing page layout on a Mac, I'm not sure that Pages is really the best choice of applications. It is a template driven app for people who don't want to come up with a layout of their own. So for that reason, Pages is below the threshold of what I would consider a page layout app.
Now, for Macs there are a number of alternatives.
My personal recommendation is
Create by
Stone Design. What is nice about Create is that it is not just a page layout app, it can also be used for illustrations and web design. It is running about $150.
On the lower end, there is
Desktop Publisher Pro (there is also a Windows version of this app) which is very much (feature wise) like early versions of PageMaker. It is running $19.95.
I have had clients make newsletters using AppleWorks (in the drawing section). While not the best app for the task, it can make nice documents. And it comes free with consumer Macs.
As you work your way up the list of more expensive apps, you have Canvas, InDesign, Illustrator (can be used for these tasks) and QuarkXPress.
So, it is not that I don't have a
positive perception towards Microsoft products in this area, it is just that there is a complete void of Microsoft products in this area.