InDesign, as SKedi says, is a graphic design tool. If you want something Word-like, try OpenOffice Writer. If you want something closer to Quark, try Scribus.

For a large doc check out the OpenOffice suite. Oh, BTW, its free...

Something like Adobe Framemaker may be what you are looking for to handle very large documents.

I'm sorry, but I disagree that InDesign is a "graphic design" tool. I'm not sure where people are getting that information from, but it's completely untrue. To the contrary, it is a desktop publishing program. It is the same exact type of program as Quark, however, InDesign is an Adobe product. Sure, people use it to create brochures, newsletters, layouts. But it is NOT a graphic design program in any sort of way. You have to design your graphics in PhotoShop (or whereever) and import those graphics into InDesign. It offers much more flexibility than Word to do layouts appropriately and for professional publication.

InDesign is a GREAT program for desktop publishing. It comes with all sorts of pre-sets for different types of publications you want to produce. As a matter of fact, I am producing 2 different training documents in InDesign right now that I am having sent to a professional publisher/printer. InDesign is becoming as popular as Quark for this purpose.

I recommend visiting Adobe's website for any questions about InDesign and its capabilities. Adobe's website also has a great deal of online video tutorials you can view to learn the program. Another GREAT resource is lynda.com. If you sign up for a membership there, you will have in-depth instruction/classes for a large array of software programs.... just about anything you use.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: NashvilleConsultant,

I know some trainers who prefer Microsoft Publisher to Word for large documents. It allows much greater flexibility for layout and is designed to handle the graphic intensity that sometimes causes Word to "get really goofy". (Having experienced that phenomenon, I'd have to say you were being generous!)

I have not used Publisher for this purpose - largely because it's not supported by my organization as standard software, which causes problems for us related to reviews. So I continue to use Word and just try to keep my file sizes down.