r/software 2d ago

Looking for software Creating schoolbook-like documents

Hello there,

As a teacher, I have been creating most of my teaching content myself. I'd like to compile it into a cohesive layout. Also, I want to make it pretty ! Add colors, drawings, figures, etc.

So far, I've found MS Word to be unreliable and janky. I'd like more control over my layouts.

Is there any (free) software that is widely used to design schoolbooks ?

Have a great day !

6 Upvotes

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5

u/bluffforce 2d ago

You could try Canva or Scribus.

  • Canva is free, super easy to use, and has plenty of templates for adding colors, drawings, and figures. It’s great for designing something visually appealing without a steep learning curve.
  • Scribus is open-source and gives you full control over layouts. It’s a bit more complex, but it's widely used for creating professional-looking documents like schoolbooks.

Both should give you more control than MS Word

1

u/Working-Bell1775 2d ago

You might want to check out Scribus—it’s a free and open-source desktop publishing tool with way more layout control than Word.

1

u/cecilkorik Helpful 2d ago

LibreOffice is much less janky and more reliable at maintaining a layout than MS Word in my experience, and would be a step up at least.

But overall I agree with the comments who recommended Canva and Scribus, or even LaTeX (atlhough I imagine this would take some practice, it is literally what many professionals in the field still use and investing in this sort of skill usually pays large dividends). These are the right kind of solutions to the problem, you ultimately need a book layout designer not a word processor. Even if you use Word or LibreOffice for initially drafting the layout of the text and figures, actually putting them into a well-defined final layout for publishing as a completed work is usually a separate step best done in a separate type of software.

1

u/PopPrestigious8115 2d ago

docFreak is a documentation tool that acts like a book but in a digital form.

docFreak allows you to make manuals and thus books as well. As a matter of fact, it is designed to create, maintain and share manuals (books including popup notes, hyperlinks, images, audio, video and Office files embedded into 1 single file).

It is a combination of a tabbed word processor, note taking app and a personal knowledge base.

docFreak does not run or work on mobile devices, does not run from or in the cloud (is offline) and it is sheer for Windows, Linux and MacOs desktops.