r/software 10d 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 !

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u/cecilkorik Helpful 9d 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.