Call it what you will—layout, typesetting, page design—the people who do this kind of work mostly use Adobe InDesign, though some still use QuarkXpress to do their layout. Other applications that are sometimes still used are Adobe PageMaker, Corel Ventura and Adobe FrameMaker, which are practical for certain kinds of projects, but never for magazines that are rich in images. There are desktop publishing programs (for example Microsoft Publisher) that people use sometimes, but these are not appropriate for professional magazine publishing.

You’ve probably heard the adage: design amateurs borrow; design professionals steal. It is always fun to get a sense of what other designers in the magazine industry are doing with their books in terms of fonts, colour, layout, ad placement, etc., and to use these ideas in your own design. But be careful when updating your own magazine’s look—it is possible to stray too far into homage and infringe on other designers’ work. Always make your work your own.

To print your magazine, you must contract a printer. Finding a good printer and developing a business relationship makes life working on a magazine so much nicer. If you don't know where to start looking, call a few publishers whose books you admire and ask them what printer they use. (If you’re calling a big publishing company like Transcontinental, though, you might receive a short reply, as they print their own books.)

You don’t necessarily need to work with a printer in your area; you can send your print-ready files to printers anywhere via email or an FTP site. Quality and price should be your first concerns, proximity a distant second.

As a member-based organization, Magazines Canada cannot recommend or suggest any commercial services for risk of giving preferential treatment to competing businesses. To find out what printers other publishers use to their advantage, you’ll have to network and shop around.

To print anything in your magazine legally, you must obtain permission from the primary rights owner. The simple answer to this question is no.