The Best Software to Make a Zine: Five Zine Makers Compared

Since Canva’s October 2025 relaunch, Affinity is one app for Mac and Windows with vector, pixel and layout studios, free for individuals. The layout side has Smart Master Pages, shared text styles and text that flows from page to page, and it exports PDF with bleed and crop marks, as well as SVG, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and EPUB. It also opens IDML files exported from InDesign, keeping page structure, text frames and basic styles.

Because vector, pixel and layout work live in the same file, a zine that mixes type, illustration and photos never has to leave the app. The fine print, from Affinity’s own FAQ: you sign in with a Canva account, the AI tools require a premium Canva plan (a zine does not need them), and Affinity cannot export to INDD or IDML, so handing work back to an InDesign studio means sending a PDF. The iPad version is listed as coming soon, and owners of the old V2 apps can keep using them.

InDesign is Adobe’s page-layout app, and the strongest reason to choose it is the people around you: if the studio, publisher or collaborator you work with lives in InDesign, native files skip a conversion step, and Affinity can read InDesign’s IDML files but cannot write them.

The cost model is the sticking point. Adobe’s plans page lists InDesign only as a subscription, on its own or inside Creative Cloud Pro, on annual plans billed monthly, with no option to buy it outright; the price shown depends on your country. For a single zine that is a lot of overhead, and with Affinity now free the case for renting narrows to working with people who use it. Check the plans page for your country before you commit.

Canva gets you from nothing to a printable spread with little to learn, and Canva says its free plan stays free for every individual. Templates and an asset library do most of the work; for a first zine, a quick photocopied one or a collage-style piece, it is unintimidating.

The limits show at the printer. Canva works from templates and drag-and-drop elements; for precise typographic control, a layout app like Affinity gives you more to work with. Canva’s own print service checks a design for text size, elements too close to the bleed and image resolution before it prints; if you send the PDF to an outside printer instead, ask what it needs and proof a copy before a run. Check the licence of any stock element you use in a zine you sell. Canva now also owns Affinity, so the step up from drag-and-drop costs nothing.

Scribus is the choice for people who want no account and no company behind their layout tool: it is released under the GNU General Public License and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. It has the features a printer cares about: CMYK colour, ICC colour management and PDF/X-4 export. The current stable release is 1.6.6, from April 2026.

The cost is paid in time. Its interface follows its own conventions rather than those of the commercial apps, and there is no template library on the scale of Canva’s. If software freedom matters to your practice, it is the tool here that nobody can revoke; pair it with GIMP and Inkscape for a fully free pipeline.

Figma is an interface-design tool, and people use it for zines because the Starter plan is free, collaboration is built in, and laying things out is quick. For a screen-only zine, a mockup, or sketching spreads before you move to a print tool, it does the job, and real-time collaboration helps if you make something with friends.

It is not built for print. Its help centre says PDF export produces PDF 1.7 files at 1x, and the colour profiles offered on export are the file’s own, sRGB or Display P3, with no CMYK; it suggests PDFs for print design mockups. You can get a PDF out of it, but a printer that wants CMYK or PDF/X will need a conversion. Use it as a staging ground, then rebuild in Affinity, InDesign or Scribus for the run.