Whitedog

It's worth noting that InDesign cannot open Word docs directly. I used an old version of Pages to open my (old) long document from AppleWorks. Then I exported the document to MS Word. After which I cut and pasted it into InDesign. What amazed me is that my style sheets survived the process more or less in tack. The issue might be for Publisher to do as well, recognizing InDesign style sheets and page layouts when text is cut and pasted from one to the other (and Word docs too). Actually opening InDesign and Word documents may be a bridge too far.
Another reason I'm interested in Publisher is that InDesign CS6 is 32bit only, if you can believe it. Whereas Photoshop CS6 is 64bit—and cannot be run in 32bit mode, as Photoshop CS5 can. The whole CS6 suite is equally schizophrenic, including numerous 32 and 64bit apps. The next version of the macOS after 10.14 Mojave will be 64 bit only. The Mojave beta throws up a warning the first time you launch a 32 bit app that it is not optimized for 10.14. macOS 10.15 won't be out till late next year, and even then no one will be compelled to upgrade their OS, but the handwriting is on the wall. InDesign CS6 is approaching EOL.
So, $50 for a standalone version of Publisher, as opposed to $20 a month for an InDesign CC subscription, is a no brainer. I looked at the online demos for Publisher and it is impressive. As well, the learning curve will apparently not be too steep.
One note of caution—and I'll post this as well on the features request forum—is that Apple's Pages now has a new and improved way to link text boxes. For a long time it lacked text box linking. Apple cut it out way back when. Well, in the latest version of Pages text box linking is back with a vengeance. Instead of the traditional lines linking boxes, which can get tedious to use to say the least, Pages now links text boxes by the numbers, with different threads with different color tabs so you can easily tell what you are linking to. You can change the numbers to move boxes around and even change thread colors. This may be one of the greatest innovations in desktop publishing in years. IMO Serif would do well to sit up and take notice of this new approach. Who knows if Adobe will. And, at this point, who cares.

Thanks, indeed. This is a remarkable bit of marketing. Performing a public service while at the same time, perhaps, creating some mindshare that will sell the product in the future, past the Coronavirus scare. Kudos for thinking outside the box.

Thinks for this great update. The problem I had earlier opening my long form document (over 400 pages) was solved. Publisher 1.8.1 opened the IDML file almost immediately. Not to mention it launches very quickly in mac OS 10.14 Mojave. And once I saved it in the afpub format, it reopens almost instantly. Excellent update, and I haven't even tried all the new features yet. But now that I can work on my book in Publisher, I'm sure I'll find them handy as well. As for exporting to the IDML format, I can see where that would be useful. But for now I'm a happy camper. I can move my work to the newer versions of the Mac OS without worry about compatibility. Interesting that the new integrated toolbar is only available in Mojave and above. That suggests that other new features may be linked to newer versions of the Mac OS. For now I'm avoiding Catalina because of the exclusion of 32 bit apps. But Publisher may remove at least some of my concerns on that count. Even so, I'll have to save a version of the Mac OS that still handles 32 bit. I'll need another external SSD for that job, as HDDs now seem slow in comparison.
As for the download, I didn't do mine until I got the e-mail from Serif announcing the 1.8.1 updates. The auto update in the older version of Publisher worked fine for me. But then, I was using Serif's server, not Apple's. I try to avoid the App Store for larger, more complex programs, like Publisher and Lightroom. YMMV.

Right. That is why most service bureaus support multiple applications, Word, QuarkXpress, and InDesign at a minimum. InDesign may be the most commonly used layout design application among professional and semi-pro designers, eclipsing Quark, but it is far from an "industry standard." Industry standard is nothing more than a vanity plate. There are no standards organizations that pick winners and losers like that. Indeed, docx is far closer to an industry standard than indd. Of course, not too many designers work in Word, but plenty of regular users do.
I would expect Serif is working on Publisher compatibility with Quark and Word as well as InDesign. It can hardly be a competent publishing app without supporting import of the most common document formats. And, it goes without saying, that RTF will/is supported.

There does not appear to be a thread on this topic yet so I'll start one. Apple's Pages now has a new and improved way to link text boxes. For a long time it lacked text box linking. Apple cut it out way back when. Well, in the latest version text box linking is back with a vengeance. Instead of the traditional lines linking boxes, which can get tedious to use to say the least, Pages now links text boxes by the numbers, with different threads with different color tabs so you can easily tell what you are linking to. You can change the numbers to move boxes around and even change thread colors. This may be one of the greatest innovations in desktop publishing in years. IMO Serif would do well to sit up and take notice of this new approach.

Indd and idml are not 'almost the same." While I admit I've confused the two in the past, the fact is that indd and idml are significantly different formats. It is, for all practical purposes, impossible for a third-party app to open indd files, which are in a proprietary Adobe format. IDML, on the other hand, is a conversion format that InDesign can produce so that third party apps can open InDesign documents. It is this latter capability that we have been talking about and waiting for. Unfortunately, the release version of Publisher does not yet have this capability. Needless to say, I am disappointed. And Serif has not yet informed us when it will be added. So, though I bought the release version of Publisher at the pre-release price, I will have to continue to use InDesign CS 6. Fortunately I am still running macOS 10.12, Sierra, so that won't be a problem. Sooner or later, though....

How viable Publisher may be is certainly up to debate. And for some it may never be suitable. For many others, who are tired, or cannot afford it in the first place, of paying for Adobe subscriptions, Publisher will be an attractive alternative. It's not a zero sum game. InDesign may continue to prosper while Publisher grabs it's own share of the market. However, the price differential is dramatic. Those who cannot afford InDesign CC will scoop it up. Unfortunately, InDesign CS6 is not a 64 bit app (unlike Photoshop CS6) so it will eventually become unusable—on the Mac, at least, when macOS 10.15 comes out late next year. Of course there's no law saying you have to upgrade your OS. Apple will continue to support High Sierra for another year past that and Mojave for two more years. So if you are concerned about security, you can still use InDesign CS6 through 2021. If, as is the case with many, you don't pay that much attention to security in your (Mac) OS, the horizon is effectively unlimited.
Which means you can retain InDesign CS6, if you are using it, while migrating to Publisher to avoid both the obsolescence of CS6 and the cost of InDesign CC.
As far as I know, there is no published deadline for 32 bit apps on Windows, so CS6 will remain usable indefinitely (correct me if I'm wrong).
Still, CS6 is no longer growing, while InDesign CC and Publisher are. If your workflow is settled, this may not matter. But if you are a dynamic designer, you will need to keep up with the Jones's, so to speak, so Quark Xpress, Indesign CC or Publisher will be your primary choices going forward.
Unless Adobe lowers the price of InDesign to an attractive level, as it has done with Photoshop and Lightroom, I will be migrating to Publisher. By the way, the latest beta, while it contains may fixes and improvements, does not yet include InDesign compatibility, let alone Quark. Hopefully this will come before the final release of Publisher, or that event will be overshadowed by its absence.

There are (at least) two distinct markets for InDesign. The large volume publisher/printer who can account for the expense of a Creative Cloud subscription at marginal cost to their clients, and the small margin pro/sumer market where the expense is hard to manage. Many of these, including myself, have stuck with InDesign (and Photoshop, etc.) CS6 because they cannot afford the ongoing cost of CC. The first group will have little if any incentive to move to another publishing suite. For the rest of us, for whom CC is out of reach, Affinity Publisher will have great appeal, even with possible conversion issues. Taken together with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer it may easily supplant Adobe in this secondary market. Not that Adobe will mind as they have ceased to care about entry level users.
There was a time when you could get Adobe programs with a student discount and continue to use them until you established yourself professionally and needed an upgrade. Now, when you are no longer a student, you are stuck with the full cost of a CC subscription immediately, whether you can afford it or not. Adobe no doubt sees this as a way to hold on to customers; their customers may see it as an incentive to find an alternative to Adobe as soon as possible. That would seem to be a perfect niche for Affinity. The ex-student will have a modest investment in Adobe centered assets; migrating to Affinity will be relatively easy and certainly far less expensive. As far as I know, the Affinity suite is the only substantial alternative to Adobe's publishing and design programs. To replace Dreamweaver there are innumerable web design apps, including the ever more popular WordPress; for audio and video there are powerful programs from Apple that can compete with Premier, et al. This won't help those using Windows PCs, but they probably have alternatives of which I am unaware.
It is my humble hope that Serif will help break up the Adobe monopoly among creative amateurs and professionals alike. May the force be with them.

Too bad I didn't work for you, or someone like you. I was fired because I took too long to write code—because I included comments. I commented my code so I could follow what I was doing. I was also directed on another job to figure out where the flaw was in a batch of code that was not commented. There was no one in the shop who could tell me what it was even supposed to do so I had to outline it to figure it out. I was too slow there, as well. My boss was an idiot who thought I should somehow know, by osmosis I guess.

On an unrelated note, I just noticed, with the latest update, how large Publisher is. Over a terabyte, three times larger than InDesign CS 6. This gives me to wonder about the applications's operating efficiency. Just a thought.

Flash still works in the Mac OS. It's in iOS that Apple banned Flash, primarily because when the iPhone was first released it didn't have the horsepower to support Flash, which was and is resource intensive. Now that the iPhone does have the horsepower, Flash has been deprecated, even by Adobe, who plan to kill it off entirely in the near future, because, well, the Internet has moved on, just as Steve Jobs said it would. You may still be able to buy a PC with a floppy drive, but you'll have a hard time finding any media to use in it. Apple is not often ahead of the curve any more, but they pioneered the idea of abandoning inefficient technologies for newer and better ones. 
As for Apple forcing people, that is particularly true with the iOS ecosphere. Of course they do so on the Mac as well, but not quite as extensively. But then, Microsoft used to have that reputation, in spades, and they were liberally sued over restraint of trade issues and had to pull in their horns dramatically. But then Apple does not, even now, have the kind of market dominance that Microsoft did and still does. Not even close. Even so, Microsoft still gets off on denigrating Apple, even though they have much more serious competitors, like Google. Windows fanboys still have the habit.
A lot of the seemingly inscrutable business decisions in Big Tech have to do with keeping their products competitive. Oh, and stealing your personal information and selling it. Something, by the way, that Apple, alone among the bit 5, does not do.
By the way, not even Adobe CS6 is all 64 bit. Photoshop and Illustrator are. Dreamweaver and InDesign are not. If Adobe were going to upgrade any products to 64 bit it would be those. Not CS 4 or 5. There would be not profit in upgrading those. If you want to continue using CS4, install OS X 10.9 in VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop and run CS4 from there. That's what I will probably be doing, eventually.
The real problem with companies not serving the interests of their customers has to do with the size of their business, not actual intention. Small companies are usually more light on their feet as regards customer concerns. The bigger they are, the higher off the ground the executive suite is and the more isolated executives are from their user base. So they get careless, though only occasionally does that result in damage to the company, as was the case with Quark and Blackberry. Others run into trouble with the government, as happened with Microsoft and now is happening to Google, Facebook and Twitter. The days when the Google motto to do no evil was in vogue are long gone. One could say that they ended with Google's IPO. Socialism provided some leverage against capitalist excess, but then we had socialist excess, as in the 35 hour work week in France, which they are unwilling to give up, even for the obvious good of the country. But I'm getting off topic. I only wanted to explain why companies so often seem to be deaf to their customers's concerns. And gigantism is the main cause, in my opinion.

Flash still works in the Mac OS. It's in iOS that Apple banned Flash, primarily because when the iPhone was first released it didn't have the horsepower to support Flash, which was and is resource intensive. Now that the iPhone does have the horsepower, Flash has been deprecated, even by Adobe, who plan to kill it off entirely in the near future, because, well, the Internet has moved on, just as Steve Jobs said it would. You may still be able to buy a PC with a floppy drive, but you'll have a hard time finding any media to use in it. Apple is not often ahead of the curve any more, but they pioneered the idea of abandoning inefficient technologies for newer and better ones. 
As for Apple forcing people, that is particularly true with the iOS ecosphere. Of course they do so on the Mac as well, but not quite as extensively. But then, Microsoft used to have that reputation, in spades, and they were liberally sued over restraint of trade issues and had to pull in their horns dramatically. But then Apple does not, even now, have the kind of market dominance that Microsoft did and still does. Not even close. Even so, Microsoft still gets off on denigrating Apple, even though they have much more serious competitors, like Google. Windows fanboys still have the habit.
A lot of the seemingly inscrutable business decisions in Big Tech have to do with keeping their products competitive. Oh, and stealing your personal information and selling it. Something, by the way, that Apple, alone among the bit 5, does not do.
By the way, not even Adobe CS6 is all 64 bit. Photoshop and Illustrator are. Dreamweaver and InDesign are not. If Adobe were going to upgrade any products to 64 bit it would be those. Not CS 4 or 5. There would be not profit in upgrading those. If you want to continue using CS4, install OS X 10.9 in VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop and run CS4 from there. That's what I will probably be doing, eventually.
The real problem with companies not serving the interests of their customers has to do with the size of their business, not actual intention. Small companies are usually more light on their feet as regards customer concerns. The bigger they are, the higher off the ground the executive suite is and the more isolated executives are from their user base. So they get careless, though only occasionally does that result in damage to the company, as was the case with Quark and Blackberry. Others run into trouble with the government, as happened with Microsoft and now is happening to Google, Facebook and Twitter. The days when the Google motto to do no evil was in vogue are long gone. One could say that they ended with Google's IPO. Socialism provided some leverage against capitalist excess, but then we had socialist excess, as in the 35 hour work week in France, which they are unwilling to give up, even for the obvious good of the country. But I'm getting off topic. I only wanted to explain why companies so often seem to be deaf to their customers's concerns. And gigantism is the main cause, in my opinion.

Adobe didn't kill Quark. Quark killed Quark. They made some exceedingly stupid decisions and let InDesign steal a march on them with appealing and useful features. Among other things InDesign was first with OS X support on the Mac. It wasn't until Quark was reorganized that they finally woke up to their peril. But by then it was too late. InDesign had replaced Quark in dominant mind share and market share. And, of course, it was integrated into Adobe's CS suite, which included Photoshop and Illustrator. Adobe also began expanding their graphic design footprint, picking up Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash from Macromedia.
QuarkXPress is still a viable app and preceded InDesign into e-publishing. That was an advantage for awhile. Now, of course, InDesign supports e-publishing more or less effectively. But, besides Serif and others on the graphic design front, WordPress is gobbling up space in blogging and web design. Of course there are other players in those fields as well so that Dreamweaver is not as essential as it once was.
Adobe has alienated a lot of people with their subscription software model, but they are hardly the Anti-Christ. In contrast to Quark they've made some excellent marketing decisions. For example, when Apple came out with Aperture, focusing specifically on digital photography, they offered no trial period. It was a unique app for a short time so some people ponied up Apple's asking price of $500. Then Lightroom came out in a mature beta which they provided for free for almost a year until version one came out. And then they undercut Apple's price by $200. By the time I paid $300 for the first full release of Lightroom I had been using it free for a year. Apple ended up cutting the price of Aperture and rebating the difference to their original customers, and providing a trial period for Aperture. But by then Lightroom had done to Aperture what InDesign did to Quark: They had the lions' share of the digital photography market. And they cut the price in half and set upgrades even lower. Apple never recovered from their stumbling start and development on Aperture lagged. Like Quark, Apple decided not to compete. Unlike Quark with XPress, though, Apple abandoned Aperture. Now Lightroom has moved onto the iPhone and the iPad, and Photoshop just joined it there. Apple has plenty of other fish to fry so they are cooperating with Adobe in this (as they've often done before). After all, Lightroom on the iPhone and Photoshop on the iPad can only help iPhone and iPad sales, which is where Apple really makes their money. Other than macOS X, software has always been a side show with Apple. For Adobe, software is their bread and butter.
I avoided the Creative Cloud for a long time but they offer their Photography suite for $10 a month so I finally bit the bullet. Lightroom Classic for the desktop, Lightroom CC for the iPhone (and the desktop—and the cloud) and Photoshop CC. But InDesign has no comparable discount. Hence my interest in Affinity Publisher.

You don't need Sun Tzu or Machiavelli to work out Adobe's business strategy on this point. For one thing, Publisher won't represent any kind of a threat to Adobe for some time to come—if it ever does. If they change the INDD file format it will probably be for reasons having nothing to do with Affinity Publisher, which is not yet out of beta. Adobe already provides a more or less universal version for InDesign files with the IMDL format, which permits collaboration between people using differing versions of InDesign, and some non-Adobe applications as well.
If Publisher can handle IMDL files they won't have to bother with INDD, supposing it's as tricky as some folks here suggest.
On another topic, some have put in a claim for Quark XPress compatibility. Supposing Serif considers that important, if you wan't some insight into why Quark is so much less important than it once was, check out this detailed article in ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darling/. It turns out there was a lot I didn't know on the subject, in particular how InDesign spanked Quark on important feature development. For instance, in the subtle case of hanging type and not so subtle support for OpenType. And much else besides. Now, of course, Adobe has become complacent and, some feel, negligent of customer concerns. Though, in my opinion, Adobe has a long way to go to be as arrogant as Quark once was. And they are hardly resting on their laurels; consider Lightroom on the iPhone and Photoshop on the iPad. Of course the problem with Quark XPress is that it is still prohibitively expensive. If you add in the cost of the occasional upgrade for Quark, the price of InDesign CC is not nearly so daunting.
Of course we may only guess that Affinity Publisher will be priced the same as Affinity Photo and Designer. If it is, and if it is relatively feature complete when it comes out of beta, then it will have great appeal for those, like me, looking to break with, or avoid Adobe—and Quark. As for those with established InDesign workflows, the issue is more problematic.

You don't need Sun Tzu or Machiavelli to work out Adobe's business strategy on this point. For one thing, Publisher won't represent any kind of a threat to Adobe for some time to come—if it ever does. If they change the INDD file format it will probably be for reasons having nothing to do with Affinity Publisher, which is not yet out of beta. Adobe already provides a more or less universal version for InDesign files with the IMDL format, which permits collaboration between people using differing versions of InDesign, and some non-Adobe applications as well.
If Publisher can handle IMDL files they won't have to bother with INDD, supposing it's as tricky as some folks here suggest.
On another topic, some have put in a claim for Quark XPress compatibility. Supposing Serif considers that important, if you wan't some insight into why Quark is so much less important than it once was, check out this detailed article in ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/quarkxpress-the-demise-of-a-design-desk-darling/. It turns out there was a lot I didn't know on the subject, in particular how InDesign spanked Quark on important feature development. For instance, in the subtle case of hanging type and not so subtle support for OpenType. And much else besides. Now, of course, Adobe has become complacent and, some feel, negligent of customer concerns. Though, in my opinion, Adobe has a long way to go to be as arrogant as Quark once was. And they are hardly resting on their laurels; consider Lightroom on the iPhone and Photoshop on the iPad. Of course the problem with Quark XPress is that it is still prohibitively expensive. If you add in the cost of the occasional upgrade for Quark, the price of InDesign CC is not nearly so daunting.
Of course we may only guess that Affinity Publisher will be priced the same as Affinity Photo and Designer. If it is, and if it is relatively feature complete when it comes out of beta, then it will have great appeal for those, like me, looking to break with, or avoid Adobe—and Quark. As for those with established InDesign workflows, the issue is more problematic.

Which is one reason, besides the price, I have not upgraded to InDesign CC. And it's why I'm looking to Publisher going forward. In the meantime, I still use InDesign CS6. Unfortunately it's not a 64 bit app on the Mac. But I won't have to worry about that for awhile; I'm still using macOS 10.12.6 Sierra. For that matter, even 10.14 Mojave still supports 32 bit apps, however grudgingly. The only Adobe app I still need is Lightroom because I have so many legacy files which Affinity Photo can't handle. But it's not expensive, unlike InDesign.
So, for me the question will be, will Publisher be able to handle, one way or another, InDesign CS6 files which, after all, are stable not not subject to change?

Right on. Nostalgia is overrated.
I started with Photoshop 2.5 on a Mac. It was great because I'd never done graphics on a computer before. But it doesn't hold a candle to Photoshop today. And though Photoshop now is orders of magnitude more complex than Photoshop 2.5, it's just as easy to learn because I've been using Photoshop for 20 years. The learning curve is relative.
Which is why I was able to teach myself InDesign because I'd learned Pagemaker and Quark XPress first—in a school environment. Just so many people will find Publisher easy to learn because they've developed expertise in other layout programs.
Now, if you are starting out to learn any of these programs from scratch, they will be difficult to master. A class or two at your local junior collage is easily the best way to learn, in my opinion. Even though a how-to book might suffice, you can't ask it questions, or get inspiration and motivation as you can from fellow students. I have plenty of how-to books but I use them for reference once I've left the classroom. In a class, you learn from other student's mistakes as well as your own. By the way, avoid crash courses. They skip a lot to get the job done in a limited time frame. Unless you're super smart, like most people you can't absorb information fast enough. Which is why college quarters and semesters are as long as they are. It takes time and effort for most people to learn new stuff. Personally I prefer semesters. YMMV. If learning comes easy to you, that's cool, but you're not most people.
In practical terms, old software just can't cut it today. If you do layout and design for a living, you need something approaching the latest software. That's why people keep their nostalgia in the basement under the cobwebs.

There are (at least) two distinct markets for InDesign. The large volume publisher/printer who can account for the expense of a Creative Cloud subscription at marginal cost to their clients, and the small margin pro/sumer market where the expense is hard to manage. Many of these, including myself, have stuck with InDesign (and Photoshop, etc.) CS6 because they cannot afford the ongoing cost of CC. The first group will have little if any incentive to move to another publishing suite. For the rest of us, for whom CC is out of reach, Affinity Publisher will have great appeal, even with possible conversion issues. Taken together with Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer it may easily supplant Adobe in this secondary market. Not that Adobe will mind as they have ceased to care about entry level users.
There was a time when you could get Adobe programs with a student discount and continue to use them until you established yourself professionally and needed an upgrade. Now, when you are no longer a student, you are stuck with the full cost of a CC subscription immediately, whether you can afford it or not. Adobe no doubt sees this as a way to hold on to customers; their customers may see it as an incentive to find an alternative to Adobe as soon as possible. That would seem to be a perfect niche for Affinity. The ex-student will have a modest investment in Adobe centered assets; migrating to Affinity will be relatively easy and certainly far less expensive. As far as I know, the Affinity suite is the only substantial alternative to Adobe's publishing and design programs. To replace Dreamweaver there are innumerable web design apps, including the ever more popular WordPress; for audio and video there are powerful programs from Apple that can compete with Premier, et al. This won't help those using Windows PCs, but they probably have alternatives of which I am unaware.
It is my humble hope that Serif will help break up the Adobe monopoly among creative amateurs and professionals alike. May the force be with them.

Does that mean that if I have InDesign CC files, if I save them as IDML, that I can open them in, InDesign CS6 or earlier? If so, that would enable one to stop a CC subscription and nevertheless be able to open CC files, if they are saved in IDML.

The solution for any clients is to send a PDF to the contractor. Of course that is an extra step that many choose not to use. But printing a PDF on a laser printer in house is a good way to proof your color and other critical settings. If it works on the in-house (color) laser, chances are excellent it will print OK at the service bureau.

How viable Publisher may be is certainly up to debate. And for some it may never be suitable. For many others, who are tired, or cannot afford it in the first place, of paying for Adobe subscriptions, Publisher will be an attractive alternative. It's not a zero sum game. InDesign may continue to prosper while Publisher grabs it's own share of the market. However, the price differential is dramatic. Those who cannot afford InDesign CC will scoop it up. Unfortunately, InDesign CS6 is not a 64 bit app (unlike Photoshop CS6) so it will eventually become unusable—on the Mac, at least, when macOS 10.15 comes out late next year. Of course there's no law saying you have to upgrade your OS. Apple will continue to support High Sierra for another year past that and Mojave for two more years. So if you are concerned about security, you can still use InDesign CS6 through 2021. If, as is the case with many, you don't pay that much attention to security in your (Mac) OS, the horizon is effectively unlimited.
Which means you can retain InDesign CS6, if you are using it, while migrating to Publisher to avoid both the obsolescence of CS6 and the cost of InDesign CC.
As far as I know, there is no published deadline for 32 bit apps on Windows, so CS6 will remain usable indefinitely (correct me if I'm wrong).
Still, CS6 is no longer growing, while InDesign CC and Publisher are. If your workflow is settled, this may not matter. But if you are a dynamic designer, you will need to keep up with the Jones's, so to speak, so Quark Xpress, Indesign CC or Publisher will be your primary choices going forward.
Unless Adobe lowers the price of InDesign to an attractive level, as it has done with Photoshop and Lightroom, I will be migrating to Publisher. By the way, the latest beta, while it contains may fixes and improvements, does not yet include InDesign compatibility, let alone Quark. Hopefully this will come before the final release of Publisher, or that event will be overshadowed by its absence.

How viable Publisher may be is certainly up to debate. And for some it may never be suitable. For many others, who are tired, or cannot afford it in the first place, of paying for Adobe subscriptions, Publisher will be an attractive alternative. It's not a zero sum game. InDesign may continue to prosper while Publisher grabs it's own share of the market. However, the price differential is dramatic. Those who cannot afford InDesign CC will scoop it up. Unfortunately, InDesign CS6 is not a 64 bit app (unlike Photoshop CS6) so it will eventually become unusable—on the Mac, at least, when macOS 10.15 comes out late next year. Of course there's no law saying you have to upgrade your OS. Apple will continue to support High Sierra for another year past that and Mojave for two more years. So if you are concerned about security, you can still use InDesign CS6 through 2021. If, as is the case with many, you don't pay that much attention to security in your (Mac) OS, the horizon is effectively unlimited.
Which means you can retain InDesign CS6, if you are using it, while migrating to Publisher to avoid both the obsolescence of CS6 and the cost of InDesign CC.
As far as I know, there is no published deadline for 32 bit apps on Windows, so CS6 will remain usable indefinitely (correct me if I'm wrong).
Still, CS6 is no longer growing, while InDesign CC and Publisher are. If your workflow is settled, this may not matter. But if you are a dynamic designer, you will need to keep up with the Jones's, so to speak, so Quark Xpress, Indesign CC or Publisher will be your primary choices going forward.
Unless Adobe lowers the price of InDesign to an attractive level, as it has done with Photoshop and Lightroom, I will be migrating to Publisher. By the way, the latest beta, while it contains may fixes and improvements, does not yet include InDesign compatibility, let alone Quark. Hopefully this will come before the final release of Publisher, or that event will be overshadowed by its absence.

Exactly. A PDF won't include your styles sheets and edits from InDesign. PDFs are generally part of a proof and print workflow. Without the ability to import InDesign documents more or less intact, Publisher will be dead in the water. If you can't migrate from InDesign, Publisher is useless as an InDesign alternative. Once it can handle InDesign docs, then Katy bar the door. Why to you think Adobe offers their Photo Package, including Lightroom and Photoshop, so inexpensively? Obviously they are feeling the heat. It will be interesting to see if InDesign comes down in price once Publisher is cutting their water. If you need InDesign's e-publishing features no doubt you hope so. Otherwise, Publisher looks great. If you have not done so already, take a look at their online tutorials. They cover Publisher pretty thoroughly.

There does not appear to be a thread on this topic yet so I'll start one. Apple's Pages now has a new and improved way to link text boxes. For a long time it lacked text box linking. Apple cut it out way back when. Well, in the latest version text box linking is back with a vengeance. Instead of the traditional lines linking boxes, which can get tedious to use to say the least, Pages now links text boxes by the numbers, with different threads with different color tabs so you can easily tell what you are linking to. You can change the numbers to move boxes around and even change thread colors. This may be one of the greatest innovations in desktop publishing in years. IMO Serif would do well to sit up and take notice of this new approach.