What's the best desktop publishing software to use with databases?

[pokey]

I have to lay out a nice catalog from a huge database and I need to use something that will let me import from a database. I have never used Pagemaker and I suspect it's what I'm looking for but is there a cheaper alternative that will allow me to do that?

[Bippy the Beardless]

It is usually straight forward to get the output from a database into excel format, so any desktop publishing software that can do a good job with excel formatted data should be fine. I must state though I know nothing about desktop publishing, just lots about moving data from database to database and database to displayable formats.

[AHunter3]

What platform and what database? If you're in FileMaker, most people go with Quark (even though it's outrageously expensive :() because you can generate AppleScripts from within FileMaker to auto-generate the Quark documents, specifying the size, the bleed, trim, and safety margin-lines, the images, their resolution and orientation, text boxes including content, font, color, size, & placement, and so on. Quark is so AppleScriptable its almost scary.

[pokey]

I'm using Windows and it wil be Access. I have Quark but when I looked at xtensions to use with databases they were all extremely expensive. Even more than Pagemaker 7 which has it built in to do database publishing. I am toying with the idea of doing each page in Excel with the fonts I want, and then just importing them page by page into my Quark project as objects but it seems like I will spend so much time doing it that way that I may as well get Pagemaker. I just wonder if there is some obvious and cheap alternative that I don't know about.

[Omniscient]

Just curious, can you define "desktop publishing" to me?

[Pork Rind]

Quark is so AppleScriptable its almost scary.

...and InDesign is so AppleScriptable that it makes Quark look downright retarded.

[initech]

InDesign also has facilities to build pages from XML data, although I haven't played with it. Quark is so 90's...