Publishing systems/software

@cezarym99335960 

You need to describe in more detail what exactly are you looking for - just text or full layout redesign capabilities?

Then, size of your organisation - number of authors and other people who would need to have access.

Office use and / or remotely? Work on desktops or tablets / phones?

Then platform - PC or Mac or mix?

InCopy used with InDesign allows writers to write to length and to see exactly how their words are being displayed on a page. It is as scriptable as InDesign and has the same plugin architecture meaning significant functionality can be added if you have the resources. InCopy is a cheap addition to Creative Cloud if you don't already pay for it.

With a degree of vigilance over InDesign lock files, something like Dropbox can be made to work very well for smaller workgroups and not-too-demanding deadlines. (Dropbox's peer-to-peer LAN sync worked very well last time I used it in this way.)

If you need to manage a larger group of users and/or have very tight deadlines then something like Vjoon's K4 or WoodWing Studio offer some real workflow tools as well as versioning and file locking. I've used both and both work well. They both offer hosted systems. Setting them up takes significant effort and the costs are not trivial though.

If you can provide your authors with InCopy and some training/guidelines, it would be hard to find a better author/input solution specifically for InDesign production. Steve's link should tell you quite a bit about the process.

If you have less control over authors and providing them with software isn't an option, Word can be an excellent authoring tool as long as the authors either follow good practices (mainly, consistent and thorough application of styles) or you have a pre-processing/cleanup workflow between a raw Word manuscript and a managed import into InDesign. The hardest part of this option, by far, is getting a general spectrum of Word users to abandon sloppy habits and poor document construction, which Word doesn't just allow, but seems to encourage. 😛