Adobe Acrobat XI (pcmag.com)

Acrobat XI does more to simplify and streamline PDF editing and management than anything seen in a long time, and it's an essential—and reasonably priced—upgrade for all serious PDF creators.

Adobe Illustrator CS6 (pcmag.com)

Illustrator, the mammoth professional vector drawing application by Adobe, now in its 25th year, remains at the top of its class in its latest incarnation, Adobe Illustrator CS6.

Adobe InDesign CS6 (pcmag.com)

Adobe InDesign is the go-to application for page designers the world over, and the latest version goes to great lengths to help these professionals keep pace with new trends in digital publishing.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 (macworld.com)

Software upgrades come and go but the newest version of Adobe's flagship image editor, Photoshop CS6, makes you sit up and take notice.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 (macworld.com)

Adobe’s annual update to Photoshop Elements, its consumer image organizer and editor, offers a satisfying array of new features.

CorelDraw Graphics Suite X6 (cnet.com)

With a focus on both the occasional graphics user and the professional, CorelDraw Graphics Suite X6 (download) hits the market toting a wealth of tools that make manipulating graphics much simpler than before.

Microsoft Office 2013 Professional (pcworld.com)

Office 2013 introduces design refinements and usability improvements for connected users, but the price of upgrading may put off Office 2010 users who can get similar cloud functionality with free.

Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac (cnet.com)

In spite of being viewed as the "other guys" in some Mac users' minds, Microsoft has generally put out an excellent productivity suite for the Mac with Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Publisher 2010 (toptenreviews.com)

Whether you are a small business owner or design personal print projects on your home computer, Microsoft Publisher 2010 is a great product.

QuarkXPress 9 (macworld.com)

A major new capability lets you export documents to ePub format for the creation of e-books. QuarkXPress 9 understands the issues inherent in creating ePub files, and provides a good tool for doing so.