MAPublisher

What do you like best?

The ability to quickly manipulate data and use the full power of Adobe's graphic tools, and export into industry-standard PDF and EPS files; the same cannot be said for PDF exports from GIS packages. The print-ready files retain full editability. I use it every day, and it makes my workflow possible.

What do you dislike?

The only downside is the price. It's not cheap. And the additional cost of a floating license is a bother when I'm traveling. There are some obvious defaults not enabled (when you import Lat-long data, you have to specify separately that it's in WGS84 projection, and the default markers are all in rich black rather than 100K), but these are minor annoyances.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

I am a professional cartographer, and MaPublisher in Adobe Illustrator is my workhorse tool and has been for about 15 years. It's really transformed how I make static maps: instead of building a base laboriously and manually updating it, I am able to place updated geodata into existing files and either replace data or update it by reference. It's a huge time saver. And it gives me a lot more opportunity to experiment graphically with data and layout, with the full power of Adobe's industry-standard tools.