There are several ways to build a catalog, each suited to different situations.

Word

Accessible and free, but not built for catalogs. With a few dozen products, layout becomes very hard to manage and the output rarely looks professional. Fine for very simple, small catalogs.

Adobe InDesign

The print industry standard and extremely capable. But it takes time to learn and requires a subscription. If you're not a professional designer, it's probably overkill.

Canva

Simple interface and attractive templates. Its main limitation is that it isn't designed for large product catalogs — you add each product manually.

Dedicated catalog tools

Their key advantage is being data-driven: you import a product list and the layout happens automatically. For 50, 200 or 500 products the time difference is enormous.

How to choose

• Fewer than 10 products, one-off → Word or Canva
• Brand catalog with bespoke design → InDesign or a designer
• Many products, frequent updates → a dedicated catalog builder