A Printshop Equivalent for Unix?

mcorliss asks: "I'm trying to convince my wife to switch from Windows to Linux. However, one program she loves is Broderbund's PrintShop, which I haven't found a Linux equivalent of yet. Does anyone know of such a product, preferably one that's free and fairly easy to use?" For banner creation, there's Gozer and AAType, but they aren't the easiest of things to use. Unless you consider The GIMP, software for designing greeting cards (another PrintShop specialty) seems to not have appeared for Unix. So is there an all-around equivalent for PrintShop for Unix users? If not, can you get close to that same functionality using a specific set of Open Source software? If it turns out neither of the first two questions produce encouraging answers, would anyone be interested in starting an Open Source project to fill this niche?

Comments

Same thing..

[Perdo]

My Aunt is a bigtime print shop poweruser. She gets updates in the mail. They send her reams and reams of disks. I swear she can do things with it that can't be done in Photoshop...

The sad part is, she has actually shown a strong intrest in Linux.

I tried to get Print shop running under wine but was stopped dead by what else, Linux's dismal printer support.

You want to get mad, try loosing all your formatting in a program that essentially does nothing more than formatting.

I think that is the key though. Print shop does little but formatting, with some stock pictures, formatting templates and a heavy dose of ease of use thrown in.

Keep that in mind if you think of something that might work. Whatever replaces print shop, must replace print shop, not quark.

Why Free?

[rudy_wayne]

PrintShop isn't free, but you use it. Why must a Linux program be free?

This attitude explains why there are so few Linux versions of software.

Why switch?

[sql*kitten]

I'm trying to convince my wife to switch from Windows to Linux. However, one program she loves is Broderbund's PrintShop, which I haven't found a Linux equivalent of yet

One thing you need to ask yourself is why, if her Windows software does what she needs, do you want her to switch? Remember that what is the right solution for one person, such as yourself, may well not be right for someone else. Are you trying to convince her for an ideological reason of your own, to "convert" her? Because that just sounds like a recipe for strife, particularly since dual-booting is so easy these days.

Can you spare $300?

[LordNimon]

VMWare costs $300, half that if you're a student. You can set it up so that whenever she launches VMWare, it automatically launches PrintShop. That way, she can use Linux for everything but PrintShop.

The question is, is that worth $300 to you?

Another Thing Linux Needs To Fix

[reallocate]

That's another part of the dogma that keeps Linux off desktops. Software can be developed for any bloody platform, not just Linux. When someone says 'Oh boy! Linux gives me the freedom to develop any app I want!", they're just mouthing disingenuous propaganda.

What potential Linux users hear is this: "If I want that program, I'll have to learn to program myself, or wait for some anonymous Linux developers to do it for me."

So the choice becomes:

1. Quit my day job and take a couple of years learning to be a competent developer;
2. Wait for someone else to write what I want for Linux;
3. Keep on using a commercial platform and shop around.

Guess which option wins.