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Scribus 1.0 Released
McShazbot writes "Graphics.com has this article about the release of Scribus 1.0 (homepage, mirror) desktop publishing software. Check out some screenshots. If it can even marginally compete with the industry leader, this is a big deal -- I know a lot of people for whom Quark is the killer app that prevents them from moving to Linux, and most of them are tired of paying a grand for the privilege of using it."
For Mac OS X users, there is a version of Scribus (RC1 of 1.0, I believe.) in fink-unstable. Not the latest version (and not stable of course), but might be worth a look-see.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Here.
- A modern user friendly interface developed with Qt. Scribus can run on Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, BSD and soon Mac OSX. An experimental version running on KDE-Cygwin and Windows 2000 is in testing.
- Unicode support including support for right to left scripts.
- Can export CMYK separations and "press-ready" PDF including PDF 1.4 features such as transparency.
- The only DTP application to create fully ISO compliant PDF/X-3 files.
- A powerful PDF export engine capable of creating fully interactive PDF forms, presentation effects and encrypted PDF.
- ICC color management via the littlecms color management engine.
- Extended Matrix e-business infomediaries capability
- Exports high-quality PDF, SVG and EPS.
- Powerful cross-platform Python Scripting language extending Scribus functions and automating tasks, as well as calling external applications within Scribus.
- Maximize enterprise functionalities for web-serviced publishing
- Uses XML as a native file format. The Scribus XML format has been fully documented
Ummm...that's great and all, but I've been using Quark since version 3.8 (they're up to 6 now...just released it for the Mac), and it's been doing just about all of that since version 5.6.2. Scribus is a particularly poor choice if you're trying to scale best-of-breed users to engage proactive content, where Quark has all those capabilities out of the box. I really, really, hope it can succeed, as I'd like to see more graphical programs on Linux besides just the Gump. They really need to just sell Quark for Linux, but they probably too wrapped up in the BSD port right now.Consensual sex is boring.
No need to be stuck with inches. Scribus also does millimeters, picas, and points.
Nobody would claim Scribus would be good enough to compete with Quark unless it woudld do mm and pt. Duh. It's like that CMYK thing.
Next question, please?
Pagestream is still active, and has a version for Linux, and also shipping Mac/PC/Amiga versions.
This newest version looks like it has some features Quark doesn't have.
Hmm... I pump out content day in and day out in a text editor (kate).
You can go a long way with properly set up templates and external style sheets. Most pages amount to copying the template and putting in heading and paragraph tags.
But the GIMP plus Scribus would give me the last missing bit of PhotoShop/Quark, the CMYK and pre-press stuff.
Edit photos in the GIMP, which in a head-to-head test several years ago (a very early GIMP for Windows) produced finished photos that were not distinguishable from the same photos edited in PhotoShop. Then bring them into Scribus and export the color separations.
Save about $2000 :)
And, BTW, what about Latex? There are plenty of books (not just journal papers, but *books*) in Comp. Sci. and Mathematics that are typeset in Latex. I mean, high quality books, e.g. "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen, Leiserson, and Rivest, or Modern Computer Algebra by von zur Gathen and Gerhard. You cannot say they are done in a "Kinko's-type place". And yes, both of them are typeset in Latex.
It's already supported by any professional offset printer worth talking to. It outputs PDF files - the prefered format of many, many printers.
out of curiosity, I picked up the phone and went through my list of preferred vendors for offset print work in the greater Elay metroplex. out of twelve calls, NONE of them had ever heard of Scribus, and the ONLY formats they were willing to accept were Quark and InDesign. they were occasionally willing to accept PDF for small jobs (like a mostly text ad or something where the graphic quality was largely irrelevant), but by and large not.
PDF is completely unsuitable for a large job -- like say, a video box or similar size package (where the little spine pictures are about 40MB each) -- which can average about 500-700MB and absolutely requires that graphics not be compressed or messed with by an utterly pointless packaging/wrapper app like Acrobat. PDF is fine for making formatted brochures (or whatever) for download, but no designer in their right mind would ever submit a real job to a printer in it -- despite what Adobe likes to claim or would have you believe.
keep in mind that I'm talking about offset printers -- the people who make/use film from the output files or go straight to plate -- and NOT the sorts of places who use equipment that are essentially high speed, high res photocopiers.
Does Office work on my WinXP box without a cheap workaround involving Works?
I have no idea what you're talking about. What version of office are you using? Anything other than Office XP is unfair, you can't compare the latest copy of OpenOffice.org with Office 97. That's like people who say that Linux is loads better than Windows 98. I had no problem running Office 2000 or XP on Windows XP, didn't try with 97 though.
Does Office import nearly every other office suite's files? No. Does OpenOffice? Yes.
From the earlier discussion on OOo it appears that OOo can't open WordPerfect files, I know MS Office can. Besides, when you are the standard, you don't have to support others, they have to support you. Sad but true.
Does Office crash frequently, causing much frustration and lost work?
I never have any stability problems with office and I use it everyday at work. I'm guessing you're still comparing Office 97 or some such?
Does Office have all the features I need to get my work done as efficiently as possible? Yes. Does OpenOffice? Yes.
It's great that OOo does everything you need, of course others have different needs. Not everyone needs $100,000 servers either, but some do.
Disclaimer: I run Linux and OOo at home. I run Windows 2000 & Office XP at work. I find that OOo is still lacking several features but it is certainly acceptable for my home use. Besides, I refuse to let my data be controlled by Microsoft. I'm all for Linux and FOSS evangelization, but only when it is supported by facts, not FUD, as the parent post was full of.
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
You do need to convert Mac format T1/TTF fonts before they will work on a PC. Moot point though, since most vendors offer both formats anyway. OpenType fonts will theoretically work across both platforms without any conversion. (Speaking of which, incorporating advanced OpenType features to Linux applications such as Scribus might even give them an edge over the competition, since no one except for Adobe seems to be interested in adding them to their Windows/Mac apps.)
I don't think Microsoft uses "heavily hacked" fonts so much as they use well-hinted fonts. Apple does, too, in addition to their Quartz anti-aliasing. Lucida Grande (the main Mac OS X UI font) looks terrific at small screen sizes even without any anti-aliasing, thanks to impeccable hinting. If I'm not mistaken, the FreeType engine excludes certain TrueType hinting features by default since they are patented by Apple. That's the main display issue on Linux. Anti-aliasing helps some, but the engine must utilize the built-in hints to produce the best display.
My first slashdot post..:o
Let me begin by noting I wrote most of the documentation and have done significant testing of Scribus since 0.3.7. I also support DTP and pre-press folks professionally.
I can assure you Scribus was not created to be a "Quark killer" or divert Quark or Mac users to Linux. That would be stupid and pointless. I find in the pre-press business here and there folks who are quite bigoted about Quark and/or Macs, but that is another discussion.. MacOSX in this case is irrelevant. Moreover, Windows 2k and XP in particular have reached near parity in DTP app support. Until MacOSX, they are far more stable than the older Mac OS's. I have clients who are magazine and newpaper publishers who run entire production departments not on Macs, but on Win2k.
Quark is not the end all and be all of DTP.Quark has many many weaknesses going forward into the new PDF oriented workflows of commercial printing. Personally, I think Indesign 2.0.2 is the current state of the art in DTP. It is much better than earlier versions. Printers who bitch about the current version, typically need to update their RIP's.
The value of Scribus stands alone. Scribus gives Linux and *nix users a badly needed tool for the desktop. Scribus gives Linux/*nix users around the world the ability to create content like hi-res PDF and DTP files, previously impossible before..
Scribus has many unique features and design goals which are somewhat different from Quark and Indesign:
Ok. I'm one of the poor clods who had to work various digital presses, and film processors for a medium sized shop. I wasn't on the DTP side of things, but I am pretty technically knowledgable, and I love to know all I can about what it is that I'm doing.
The software that we used to RIP was a 3M product, with a Cactus RIP engine. Cactus, being one of the more prevelant producers of that sort of software were kind enough to include PDF support. From reading the trade magazines, I'd guess that most shops use Cactus somewhere, and if they don't I'd guess they have a similar program with similar features.
PDF, when used appropriately was undistinguishable from EPS input files, because they have basically the same damn features. Vector support? Yep. Embedded fonts? Yep. Scaleable bitmaps? Yep. It's all there, and I'd guess that your prepress guys just don't know it, because they aren't interested enough, or they just have no need for it.
By the way you can see some impressive DTP from TeX here.
First: using Quark is not a privelege, it's a royal pain in the ass. Nice UI, too bad about the rest of the app. It has NO document verification or error checking so it just dies if there's anything wrong with the document. (Admittedly this is v4, maybe v5/6 have helped this - but I doubt it). I called Quark support and mentioned some document corruption problems we were having when working on files stored on network volumes - their answer: "Don't use Quark on a network." It's so scary it's funny.
... but we pay $3500/copy because of an exclusive distributor arrangement. Quark won't support US copies in Australia, neither will Modulo Systems, the local distributor. Result: ripoff, consider InDesign. *sigh*.
Second: Try buying it in Australia. One grand US is ~AU$1500
Sorry man - find a better printer. The printer we deal with used to (reluctantly) accept Quark docs, but now won't talk to you unless you subit a PDF. Formats accepted: PDF, PDF, or PDF.
More and more people are going that way. It doesn't matter what app produced the PDF so long as it's valid and compliant with your printer's specs. Services like QuickCut help clients submitting ads confirm this, and apps like PitStop are good for prepress houses sending jobs to their printers.
Quark is not that cheap, alas. How many publishing houses need ONE copy of Quark? We have six, and we'd have more like eight but for the cost. Upgrading from Quark 4 to Quark 6 is currently on special at AU$1500/copy (~US$1000). This is not cheap.
Quark does appear to be much cheaper in the US. In Australia, unfortunately, there's an exclusive distributor arrangement kept in force by both parties refusing to provide upgrades or support for the US version when used in Australia. So we pay more than twice the US price for Quark. *sigh*.
They're aso total assholes about upgrades and such, they require so much information I'm amazed they don't just demand your credit history for the entire year and your business's accounting records, just for good measure.
Especially Quark 4, where it's PDF import is apallingly unreliable and quirky.
Amen You will find Indesign light years ahead with this.
We're considering buing some win2k boxes with InDesign for ad design and layout.
I am migrating one client to this now. It just works
You mention that the Scribus format is XML - would that happen to be loaded with verification + good error checking? A DTP app that didn't just crash on damaged documents would be a godsend. "EPS Element 'bobsyouruncle.eps' is damaged and cannot be loaded" not "*blurk*The application QuarkXPress unexpectedly quit with an Error Type 2".
If the file is mangled you can open it up in a text editor and see what is amiss.The XMl doc format is completely open and documented. There are notes in the 1.0 package on handling Scribus files.. Look for "pre-press.pdf" in the docs folder when Scribus is installed.