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."

Comments

Mac OS X Version

[daeley]

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.

Re:Mac OS X Version

[darien]

Quark may be really, really good, but at close to $1000 bucks, I have looking around for an alternative.

Thing is, it's not even "really, really good." It's OK; it does the job. But it has many excruciating foibles, certainly up as far as version 5 for the Mac, which I still have to use at work. Its undo facility is embarrassingly underpowered (it's particularly great that you can't undo "replace all"). It insists on showing graphics onscreen only as low resolution previews, and won't even print them at high resolution. It doesn't let you shrink images below 10%, nor is there any equivalent to InDesign's "fit image proportionally to box" command. It crashes while trying to render previews of graphics that are too large. It won't let you make different pages different sizes. Creating a PDF is maddeningly slow and often requires gigabytes of disk space to eventually create a 100Mb file. Its native file format doesn't support embedding fonts or even images, so OPI hell is never far away. I could go on.

I guess if I have a point, it's that Quark is crammed with brain-damaged misfeatures that a decent, active open-source coding community would have fixed long ago. It's no surprise to me that InDesign is already making big inroads into its market share, and if a credible free alternative were to emerge as well, Quark would have no choice but to ramp up the quality of their product and/or drop the price. Sounds to me like a win for the end user.

Screenshots mirror

[Cee]

Here.

Pagestream Lives

[jayrtfm]

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.

YEEEHAH!!!! CMYK for GIMP via Scribus

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

"Is Photoshop better than Gimp? Yes."

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 :)

Re:Good enough...

[Laur]

How did this get modded insightful?

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.

Re:Good luck!

[scribusdocs]

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:

• It is translated in 17 languages and porting to other languages is really easy. It also supports right to left languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
• It has the ability to create interactive PDF with hyperlinks, form fields and javascript. Only Acrobat can do this equally. Other DTP apps like Quark, Pagemaker and Indesign can do a very limited set of these features.
• It is much more user friendly than quark without the dumbed down wizards of other DTP apps.
• The Scribus format is XML and fully documented.
• With the optional color management of littlecms, the first open sourced color management system in any app. Hopefully, the GIMP folks will follow with CMYK support. Scribus supports CMYK fully, including importing spot colors in EPS.
• We're having fun!!