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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."
I remember a couple of really *great* DTP programs on the Amiga, they were killer apps, but they didn't survive.
Being a killer app doesn't mean you won't be crushed and killed...
Anyway, nice to see some free good app in the DTP arena under linux.
No offense to the wonderful people creating the Scribus software. It's great to see options other than pay-your-left-nut-for-software.
l ), I bet many, many more OS X boxen will be sold, averting any "Great Migration" to Linux anytime soon by the DTP folk.
However, this is mostly pie-in-the-sky. With the new release of Quark for OS X (http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/mac_osx.htm
This is great! Right now, we have plenty of good software to compete on the desktop.
Programs like OpenOffice, Mr. Project, Evolution, Mozilla, GIMP and Scribe really give us the strength to do so. Now we only need a good visio-like tool to be complete.
And, of course, if you are a web developer, we still lack a good dreamweaver-like tool. I hope we'll have one soon...
This kind of stuff will make a difference in Linux winning desktop market.
When you are talking that expensive of software, the price for the OS really doesn't make any difference.
You must be joking. From the moment Quark can't read or save as Quark or InDesign formats, it is in NO PLACE to compete with them, no matter what kind of features it might have (which doesn't really, it is years behind Quark/InDesign).
Sorry, but it has to be said. Surely, it is a good free DTP for Unix to play around, but that's about it.
That'd take like 10 minutes, tops.
Otherwise, you still need a Win/Mac for source photos/graphics.
What is the availability of type faces on Linux? Part of the Mac's dominance in the DTP arena is that the type collection is so massive, and most converters don't do the fonts justice (in previous experiences, this held true, not sure if it's like that now). A strong offerring of type face compatibility as well as image capability (scanning/editing), would help users move to Linux for their DTP needs.
Will it be able to open quark and/or MS Publisher files for compatibility?
Actually, is there an existing (native) open-source linux program that can open MS Pub files?
In-application trapping would be better. A lot of printers don't yet have in-RIP trapping, and it'll be needed for running out separations as PDFs.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Like many other Linux applications, this product is probably good enough. Is quark better? Almost certainly, and you'll pay $1000 premium for that improvment. Is Office better than OpenOffice. Yes. But most people don't need everything that makes Office better. Is Photoshop better than Gimp? Yes.
If your livelihood is dependent on it, then it may very well be worth $1000. But if you are just doing some amateur work or you have a small home business needing some DTP, then this is good enough. Programs like this change the game because it allows people to dabble in whole new areas without having to shell out a premium price.
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I noticed that they seem to be in inches. That may be OK for people stuck in the early 20th century, but what about the rest of us?
Even if so, Scribus has one feature I don't see Quark matching: It's free as well as being Open Source.
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.
You have to be joking. Anyone who whines about the prices of these products probably uses it as a convenience, and not for critical work. If they did they wouldn't complain about the $1000, or the $3/day a year -- you know, that StarBucks latte they have every day -- to use it. I'm always amazed by software organizations that try to skimp on paying for tools because things "cost too much", and then make that tool an integral part of their process. Alot of programs fall into this arena of specialized software with high price tags and great at what they do (or at least some people find them great at what they do, I have no interest in debating what you or I think are great software): math software like Mathematica and MathCad, IDE's and other development tools for programmers, RoboHelp, PhotoShop, and on and on. These programs are NOT meant to be cheap programs for Joe Blow, they are meant to be specialized and essential tools for professionals, researchers, whatever, and due to how successfully they perform their task have very wide acceptance.
Sure it's great when a free tool shows up that is just as good as another product. I love free tools. But if your work with such a tool doesn't justify the $3/day, you probably aren't the market they are shooting for.
So why should Scribus be held to a higher standard? If Adobe and Quark decided not to waste their time reverse-engineering the other's file formats, why should the OSS community? DTP requires such precision that a less-than-perfect conversion is useless.
So if the developers are reading this, don't waste your time on import or export filters for other DTP file fomats!!!!!!
Everything is relative, including the impact of prices. If you are earning six figures or even high five figure sums $1000 may not seem to be much, but for most of the world $1000 represents one hell of an investment.
What would be really great would be if it would support graphical layout of Formatting Objects. I've checked out the available tools and they're unbelievably expensive, and not even very capable: little better than writing the formatting yourself. Something geared towards professional layout rather than simple web layout, or one page layout, would really help to advance this standard as well as the use of XML in general.
credo quia absurdum
Why does free + open source = good? Sorry to break your misconceptions, but alot of proprietary software is pretty damned good. Why do you think people use it and are happy with it? This isn't meant to be a troll, but it's silly to think that something is bad because it costs something and you can't get the source code. It may not be what you like, but maybe someone else does.
We use Quark at our newspaper, naturally. There's a few hundred licenses in the company. It is a damn expensive app. But consumables are even more expensive. We print directly to negatives, and film costs a good chunk of change. If there's a problem, we have to re-print the negs. If we have to re-plate, that's a bunch more money. If we don't know there's a problem till the press starts, there'll be hell to pay. Some papers are using new technology that lets them print directly to the printing plate. The materials for that are even more expensive. With Quark, we know what we're getting when we click "Print." $1000 may be expensive for a program, but we use more than that in film and plates every day. Quark Inc. isn't a very well liked company - but when you know what you're getting for sure in your finished product, that makes all the difference.
Ye shall know the lizard, and the lizard shall set you free...
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Well, because lots of folks don't have the $$ to drop on every quality proprietary application that they might like to. Quark may be really, really good, but at close to $1000 bucks, I have looking around for an alternative. I'm not sure where In Design gets priced at, but Free is probably less expensive.
I don't think anyone equates Free + Open Source with good all of the time, but Free = Affordable on any budget.
Open Source can mean lots if things, but if an app takes off it often means that someone with better programing skills than myself who may end up solving some of my problems beoire I can get around to it.
Eschew Obfuscation
Oh. My. God. The only thing even remotely interesting about Publisher was the little paper airplanes that you could print out, cut out and fly! To do anything remotely like work on it? [shudder]
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.
So you mean things like adjust colors, hue contrast etc are the same? Big surprise, the Image Magick library can probably do that. Photoshop belies its name, its image creation tools are exceedingly powerful. The combination of its multiplicity of tools combined with its dead simple interface make photoshop the market leader for a reason. I'm not one for monopolies, but there are simply no competitors who place anywhere near photoshop at the moment.
Photos.
The screen shots of Scribus are impressive, but why is that every time I see a Linux app's screenshots, that the screen fonts just look amateurish? They just strike me as looking like Apple IIgs screen shots.
Mac screenshots always seem to look the most polished (no, I'm not a Mac user), partly because of the timeless elegance of fonts like Chicago, Charcoal and whatever their font du jour is today. I even have to admit that even post-2K Windows screenshots look half decent.
I know that Linux is skinnable, but why does it seem like all the linux developers choose screen fonts that will make their applications less polished? Of course, if you click through the link to see the Red Hat 8 + Keramic shots of Scribus, you'll see MUCH better looking screens. The bottom line -- you only get one chance to make a good first impression -- so why not have the better looking shots on the main page?
Dude...back away from the Stallman-ade...
If Quark / Adobe/ whoever really cared about their customers, they would take the 5 minutes it took to make a filter to go to/ from the Scribus format, instead of forcing people to waste time trying to reverse engineer their little data vaults.
So if Quark/Adobe cared about their customers, they'd make it easy for them to...stop being customers?
Is Scribus as good as Quark? No, it is better. Simply because your data is not sealed up in an unknown format.
Oh, please. Is an atomic warhead inferior to a flint axe because its specs are classified?
People who really care about doing desktop publishing should start using Scribus, submitting problem reports and wishlist items, and if they have the interest and skill, start doing a little hacking.
People who do desktop publishing for a living will use the tools that allow them to do what they need to do now, and they're not likely to have much time to try out anything that doesn't meet their immediate needs. People who just want something to make CD covers will turn to something that offers a balance of features and convenience.
People who evangelize open source alternatives to Office, etc., need to realize this before they let fly with the hyperbole. If I have to download & install fink, then work out which window manager, package manager and X11 installation I need -- all this before I can even download and install Scribus -- I'll wait for them to get a standard Aqua/Cocoa installation together before I even bother with it (and stick with AppleWorks in the meantime). And if it can't open a 100+ page 4-color magazine layout and get it ready for prepress, the print shop is unlikely to care how open Scribus' format is.
I'm sorry, but until the GIMP gets good CMYK suppport with at least ICC profiles and CMYK conversion tables, it won't be a contender for prepress. CMYK preview in RGB working space is also mandatory.
RGB->CMYK is not a simple file format conversion. The colour space changes, so your colour gamut does too. Colours that can be represented in RGB might not be possible in CMYK. You absolutely need to see this on screen as you're doing your colour correction.
GIMP also needs more real-time previews before it's a practical photoshop-replacement. In many ways it's amazing how close it is, but until it gets solid CMYK and colour management support it's nowhere there in one CRITICAL area at least.
Remember, when a single print ad costs more than an entire computer and all the expensive software on it, a grand or two can fall in between the cracks. It does actually matter, but everything is on a larger scale.
A mechanic's tools are worth thousands.
That's true (very true), however, that doesn't mean I'm going to run off to the machanic every time I need an oil change. It's not that my time isn't valuable, it's more like picking up oil and filter on the way home and changing the oil on Saturday afternoon takes less time and money than driving to the mechanic, waiting around, and driving back home (plus the amount of time I have to work to make the money I paid the mechanic).
In the same way, someone who want's a nice document 1 or 2 times a year probably doesn't want to spend $1000 on software. A student who wants a really nice presentation probably doesn't have $1000 to spend on DTP software, and doesn't have the money to pay a professional either. As in the case of the oil change, if I have 1 or 2 pages I want laid out nicely, I can probably crank it out myself a lot faster than I can contract someone else to do it for me.
Then there's simple economics. No matter how professional you are, all else being the same, free beats $1000 every single time. Scribus may not be up to that standard yet (or perhaps it is, I haven't installed it yet), but it has to start somewhere.
Speaking philosophically, all else being equal, FREE software beats proprietary every time. From the standpoint of evolving human capability, all proprietary software, no matter how useful it may be at the moment, is a dead end.