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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Mac OS X Version

[jdehnert]

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.

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.

Re:Mac OS X Version

[sjames]

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.

Interesting... but ...

[Lightman_73]

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.

Not quite Quark

[be-fan]

But might make Microsoft Publisher unnecessary :)

Re:Not quite Quark

[Yekrats]

But might make Microsoft Publisher unnecessary :)

Microsoft Publisher is *already* unnecessary! ;-)

Good luck!

[Zanthany]

No offense to the wonderful people creating the Scribus software. It's great to see options other than pay-your-left-nut-for-software.

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.html ), I bet many, many more OS X boxen will be sold, averting any "Great Migration" to Linux anytime soon by the DTP folk.

Re:Good luck!

[felonious]

"I bet many, many more OS X boxen will be sold, averting any "Great Migration" to Linux anytime soon by the DTP folk."

Isn't the Mac only 1-5% of the total market? If so then claiming a "great migration" from the Mac side would be a serious, serious overstatement. Plus most Mac users will never give up their Mac over any circumstances....

Just the facts

Re:Good luck!

[bogie]

"However, this is mostly pie-in-the-sky"

Why's that? So the big DTP houses won't move to Scribis. Who cares? That doesn't mean this won't turn out to be a valuable tool for anyone who doesn't have the cash to plop down down on commercial DTP program. Contrary to popular belief free software isn't Always about destroying commercial competitors.

Up till now there simply hasn't been anything DTP running on linux worthing mentioning. I'm really happy to see a workable Pagemaker alternative available on linux. Let's not forget that since Adobe won't tough linux with a 10 foot pole Scribus is well on its way to 100% marketshare on linux.

Gimp+Scribus=quality publishing software for free on a free platform. This will be VERY useful for those schools, small businesses, and users who want to do some graphics work without breaking the bank.

Just because this won't spur a mass migration to linux doesn't mean this software won't be valuable to a hell of a lot of people.

Re:Good luck!

[ScottGant]

Macs are only 1-5% of the total desktop market, this is true.

But Macs are almost...but not quite...100% of the printing market. There are a few out there use PCs, sure, but they are in the vast minority when it comes to 4 color printing and page layout.

I work in the industry. I've worked in printing for almost 20 years at a number of companies. PC's just simply are not used in production at any of these pre-press houses...Macs have this multi-billion dollar industry sewn up. I don't know how many times over the years where we hear of Microsoft or another company claiming they're going to squeeze out the Mac in this area, and yet they fail every time.

But I welcome a different page layout program instead of Quark on OSX.

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!!

Desktop Software

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Desktop Software

[listen]

Quanta + is turning into a pretty damn good web designer thingy - it uses a modified khtml to do Wysiwg or visual page layout as they call it. Thats in cvs. Should be out with KDE 3.2, sometime in the autumn. PHP support is strongest atm, 'twould be good if it got some more JSP and Zope support in there. Maybe even asp.net for mono....

Kivio and Dia are visio like tools.
Kivio is getting some active development after a bit of a lull, and Dia has AFAIK been actively developed for quite some time.

Re:Desktop Software

[akahige]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but while it might be exceptionally attractive to have a nice DTP app for Linux (from the user perspective), there is NO CHANCE that this product will EVER be able to "even marginally compete" with Quark without one thing happening... it has to be supported by output and print houses, and they tend to be extremely conservative about supporting/adopting new software.

I'm not talking about Kinko's-type places who will happily dump a PDF on their DocuTech, I'm talking about professional offset printers (which most people outside of the print industry don't even know exist). when InDesign came along, the places I dealt with lagged for a good year and a half before they'd even consider accepting jobs laid out with it (and they were right to do so, since the software was hugely bloated and appallingly slow). considering that these are the people who control the output of everything you see in print publications -- all the ads get submitted from all the dozens of different ad agencies, to say nothing of the actual content -- these are the people you have to sell on the idea of a new "platform," considering that they tend only to accept jobs in Quark, Illustrator, and Photoshop. maybe InDesign. definitely NOT Freehand, Ventura Publisher, M$ Publisher, Corel Draw, Word, PowerPoint, or whatever ersatz program the wouldbe designer happened to get their hands on. as a requisite aside, GIMP is worthless as a publishing tool unless your platform is the internet. not only does it lack CMYK support, but it only supports one resolution, so let's not confuse the purpose of the program. it is a design and paint app for the internet, and only the internet.

you can move users (and only a select few), but you will never move an industry unless you take their needs and requirements into account. on the other hand, if you're talking about a good solid open source replacement for Publisher, Pagemaker, Word, or any of the other lightweight apps that stand in for professional layout programs, then these guys have a chance and I wish them all the best.

Re:Desktop Software

[BeBoxer]

GIMP is worthless as a publishing tool unless your platform is the internet. not only does it lack CMYK support, but it only supports one resolution, so let's not confuse the purpose of the program. it is a design and paint app for the internet, and only the internet.

I'll grant you the CMYK is a real problem if you are publishing. But what's the deal with "resolution"? In a digital image, "resolution" isn't actually a function of the image. The image data contains a certain number of pixels in each dimension. But it doesn't make any sense to refer to it having a resolution until it has a specific size, which is dependent on what it's being displayed/printed on.

I dunno. I just don't understand it. Graphic design folks have something weird going on with images. My wife, God bless her, cannot grasp pixels. We put pictures on the web, and I'll be like "OK, so we'll scale this to 320x240 because that's a friendly size for folks on modems" and she comes back with "What do you mean? How big is that in inches?" To which I reply "How the hell should I know? It depends on how big the persons monitor is!" And it's all downhill from there. She knows "inches". And she knows "dots per inch". But extrapolating from that to "dots" just doesn't seem to happen. Any insight you can provide into what exactly graphic designers think the "resolution" of a JPEG is would be appreciated.

Re:Desktop Software

[temojen]

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.

Re:Desktop Software

[sebi]

After reading your first paragraph I wanted to reply with a hearty triple bullshit and be done with it. Turns out that your second paragraph contained a lot of truths.

But what actually is the biggest truth is that Quark rules because of their document format and their document format alone. But they are their own worst enemy. Unpredictability combined with the closeness of the aforementioned document format and open hostility towards users has not made them many friends in the last years.

Maybe the American market is radically different, but European publishers don't really only accept jobs in Photoshop or Illustrator. If it is a pixel graphic then send a TIFF, if it is a vector graphic, or a combination of the two then send an EPS. But for multi-page complex layouts there was no relatively generic format to rival what XPress coud do. But now we have PDF and the number of places unwilling to accept this format is dwindling.

The publishing industry is starting to learn its lesson. The, as you so charmingly called them, ersatz programs are no longer non grata, but rather valid alternatives.

The largest Austrian weekly does only accept advertisements in PDF format. If you request it, they will send you a nice and detailed multi-page guide on how to export your XPress files to the format. As an appendix there also is a single page explaining the same process for InDesign. Scribus seems to claim having a functional PDF export, which should be enough to get your designs to the printer.

Now if you expect newcomers to replace XPress on the creation side of things then this is a different story. The places that have always used XPress might continue to always use XPress. But if a hot new agency can convince its designers to work on something different, they will be just as competitive. Maybe even more so. Because we are returning to the point where only creativity (and respect for budgets) matter. The choice of tools becomes irrelevant.

Re:Desktop Software

[Maimun]

Hmm. I thought they (the publishers) would not care how the pdf/ps file is produced, as long as it conforms to the pdf/ps standard. No? Why do they need the software you used to do it?

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.

Re:Desktop Software

[akahige]

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.

Re:Desktop Software

[scrotch]

I appreciate the time you took to call around.

I have had brochures, newspapers and magazines printed from PDF files without issue. Including among them were a map containing a 600MB Photoshop TIFF, and a number of 133 lpi magazines. They have been printed in Louisiana, Mississippi, Colorado, and England. There have been no image quality issues.

I have also worked for a web printing company that worked with them quite successfully (and still does). Many, if not most, new RIPs will handle them as well as the Postscript files they are made from.

If the PDF files are produced correctly, there is no need to worry about image quality. If they are not produced correctly (ie: the wrong compression options), they can be a nightmare - they are very difficult to change. I do not doubt that many printers would be wary of taking them, but I doubt you would have any real trouble finding a printer to take them for any substantial ($) job. They are, however, still unsuitable for spot color work.

I would be surprised if you found anyone who had heard of Scribus. I hadn't either. I don't use it, and I wouldn't bet a job on it. But I will watch it, and I'll play with it. It won't give Quark any worries for quite a while, but it should provide an alternative for those who want one.

Re:Desktop Software

[shellbeach]

like say, a video box or similar size package (where the little spine pictures are about 40MB each)

Just curious, as I'm not a professional DTP and never will be, but I have dabled in strictly amateur printing of occasions...

I was under the impression that for most printing it's pointless having an image resolution of greater than about 200 dpi, because of the resolution of the screens used to print the photos ... and, for that matter, that if the screen resolution was higher, the effective number of shades of each colour was progressively reduced (thus meaning that a higher screen resolution was undesirable).

I have successfully sent jobs to professional printers with artwork at 200 dpi covering most of the page, to be printed on A2 paper (in either full colour or as a duotone) and the end result showed no noticable pixelation. And the total file size of this was less than 20Mb, IIRC.

So why should the "little spine pictures" be so large?

OS

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are talking that expensive of software, the price for the OS really doesn't make any difference.

Screenshots mirror

[Cee]

Here.

things is moving

[lexcyber]

Just a couple of weeks ago, we read about the release of ardour. A very competent audio-editing program. And now this. OSS is really emerging as the future for desktop content creation also, and not only server appliancies. And also the prop. software vendors are finding linux. (Maya 5 from Alias|Wavefront is availible for Linux). This is truely exiting times!

Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just use MS Paint. It's great.

One thing left

[teamhasnoi]

Gimp needs cmyk support. Or Adobe needs to get on the linux train and port Photoshop, Indesign and all the rest of those Unix-y OS X apps...

That'd take like 10 minutes, tops.

Otherwise, you still need a Win/Mac for source photos/graphics.

impressive...

[Fux the Pengiun]

I checked out some of the new features from the site:

• 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.

Re:impressive...

[680x0]

Are you sure Quark can do all that now? Even "can run on Linux, HP-UX, Solaris, BSD and [...]"?

Even if so, Scribus has one feature I don't see Quark matching: It's free as well as being Open Source.

Fonts and such

[djrisk]

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.

Re:Fonts and such

[alienw]

You don't need to convert fonts. Most, if not all, fonts are either Adobe Type1 or TrueType/OpenType. Both are supported quite well without any conversion.

The font problems that people are bitching about involve fonts that get displayed on the screen without antialiasing. These do look shitty unless they are specially made. Microsoft uses heavily hacked fonts, Apple simply antialiases them. Both options also work on Linux.

Re:Fonts and such

[Nobody really]

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.

Re:Fonts and such

[alienw]

I don't think Microsoft uses "heavily hacked" fonts so much as they use well-hinted fonts.

Look at a microsoft font in a font editor sometime. You won't find much special hinting. You cannot make a single font outline look good at all font sizes. What they do is program the font (yes, it is a program that runs in a VM kinda like postscript) to radically change the outlines so that the font renders differently at small sizes. This is not hinting -- it's more like putting 3 or more fonts into one. Hinting does not help when your goal is to make a font render well at a ridiculously low resolution. Hints are good when you are rendering at 6000 or even 600 DPI, but not when you have to render to a 75dpi screen.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the patents. The MS fonts render almost as well on Linux even on the stock freetype engine. In fact, I can't even see the difference between the 'legal' and the 'patented' versions.

Eagh!!!

[Dark Lord Seth]

I hope the slashdot effects cripples the graphics.com servers and sets them on fire in a glorious blaze of divine revenge! Take that for full screen popups!

Re:Eagh!!!

[ncc74656]

I hope the slashdot effects cripples the graphics.com servers and sets them on fire in a glorious blaze of divine revenge! Take that for full screen popups!

Ye shall know the lizard, and the lizard shall set you free...

Compatibility

[Eberlin]

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?

Re:Compatibility

[akahige]

not to sound trollish, but Quark and M$ Publisher are in such radically different product classes that your question is almost like asking if it will open Word and Illustrator files for compatibility. (and by "compatability," I'm assuming that you mean the ability to open and edit them.)

according to the Scribus homepage, the product is aimed at the same space as Quark and InDesign -- pretty much the top of the heap. the point behind the "product classes" remark is mostly one of user identification. top end users would never so much as touch pseudo-DTP programs (like Publisher or Word), and the people inclined to use *those* programs to achieve their ends are either unwilling to go through the necessary learning curve, or are oblivious to the function, power, and perhaps existence of "real" desktop publishing apps.

OT: can you translate?

[swb]

if you're trying to scale best-of-breed users to engage proactive content,

What does that clause mean?

Are you trying to make eugenically superior people even larger to do some task, or what?

What it needs

[OECD]

It doesn't really need to open Quark/InDesign files--InDesign doesn't do a great job with PageMaker files, never mind Quark. It just has to work at least as well as Quark. (IMHO, ID is still in beta.)

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.

Good enough...

[sterno]

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.

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 enough...

[swillden]

The next time I install linux I'll be sure to check it out.

No need to wait, it also runs on Windows.

I'm not sure what you mean by "vector" text layers, but Gimp 1.3 does have real text layers (the text is editable, etc.). I don't think it has the others, but I'm not sure what "image slicing" and "intelligent masking" would be, so it's possible those are there. Adjustment layers are not.

The other things I know Gimp doesn't have are support for more than 8 bits per color plane (no 48-bit color) and no support for color separation, though Scribus does do color separation, so you might be able to get by with the combination (and maybe the Gimp will steal that code from Scribus...).

What the Gimp has that Photoshop does not, however, is awesome tools for scripting image manipulations, in the language of your choice (C, C++, perl, scheme and python, at present).

Re:Good enough...

[inajar]

But how many professional Graphic Designers know C, C++, perl, etc? My educated guess (as someone who knows more than a handful of graphic designers) is not many. Writing a script for the Gimp in the language of your choice may be appealing for your average Slashdot reader, but for just about anyone else (myself included) creating a Photoshop action to do the same thing is much easier...

1) Select New Action
2) Name New Action
3) Start recording steps for the new action
4) Stop recording
5) Save action

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe writing something in whatever programming language is easier than that...

Re:Good enough...

[swillden]

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe writing something in whatever programming language is easier than that...

Not easier, more powerful. A recorded macro is easy to make, but it can't make decisions, can't calculate positions, can't read input from other files, etc.

I'm sure you're right that the majority of graphic designers can't program, and so can't make use of these capabilities of the Gimp, but for those of us who can, Photoshop is a vastly less powerful tool.

Cursor Positions?

[tarquin_fim_bim]

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?

Re:Cursor Positions?

[WWWWolf]

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?

Re:OT: can you translate?

[torgosan]

Hanging out too much with the marketdroids at work will do that....the spew seems to rub off no matter how brief the encounter.

$1000 == $3/day

[cwikla]

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.

Re:$1000 == $3/day

[barc0001]

Yes, but you're not buying 100 lattes the first day. And I seriously doubt most software stores allow you to finance a software purchase, even if it is a half-dozen copies of $1000 software. Coming up with that kind of cash up-front can be daunting to the smaller users..

Re:$1000 == $3/day

[iabervon]

Personally, I prefer a 75 cent cup of coffee at my local coffeehouse. $3 is a lot to pay each day for something as simple as coffee.

I know people who do a one-week project (longer including collecting pictures and writing text, but a week of "publishing") each year. If you want it to come out nice, you need to give the printers a Quark file, but Quark is a big expense to justify for users who need Quark but not that frequently.

I also know people who use Quark constantly. They're just tired of having Quark crash on them.

FILE COMPATIBILITY

[exhilaration]

A lot of people seem to be asking about how well Scribus imports Quark or InDesign files. First of all, there's almost no compatibility between commercial DTP file-formats. It's already been mentionned that InDesign doesn't do a very good job with PageMaker files, and there's almost no compatibility between Quark and InDesign. And it's not even worth discussing Publisher.

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!!!!!!

Re:A grand

[cranos]

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.

FO

[Lechter]

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.

Mandrake Packages...

[joestar]

have been in Cooker (RC?) for a while.

Re:OT: can you translate?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Scribus is a particularly poor choice if you're trying to scale best-of-breed users to engage proactive content"

• Scale = climb on
• Best-of-breed = well-bred, aristocratic, upper class
• engage = agree to marry
• pro = call girl
• active = working
• content = happy

So, Don't use Scribus if you intend to climb over sombody who is using the services of an upper-class call girl who is happy in her job, in order to propose marriage.

Warning: being self employed I haven't worked in a corporate environment for some time so I may not have a completely correct interpretation of this jargon.

moving to linux

[h4x0r-3l337]

I know a lot of people for whom Quark is the killer app that prevents them from moving to Linux

That makes it sound like moving to linux is a goal in itself. It is not. The goal is to use your computer for whatever work or play you need. I mean, if all you do with your computer is "run linux" or "run OSX" or "run windows", then you're not really doing anything useful with your computer, are you?

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.

Re:good

[ncc74656]

How about Linux-based bulk emailers? :-)

for i in `cat suckers`; do mutt -xs "MAKE $100 BILLION IN 10 SECONDS!!!!!!!!!" $i <spam; done

(I actually used something like this recently to send out notices to members of the local homebrew club that the newsletter was up. It'd work as well for spamming people, and would even have the added advantage of defeating the recently-discussed graylisting.)

I work in the industry...

[azpenguin]

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.

Linux DTP! Ohboyohboy!

[Allen Varney]

Maybe Scribus is currently ready for high-end DTP, maybe it isn't yet. Doesn't matter -- I am genuinely no-kidding pumped to see this. Whenever it is ready, I'll be one step closer to ditching my Windows box, where to date I have been shackled by PageMaker. Linux has LaTeX, but I don't need a document design program, I need pica-precision page layout. And I hear Wine is getting better at handlingPhotoshop too. Any year now....

What's Scribus like for long-document support? I laid out a 192-page roleplaying game, and PageMaker 6.5-7.0 handled it pretty well -- not as well as FrameMaker, but better than Quark. So far as I can tell, it looks like Scribus is currently targeting a lower document range. But any year now (ohboyohboy)....

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 :)

UMmm yeah

[metalhed77]

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.

TeX showcase

[mattr]

By the way you can see some impressive DTP from TeX here.

Nitpicky about screen shots

[slantyyz]

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?

Won't compete on a pro-level

[bushboy]

There's no way it's going to be able to compete on an industry standard level, but on an amateur basis, it looks like a great program.

On a side note, I'm not sure how long Quark will be an industry leader for - many former Quark users are have switched to InDesign due to the ridiculously long wait for Quark for MacOSX and many are considering switching (amongst the designers I know, anyway)

Re:Scribus file format is fully documented

[erikogre]

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.

two problems...

[Craig Ringer]

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.

Second: Try buying it in Australia. One grand US is ~AU$1500 ... 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*.

*cough*Colour Management*cough*

[Craig Ringer]

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.

having fun

[Craig Ringer]

... is what's most important.

I for one appreciate what you guys are doing, too. I'm syadmin at a Quark house, and we've got extensive experience with the "pitfalls" in PDF workflow with quark. Especially Quark 4, where it's PDF import is apallingly unreliable and quirky.

Scribus looks interesting, and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. Helping out if I can (mostly a non-programmer) and testing. What many people don't realise is that you don't have to pick ONE DTP platform. We're considering buing some win2k boxes with InDesign for ad design and layout. They'll just save PDFs or EPSs that'll be imported into pages being prepared on MacOS 9 machines with Quark. Maybe Scribus will be suitable for the same role someday :-) since this is the best way to test adoption of a new DTP package.

I'll second your sentiments on GIMP and CMYK support, and add a "please please please please" into the bargain. GIMP is not really comparable to Photoshop for prepress uses, but good CMYK support is the last major hurdle in that direction IMHO. Of course, we'd need some CMS support in XFree86 too for it to be really useful under Linux.

I might do up a small house ad in Scribus, slip it into our workflow, and see what happens :-)

OH, just one question. 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".

Craig Ringer

Re:having fun

[scribusdocs]

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.

Re:having fun

[Craig Ringer]

Alas, I'm not such a fan of InDesign's UI. Quark got that one right. Perhaps InDesign's is better to new DTP users, but for those who started in the days of cut'n'paste, Quark 'just makes sense' and InDesign seems like a lot of work to do anything. Perhaps more time on it will change the perception.

As for the XML format - it's nice to be able to manually fix in a text editor or (ideally) something that can verify the XML against it's DTD and allow you to edit it with problem areas highlighted. However, it'd be important for the app to recognise errors and fail to load the file gracefully, rather than the more traditional behaviour of 'die horribly'. An error message saying "Unclosed tag, line 99" or even just "document is not well formed XML, validate and fix" is a world of good in telling you where you need to start - and anything is better than 'An unrecoverable error has ocurred.' followed by the app summarily exiting. Many times one isn't lucky enough to even get an error.

I'll have a look over the docs you mentioned.

PDF

[Craig Ringer]

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.

... per user, per version

[Craig Ringer]

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.