Slashdot Mirror
Scribus Cracks the Big Leagues in Print
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview on O'Reilly, The Scribus Team, who recently released Scribus 1.2 , reveal the first commercial adoptions of Scribus, GIMP, Inkscape, and Linux by commercial newspapers. Who said Linux could not make it in the print world ?"
..to a print edition of the quite insightful article.
3 comments and it's gone.
Here is a google cache of thier website.
One of the most useful filters I can think of would be an import filter for MS Publisher.
I know quite a few small businesses that use this software and take it to press. Yes, most print shops moan about it, but they still accept the EPS files.
Publisher is used because of convenience (it is there); ease of use for small setups as opposed to Quark or Pagemaker; and integration w/Word and Excel. It is an abomination, but it is still popular.
A filter for Scribus could help me move a couple of shops off of Windows boxes.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Uhh...? Is this to imply that InDesign ISN'T stellar? Every Quark and PageMaker layout artist I know who has tried InDesign CS has moved to it with a glad heart. It's a great program.
So far it sounds like Scribus is setting the bar at beating PageMaker and Quark. That's great, but when Scribus also overtakes InDesign, that's when I'll cheer loudest.
There's a lot to be done in the field of API:s.
Basically, I'd like to see a good and definitive API for vector graphics. This is something still very lacking.
Preferably, the API would handle:
* High-quality printing
* Export to PS,SVG,PDF
* Bitmap rendering (for on-screen drawing)
* Support transparency
* Be well integrated with the font API:s.
Basically, a unification of all 2d graphics things into one single device-independent API.
Apple already has something similar to this in Quartz.
Supposedly, Cairo is supposed to do this, but given that there is no real documentation or roadmap for it, it's hard to say how, when or if it will ever get there.
OK, now to respond to your comment properly.
Hyphentation and other fine typsetting: InDesign is the king. Scribus is getting well up toward Quark though.
Transparent images: I'm pretty sure these are well supported, as transparency in general is, but I don't use them myself.
Kerning: quite good, and a h-scale function is also provided, but no tracking controls yet.
It seems the Scribus folks are well aware of how TeX does things, but alas it's not as easy as grabbing the guts and dropping them in.
Improvements along these lines are being looked at for future versions though.
GIMP 2 has a menu at the top of every window. No need to right click.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I hear the "where's the line tool?" question for the Gimp quite often. I've asked it myself even (I don't claim to be anything graphics program-wise other than a novice) so I'd imagine the tutorial was written for all the many people who asked that very question. It might be written in a way that doesn't pander to the audience, but if you actually feel personally offended by this then you need to grow a skin.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Right click on frame -> show properties
(The properties pallette is your friend.)
Click on image tab of properties palette.
Play to heart's content.
Also note the "Scale to frame size" option.
I'm referring to post-1.2 CVS but it should be the same in most versions IIRC.
I work for a 100k+ daily circulation newspaper doing ad design with InDesign 2 as a front end for our proprietary database workflow system (made half-assedly by DTI but that's another story).
An earlier post knocked ID for being a cross between Illustrator and Quark, but that's a large part of what makes InDesign great -- the familiar Adobe-style UI, useful vector abilities from Illustrator, and it's not Quark!
I'm constantly exporting files to PDF for customer proofing and haven't experienced any trouble with it's PDF creation, or it's ability to import a PDF image, and I'm using 2.0 not CS.
I've not had the chance or need yet to use Scribus and Gimp in a production environment, but my toying with both have been positive. Gimp 2.0 seems, to a daily photoshop user, to be quite powerful and feature-rich, if not quite Photoshop. Scribus is still, from a new-to-it perspective, playing catch-up in terms of instant usability, but I love the inroads that linux and open-source in general are making towards having a competent toolset for professional designers. Not that I want to sit in front of the computer and do design at home after working all day, but hey, you never know...
Saying that Scribus should work on Publisher support is nuts. We don't even allow Publisher files as graphics-standards submissions. In my experience, if it comes in designed in Publisher, it's gonna be the print equivalent of a GeoCities teenager's website: an eyesore.
Scribus and GIMP should keep their eyes on the workflow and output needs of professional designers, and we'll see more /. stories about firms moving to OSS solutions.
Speaking of which, does the GIMP have much functionality along the lines of creating web graphics slices along the lines Macromedia's Fireworks? That would seem a wise avenue to go down...
Photoshop-ish Keyboard Shortcuts for The Gimp 2.0
http://epierce.freeshell.org/gimp/gimp_ps.php
Do a circular selection, then Edit -> stroke selection.
If you select '1' as 'Stroke Width' you get a two pixel width circle, not a one pixel width one. Even using a one pixel brush and the pencil tool doesn't give you a one-pixel width circle, but something like a 1.5 width one. Changing the anti-aliasing seetting of the selection doesn't seem to improve things either. Selecting a 'Stroke Width' of '0.5' and enabling antialiasing gives you actually a 50% transparent 2 pixel circle, which is quite far away from an 'optimal' result.
Anyway, nothing of the results that Gimp gives you are much useable when pixel precision matters.
I tried Scribus but the font rendering on screen was terrible. This was with Fedora 2, which I expected to have reasonable font support (most apps look okay). I am not blaming Scribus, the problem is most likely that I installed a version built with the wrong options - built without Freetype support or something like that.
Anyone know where to get a build (preferably RPM binary package or RPM source package) of Scribus for Fedora/RH-like systems that shows good-looking, outline fonts on screen?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com