[Scribus] Exporting to PDF

[Craig Ringer]

Calum Polwart wrote:

> So I guess someone may want to play with these and tell me that they 
> work fine for them! I've uploaded them here:

Great, thanks!

> Here's my responses to the usual questions:

OK, disregard that question in my previous mail then, and thanks for the 
forethought.

> Scribus Version - 1.3.2 cvs date is showing as 3rd Dec 05 although it 
> should be 24th December as that's what I compiled yesterday - so I guess 
> something went wrong there... or does the date not change in the 'about' 
> menu?

Builds are tagged, and it's the date the build was tagged, not the date 
it was checked out or compiled.

> Ghostscript - I was about to type 8.5.1 and went to check -- running 
> 'ghostscript' at command prompt gives 7.07!!  But 'gs' which is in the 
> scribus preferences says AFPL Ghostscript 8.51 (2005-04-18)

Good, that's what matters.

> OK so someone will say that I need to update the CVS and Inkscape.

I don't see why you'd need to update Inkscape. As for CVS, you're 
running a pretty recent version already, and I'm not aware of any bugs 
in 1.2.x that've been fixed since then that might cause this. It 
wouldn't hurt, of course, but it's not like you're using something ancient.

> Someone else will suggest that I need to ditch the 'ghostscript' 
> command.  (Will do that tommorrow - I just need to replace 
> /usr/bin/ghostscript with a symbolic link to usr/bin/gs - right??)

It won't matter, Scribus only cares about `gs', or whatever you've told 
it to in prefs.

> Now for a possibly dumb question (I like dumb questions!) - I don't 
> actually have a proper Post Script Printer on my machine (or network or 
> anywhere) -- I have a HP InkJet which uses some translation process I 
> read about ages ago to accept PS files but it doesn't understand PS 
> itsself.  I also have a Samsung SCX4100 laser printer - it uses a 
> samsung hybrid of PS, but if you actually send raw PS to it - it falls 
> over...  ...So the question really is - does GS or Scribus require a 
> 'proper' postscript print driver?

Yes, preferably a PostScript 3 capable printer with an Adobe PostScript 
RIP. If you have something else, it can use gs to convert its output to 
an older PostScript version that might work, but with your printers it 
sounds like you'd be lucky.

However, if you're using CUPS, it should hopefully have filters that can 
convert proper PostScript to something your printers can understand. If 
not, and if you have problems, you may be able to print a PDF from 
Acrobat with success. I don't use printers with anything but Adobe PS3 
support, so I have little direct experience with such problems.

> Coudl this be the downfall I've been having all along with documents
 > refusing to print/open in pdf?

Print, maybe. Open, no.

I'll check out the files you provided and see if I can tell what's going on.

It would be good if you could upload a .zip or .tar.gz of the "Collect 
for Output" scribus file and associated resources though. Since there 
are probably commercial fonts etc in there, feel free to send the 
address (or the tarball, my email accepts large files) to my email 
address directly.

--
Craig Ringer