[Scribus] Scribus Digest, Vol 53, Issue 16

[John R. Culleton]

On Friday 13 July 2007 05:13, Jfo wrote:
> On Fri 13 Jul 2007 (00:11:02 +0200), scribus-request wrote:
> >Software choice depends on what you need to do and some more
> > general requirements like price, source availability, source
> > "freedom" guarantees, etc. Identify your requirements and go from
> > there. If you need to import Word documents produced by people
> > who think Word is a DTP
> >program, for example, Scribus is not and probably will never be
> >suitable
> >for you. Publisher might be, especially if you'll be printing the
> >resulting jobs out on a home printer. On the other hand, for
> > designing reasonable sized jobs like brochures for commercial
> > print Scribus might be a good choice. If you're designing books
> > it's hard to go past InDesign or FrameMaker (the latter
> > especially for technical writing) or good old TeX.
>
>  Craig
>
>  Thanks for your comments. Our environment is a local monthly
> publication with a distribution of 500 - 1000 copies. This is too
> large for conventional home printing and too small to be put out to
> tender without sacrificing quality at the prices we can afford.
>
>  There must be hundreds of local magazines like this and they
> depend on volunteers who have limited computer knowledge and obtain
> copy from a very wide range of contributers using a large range of
> software on home machines.
>
>  Up to date we have used Ovation Pro (RISCOS and WINDOWS) and
> Ventura but we have relied on the RISCOS hardware and software to
> do the more difficult conversions from the likes of Word, Publisher
> etc (mixed text and graphics is well served this way). However the
> expertise for this is retiring very soon!!!
>
>  On the printing side we use high speed laser printers, a Xerox
> Phaser for colour and a booklet maker but are thinking of
> purchasing a new combined printer/collator/stapler/folder from
> Xerox, Cannon or HP to reduce the handwork involved.
>
>  To continue this work the whole process has to be as smooth,
> uncomplicated and glitch free as possible. We are thus looking for
> the best possible DTP software of which we can afford at least 3
> copies for the main team members.
>
> John

Here are some solutions:

Scenario 1:
Lay out in Scribus.
Save as save as pdf and convert to PostScript.
Reduce to pamphlet imposition using PSUtils.

Scenario 2:
Lay out in Context version of TeX, using its imposition features 
(easiest IMO.)

Scenario 3:
Same as scenario 1 except do layout in plain TeX.

Scenario 4:
Create a pdf in final size using anything you want. 
I will convert it to pamphlet layout for $25 USD and mail you back the 
rearranged PDF.

I can show you examples of scenario 2 and scenario 3 that I have done 
recently. 

Caveat: I use Linux exclusively, though I have a MSWIn partition.  
PSUtils run on Windows but your people will have to learn how to key 
in commands on the command line. It isn't hard. If you can write an 
email you can use the command line.  Or I can cobble up a .bat file 
if that will help. 

Does your printer do duplexing or do you manually duplex? The latter 
requires subdividing into two files and feeding the paper in twice. I 
do that all the time. 


-- 
John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters.