[Scribus] Scribus for Scientific Posters?

[Gregory Pittman]

Lars Behrens wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I'm working in a physical institute here.
>
> What's driving me (and them) insane is the scientists using OOo or Power Point 
> for creating A0 posters for conferences.
>
> So I'm thinking of introducing the physics to Scribus as a poster creation 
> application, but I'm not sure if Scribus is yet far enough for that.
>
> What concerns me is:
>
> * Formulas
>   
One thing you're not saying is whether these posters are done as one 
large in-line printing process or whether it is made up of small 
components attached to a board of some sort. If it's the latter, LaTeX 
itself is by far the best way to go -- just pull out the formula, print 
on a separate page.
Otherwise, as has been said, the ability to use LaTex in frames in 
1.3.5svn is coming along nicely -- still you will have to learn formula 
creation in LaTeX.
> As far as I can see, there is still no possibility in the actual version of 
> Scribus (SuSE 10.2 here, Scribus 1.3.3.4-22) for formula creation, how about 
> the tex frame thing? Fiddling around with OOo to create formulas won't seem 
> very attractive to the scientists. Any other tips?
>  
> * Lists
>   
You will probably get more out of the video that Tsoots did and put 
links to on the wiki:
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Scribus_Video_Tutorials#Creating_bullet_lists
>
> So my question to you guys is if you have any hints for me. Should I take the 
> effort or is that too risky (I don't want to have 15 people attempting to tar 
> and feather me two days before the next conference because they don't get 
> their posters done).
>
> How about the newer versions of Scribus are things better there, so that an 
> installation of a newer version would be worthwhile?
>   
See above for LaTeX, but otherwise 1.3.3.10svn is the best bet. 
IMPORTANT: you will not be able to import a file created in 1.3.5svn 
into 1.3.3.10! (but reverse is Ok) Do NOT use 1.3.4 -- just too 
problematic, all of the fixes have gone into 1.3.5.svn. Also read info 
on 1.3.5svn - it requires qt4.

Overall, I would suggest starting small (maybe just one), since anyway 
you go there is a learning curve with Scribus as you get used to its 
approach to these kinds of projects. Once you get the hang of it, I 
think you will find that so many things become much easier to achieve 
professional-looking results.

Greg