[Scribus] Manual

[William F. Maddock]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com>
>Sent: Oct 20, 2007 8:50 AM
>To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
>Subject: Re: [Scribus] Manual
>
>jeff Weir wrote:
>> Does anyone know of a PDF format manual for scribus that I could print 
>> out and carry with me?
>>
>>   
>This is perhaps a paradox with Scribus, in that a project designed to 
>make PDFs does not have a manual in its own or in PDF format. Beyond 
>that, I think one would have to say that the value of printing out and 
>carrying around with you the current online manual would be either 
>unnecessary or largely unhelpful. The wiki is where much of the 
>practical nuts-and-bolts kind of information is, and unfortunately the 
>wiki structure does not print well from most, perhaps all browsers, with 
>many graphics misplaced or missing altogether.
>
>This page:
>http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Index
>may help for some questions if the overall structure of the wiki seems 
>like trying to decide which wildebeest to pick out of the large herd of 
>wiki articles.
>
>On a practical note, I would say that users of Scribus benefit greatly 
>from simply using it, since once you get into the mindset of its 
>operation, you can manage quite well, with the episodic orientation from 
>the wiki and other sources.

Unfortunately, that is really not a satisfactory answer. Even in this day when computing devices are more than horribly ubiquitous, there are still those of us who prefer to pick up a printed manual (sized rather like a tome, to be used as a reference), and read it wherever we want to instead of being more or less constantly glued to a computer screen of one sort or another.

It's rather like the odd duck (like me) who refuses to own a cell phone. When I'm away from the phone I'M AWAY FROM THE PHONE! It doesn't chase around after me. The same can be said of any computing device. Some of us prefer to be away from them for a rather significant part of our day. A desktop publishing program really should have a desktop PUBLISHED manual.