[scribus] New Linux User -- Scribus in place of Page Maker 6?

Wed Aug 6 07:55:08 CEST 2008

Since I am very new to Scribus, and to Desktop Publishing (Scribus is the first such program I have tried), I thought I would add a couple of comments.

First, I have not experienced any instability issues with the current stable version 
(1.3.3.12) running on KUbuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). Perhaps those who are having
such problems are either having system problems, or have the software improperly
installed (though with KUbuntu 8.04, I found the installation to be pretty easy).

Aside from just trying to get a grip on all the concepts involved in doing things this new way, my biggest problem with Scribus is the "Undo" does not work in many instances, so if I "goof", I cannot easily undo the last thing I had done. Fortunately, I have gotten into the habit of backing up my project to two places whenever I am pretty sure that it is what
I am happy with to that point.  Then, I just "Save" frequently until I get to the next place
that seems like a good "restore point".  So far, I have had to go back to the earlier saved version several times because of mistakes I have made.

The main reason that I started even looking for a project like this is that someone had told me that she wanted Microsoft Publisher on her new office computer.  This prompted me to search for something "equivalent" in the Open Source world.  The most important feature of Publisher for her was to be able to easily produce a multi-page booklet made by printing several letter size (I guess that would be approximately A4 outside North America) pages together (printed Landscape, then folded in half so that the printing is portrait on half the size sheet, and the pages are all in the correct order for printing double-sided).  I don't think Scribus can do that, but I have found a really easy to do it in LINUX if I just create the document as letter, portrait: http://twopoint718.blogspot.com/2008/05/make-book.html

Nevertheless, in my very short attempt to learn how to use Scribus, I can already see how powerful it is for creating much better looking documents than is possible or at least practical with a word processor, such as OpenOffice.

To really do a good job requires much more careful planning, and probably much more artistic talent than I posess! I am going to try to master some of the basic elements in
the hopes that, with practice, I will be able to do things almost as easily as with
OpenOffice! I will certainly continue to use OpenOffice for simple things, and also for
much of the text composition.

Murray

--- On Tue, 8/5/08, Jeffrey Silverman <jeffrey.d.silverman at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Jeffrey Silverman <jeffrey.d.silverman at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [scribus] New Linux User -- Scribus in place of Page Maker 6?
To: "Scribus User Mailing List" <scribus at lists.scribus.net>
Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2008, 10:29 AM

Hi. I'll try to address everything. This is probably going to end up
being too long but I have a passion for Linux distros and Open Source
software and community. Luckily, I'm probably preaching to the choir
here so I won't get too many "you are so queer" comments as such
like
I get from my wife when I ramble on about Linux and Open Source this
and that. Although, frankly, I've pretty much converted her, too.
Okay, so, enough preamble...

MEPIS is an excellent Linux distro. I used it for a while. However,
IMO, it suffers from a problem that quite a few other distros do not
have, and that is, for lack of a better term, "political
instability".
 MEPIS is maintained by basically one guy, and, although he may be a
genius, updates and improvements depend on him. Community input is
next to none. However community *help* -- for solving problems like
yours -- getting it to load -- is pretty good.

Anwyay, a while back I moved to Ubuntu. It does not have some of the
qualities that made MEPIS so appealing. MEPIS was better at hardware
detection, was configured better (an opinion, yes), and had some
"proprietary" crap stuck in that just made it nicer and easier to use
out-of-the box. Like Adobe Flash player and Java support. But those
things were easy enough to add to Ubuntu. Plus the Ubuntu Community
is, frankly, second to none. (Alright, that's opinion, too, but
strongly corroborated opinion)

Then I stumbled upon LinuxMint. Mint has all the good stuff that MEPIS
has, all the good stuff of Ubuntu, and, really, none of the problems
that either MEPIS or Ubuntu has. (Well, not entirely true, but close).

Alright, three hundred words and I haven't even addressed your
questions. Sorry. Some suggestions for getting MEPIS to load:

1) Are you sure you burned (burnt?) the CD as an ISO image? NOT as a
"data cd"!! It must use the "burn ISO image" mode of
whatever burning
software you are using.

2) Try LinuxMint. It is, frankly, better even than MEPIS.

3) Make sure you have chosen to "boot from CD' on your computer. This
is a BIOS setting or a quick-press key at boot time. For example, Dell
computers usually let you choose the boot device if you press F12 in
the first second or so as you turn the computer on. Other BIOSes
differ in the hot key.

(1) and (3) are probably the most common problems that people express
when getting a Linux bootable CD to boot up the first time. Mind you,
there are plenty of bugs around! (For example, Ubuntu (and Mint) live
CD won't boot on a Toshiba Satellite A305 because of a bug in Linux
Kernel 2.6.24-wahteverubuntuversion that relates to the NIC.)

Okay, now, Scribus. Personally, I think it is an amazing tool.
However, it is as equally amazingly *frustrating* as it is in
amazingly featureful and powerful. I do not thing Scribus is very
stable AT ALL. Others may disagree. But I am used to having Scribus
crash on me ALL THE TIME. Scribus 1.2.X, 1.3.X and 1.4/1.5.  Maybe
this is less true on Windows or on other Linux distros. I have only
ever used Scribus on Ubuntu or one of its deriviatives (Mint).

That said, it is incredibly useful. It is hard to use, but *primarily*
because DTPINWP[1]. If you are familiar with DTP workflow and
concepts, then Scribus is not so hard to learn.

It produces very high quality PDFs, from what I can tell. I produce a
lot of 1 page ads using Scribus and have never had a problem with the
submitted PDFs and any print center. Admittedly my technical ability
to judge the "quality" of said PDFs is nil.

Scribus can be very frustrating, too, in its "quirks". Of which there
are a gazillion. At least the 1.3 branch finally added a working
"undo" feature. That helped a lot. But actually *using* Scribus is
not
for the faint of heart. Well, more accurately, its not for someone who
does not feel so comfortable on a computer and understands how to
react to a program's quirks. For example, I would never hand Scribus
to my Mom! (Actually, bad example. I wouldn't hand a toaster oven to
my Mom.) But is that because DTP is harder than word processing? Or
because Scribus is too quirky? (Well, in the case of my Mom, it is
because toaster ovens have more than one button)

Anyway, for the price you can't beat it. Add in Inkscape and the GIMP
and you have a pretty good DTP tool set. Actually, Scribus (and GIMP,
too) could learn a lot form Inkscape, an *amazing* program which is
incredibly stable, incredibly consistent and easy to use (within the
scope of the inherent learning curve of a vector drawing tool).

Hey, developers: Please don't take anything I say negatively about
Scribus as Scribus bashing! I love Scribus. But it is not without its
problems.

Okay, have fun, good luck.

...lunch time!

[1] Desktop Publishing is not Word Processing.

On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Frank Swygert <farna at att.net> wrote:
> I'm new to Linux, but have some experience from long ago with OS-9, a
> unix-like OS for the Motorola 6809 8/16 bit processor (mainly 8 bit with a
> couple 16 bit registers, IIRC). I've got some experience with MS-DOs
and of
> course Windows too. It's been so long since I used a command line that
I
> really don't like it though!!
>
> Anyway, I'm currently trying to get MEPIS running. I can't seem to
get a
> downloaded copy to load correctly. I've ordered the CD. I was thinking
I
> have a bad batch of CDs, but I've burned other files on them with no
> problem, and the checksum for the MEPIS 7 download is correct.
>
> Anyway, back to the subject! I print a small "fanzine" quarterly
and a few
> other booklets on occasion. I started saving everything in native PM6
files
> and as PDF files a couple years ago. What I really want to do is attempt
to
> wean myself off of Windows XP, at least for my work computer. I realize I
> won't be able to edit the PM6 files, and I'm not worried about
editing the
> saved PDFs -- those I just print as needed anyway.
>
> How stable and functional is Scribus? Anyone here moved from PM to
Scribus?
> I tried PM7 and InDesign -- they both work vastly different than PM6. With
> that kind of learning curve I'd rather learn Linux and Scribus.
I've also
> been looking at PageStream 5, and may go with it due to maturity and
support
> (not that the list here isn't a good support structure). Anyone have
any
> experience with that product? Comparisons to Scribus?
>
> Frank Swygert

-- 
Jeff Silverman
jeffrey.d.silverman at gmail.com

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