[scribus] Is Scribus of No Practical Use to Engineers, Scientists and Mathematicians?

[Professor Rodney Coates]

Dear Thierry,

Thanks for that. It is encouraging. I had found reference to both  
these applications but have not for the moment had the time to  
investigate further. Right now, the Scribus problem has my attention  
but I suspect for not much longer, unfortunately!

All the best

Rodney


On 23 Aug 2009, at 15:01, Thierry S. Lytle wrote:

> GIMP and Inkscape are both available for Mac. From my 20+ years
> experience with Photoshop / Illustrator / CorelDraw et al,  GIMP and
> Inkscape should replace your Phsp and Illustrator quite nicely.
>
> TSL
>
>
> On Sun, 2009-08-23 at 12:01 +0100, Professor Rodney Coates wrote:
>
>> Hi Owen,
>>
>> At the moment I use RagTime (a German Page layout program) which is
>> somewhat idosyncratic at times, quite complex and does not have quite
>> such an appealing Graphics User Interface as Scribus.
>>
>> I use Pages '09 (Apples iWork suite) for general word processing. I
>> use Illustrator and Photoshop extensively, for the production of
>> scientific graphics. All these applications allow me to use (and have
>> so done for decades, in previous incarnations) Symbol font and Zapf
>> Dingbats. I cannot comprehend why Scribus allows me to have both  
>> these
>> fonts on its font list, but that they just do not work at all. I  
>> could
>> sort of understand if Scribus did not use them so did not show them.
>>
>> Also, with respect to the fonts list, it is really nice to have DTP
>> and allied software present you with a list of "just those fonts" you
>> normally use. Then (as with Illustrator, for example) you don't have
>> to scroll through the entire several hundred (or whatever it is) to
>> reach the one you want, when you make font changes in a document.
>> Scribus allows this but, annoyingly - at least as far as I can see -
>> there is no way you can "deselect all" then select the half-dozen you
>> would ever work with. So I spent quite a while happily setting up my
>> preferences before discovering that two fonts of the half-dozen, for
>> the first time ever, just would not work.
>>
>> Incidentally, I am of the view that there has hardly been a
>> significant true innovation in all the "upgrades" of Illustrator and
>> Photoshop that I have owned and paid for over at least two decades.  
>> If
>> I could find an OpenSource equivalent to these applications I would
>> change today. It is a project (finding them) that I am currently
>> engaged on. This is why I am so saddened with the Scribus situation.
>> It looks and feels really great but it just don't cut the mustard.
>>
>> Finally: No, I do not have LaTex. I have known about it for some
>> fifteen years. My French engineering friends swore by it, but it
>> always seemed too complex for my purposes. Instead, I used MathType
>> which either had to be bought or was bundled into AppleScript. I  
>> shall
>> go and see what I can find in the way of LaTex software now.
>>
>> Many thanks
>>
>> Rodney
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 23 Aug 2009, at 11:34, Owen wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> The Symbol font will not display; Zapf Dingbats will not display;
>>>> Render Frame will not work (). Latex/Tex is not working/
>>>> available ....
>>>>
>>>> I am a technical author. I need to set Greek symbols within lines  
>>>> of
>>>> ordinary text. I need to set mathematical formulae.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> If latex/TeX is not available, why?
>>>
>>> Do you have latex etc installed
>>>
>>> can you produce documents in Latex?
>>>
>>> If you have latex, I suggest you use that for the time being. it  
>>> also
>>> has the advantage of making footnotes and reference list.
>>>
>>> Do your fonts display in Open office or whatever document editor you
>>> are using?
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Owen
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> scribus mailing list
>>> scribus at lists.scribus.net
>>> http://lists.scribus.net/mailman/listinfo/scribus
>>
>> Professor Rodney Coates, Ph.D., FIEEE
>> Seiche Ltd.
>> Swallow Court
>> Trefor
>> Holyhead
>> Anglesey
>> LL65 4TA
>> +44 (0)1407 720 474
>> Mobile: 0787645020
>>
>> rcoates at seiche.com
>> www.seiche.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> http://lists.scribus.net/mailman/listinfo/scribus
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Professor Rodney Coates, Ph.D., FIEEE
Seiche Ltd.
Swallow Court
Trefor
Holyhead
Anglesey
LL65 4TA
+44 (0)1407 720 474
Mobile: 0787645020

rcoates at seiche.com
www.seiche.com