[scribus] Running Scribus 1.3.3.13 on Windows XP

[Lori Jiacinto]

Thanks to all who have responded!  :)

I've tried the following suggestions, but nothing (yet) has helped:
    * Changed the desktop theme in Scribus in File > Preferences:  I 
selected "Motif" instead of Windows
    * Changed the Windows theme to "Windows Classic" (yuck)
    * I uninstalled Scribus AND Ghostscript; reinstalled Ghostscript, then 
Scribus.
    * I verified that Scribus had found Ghostscript in File > Preferences > 
External Tools
    * I zoomed out, but I still can't see the paper (as shown in the 
QuickStart Guide screen clips).

Here's what I see and do,step-by-step: When I start Scribus, I see the 
Scribus banner and wait while it loads fonts and such; next I see the 
Scribus window with its menus across the top and a "New Document" popup 
window.  I choose "Single Page", "Letter" size paper, default unit "Inches", 
and select "OK".  The popup disappears, and now I have a Scribus window with 
menus/toolbars across the top and bottom, rulers measuring -1 to 15 across 
the top and 0 to 10 down the left side, and a large grey area in the center. 
I would expect to see a white "paper" planted in the large grey area, where 
its left and right edges are under the top ruler's 0 and 8.5, and the top 
and bottom edges are at the left ruler's 0 and 11(similar to the screenshot 
in the quickstart guide), but it is not there.  I choose View > 50%, which 
makes the rulers smaller, but still no paper visible in the large grey area.

I create a text box by pressing "T" and selecting an area from (2,2) to 
(4,4) using the rulers as guides; now I have a red square outline with 
smaller red squares on the corners and center edges.  I right click inside 
the square outline, and choose "Sample text".  I still see just a red square 
outline.  I right click again and select "Properties", "Colors", and choose 
Blue for fill and Purple for outline, and close the Properties window.  I 
still have just a red square outline.  I select File > Print Preview, and 
click "Ignore Errors" in the Preflight Verifier, and a Print Preview (GDI) 
window appears; there is my white page with blue box, black text, and purple 
outline.   If I click the "Save as PDF" button on the toolbar, the resulting 
file has the same white page with blue box, black text, and purple outline.

To crash Scribus when bringing in a JPEG file:  press "I" and select an 
area; right-click in the red dotted square outline (there is no big X in the 
middle) and select "Get image..."; choose an existing file from the "Open" 
window (where the image previews look great, BTW); click "Open"; see the 
popup "Scribus crashes due to the following exception: 
EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION".

In short: how do I see what I'm working on (other than the print preview or 
exporting it to pdf constantly), and how do I import an image file without 
Scribus crashing?

Lori