[scribus] beginner's luck, or lack thereof

[Peter Thorkelson]

hello, george,

thanks a lot so far.

I'm on a mac, OSX 10.5.8.

when I go to preferences (under the scribus menu), I get what looks  
like a lot of gibberish, except that three of the fields say "name of  
executable."  as it happens, executables are not available to the mac,  
or at least, so I've been told.  they are the exclusive province of  
windows.  maybe they're available under linux, I wouldn't know.

the "image processing tool" window contains the word "gimp."  as it  
happens, I have gimp on my computer.  I seem to be able to give  
scribus the location of that program, but when I tried to insert  
ghostwriter in the postscrpt interpreter window, I was stymied because  
ghostscript is a folder with hundreds of, I don't know, apps?, plug- 
ins?  whatever.  I wasn't able to tell the preferences window what to  
ask for.

I hope you're able to help some more.  thanks again so far,
Peter T


On Apr 22, 2010, at 2:57 PM, Margaret and George McIntosh wrote:

> On 22 Apr 2010 at 14:02, Peter Thorkelson wrote:
>
>> dear list,
>>
>> I am a true beginner-to the business of all but completely
>> prepackaged
>> software.
>>
>> I downloaded scribus (1.3.6), and was informed upon trying to open
>> it
>> that I was missing some software:
>>
>> "The following programs are missing:
>> Ghostscript : You cannot use EPS images or Print Preview"
>>
>> is what it said.  I went looking for "ghostscript," and was
>> introduced
>> to the terms "tarball" and "distro."  I have since gleaned (rightly
>> or
>> wrongly) that a tarball is a collection of small bits of software,
>> but
>> apparently I should know what a distro is, since I'm supposed to
>> report that when asking for help.
>>
>> SO. what's ghostscript, where do I get it and how do I install it?
>>
>> what's distro?
>>
>> if I get and install ghostscript, will I then be able to use scribus
>> unimpeded?  seems unlikely.
>>
>> btw, I re-downloaded scribus as a dmg file (haven't opened it yet),
>> and notice that it's 1.3.5.1.  what are the relative pros and cons
>> of
>> using this over 1.3.6?
>>
>> I appreciate what help I can get.
>>
>> thanks,
>> Peter T
>>
> Peter
>
> What operating system are you using? If Windows, you can forget  
> about tarbals and
> distros.
>
> You can get Ghostscript at sourceforge.net. You should install it  
> before you install
> Scribus but if you have already installed Scribus, and it doesn't  
> recognise Ghostscript,
> you can go to File, select Preferences, then External Tools and tell  
> Scribus where to
> find Ghostscript. If you are using Windows 7 64x, it will probably  
> be installed in
> C:\Program Files (x86)\gs\gs8.70\bin\gswin32c.exe. Other windows  
> versions will be
> similar.
>
> My understanding is that V1.3.5 is a development version. 1.3.3.14  
> is their "stable"
> version and I am using 1.3.6, which I like better then 1.3.3.14 and  
> I find it stable,
> enough so for a 8 page newsletter.
>
> Welcome to Scribus.
>
> George
>
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