[scribus] Quark vs. Scribus, redux

[John Culleton]

On Tuesday 03 August 2010 00:53:45 Michael Chamness wrote:
>   I would agree that cost should not be the determinant, but rather the
> appropriate utility of any program. As I said, the application you know
> how to use is a good application if it meets your needs. But when
> dealing with programs like QuarkXpress, cost is important, because it is
> (or used to be) quite expensive, aimed at the professional publishing
> market.  It came out of Colorado back then, but was sold and departed
> for Switzerland last time I looked. Maybe that helped. I was not
> fortunate in my working life (I'm 71 and retired now) to ever make much
> money, and the outlay for Quark was the biggest computer expense for 
me
> in that decade. Cost was important to me, and I suspect its important to
> most people when they consider new software. And yes, open source
> software has a definite advantage in the constant improvement from 
many
> users. There are countless reasons why we buy what we do, and if we 
have
> wives, they add to the mix - color, seat covers, whatever. But I'll bet
> price is way up there in most people's minds, no matter what they may 
say.
>
> I thought I was the only person still living who had used Coherent at
> one time, so was surprised when John Culleton mentioned it. I always
> carefully read most things he submits, he seems to be very wise and
> experienced in publishing, scribus, and other computer topics. He's one
> of the significant regulars in this forum.

Among the virtues of Scribus other than cost:
Frequent free updates
No fiddling with product keys
Ability to have more than one version
Version 1.5.0 will produce PDF X/1-a output.

Among the vices:
Dead slow with book length files
Doesn't have built in indexing capability
Doesn't use paragraph at a time justification


-- 
John Culleton
Wexford Press
"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
Printable E-book 38 pages $5.95
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html