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SCRIBUS - Open Source Desktop Publishing

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tomos:
Renegade -

from the Scribus site:
A great deal of time and effort has been put into Scribus to generate very high quality commercial grade PDF. Provided you follow the recommended workflow in the documentation, you should have few issues* with commercial printing.

but also:
This is beta software which is undergoing many code changes daily. While it is fairly stable and usable, caution is advised. It is not recommended yet for production use. The underlying file format is undergoing rapid changes and will not be finished until the 1.3.4 or 1.3.5 version is released.

I just downloaded 1.3.3.8 so hopefully "1.3.4 or 1.3.5" will be here soon.
*But as you say yourself, "few issues" could be a few too many  :)

tomos:
Scribus 1.3.4 Release

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of Scribus
1.3.4 Антон (Anton, newly born son of a Scribus developer)

Almost one year in the making, this new developement release brings Scribus to a new
plateau in professional print capabilities, innovative features and a
completely re-written text layout engine. Among the major new features in 1.3.4:

* A rewritten preview mode which allows designers and artists to view
layouts on screen as readers with color viewing deficiencies would
view a document. Thus, this enables a designer to avoid color
combinations which affect legibility.


* Major additions to TIFF/PSD support. This includes the ability to
use clipping paths in TIFF and PSD files to allow text wrapping.In
addition, Scribus now can import special flavors of EPS exported from
Photoshop known as Desktop Color Separations (version 1.0 and 2.0).
Layers, blend modes, Duo,Tri and Quadtone PSD files are now also
supported.

* The new styles and text capabilities include style inheritance for
paragraphs, character styles and line styles. This is now managed by
a new style manager palette.

* The new text layout engine has a multitude of enhancements for
vastly better more appealing justification, including the use of
optical margins and more sophisticated word spacing algorithms.

*New pre-press capabilities including, registration marks, crop marks,
calibration bars and document meta info. These are all easily managed
within the print and PDF export dialogs.

* Color management enhancements including better CMYK > CMYK
conversions.
* A rewritten and more capable Scrapbook
* Support for patterns; both bitmap and vector
* A more capable Align and Distribute Palette
* Extended Multiple Copying
*New transparency features including blend modes for layers and
individual objects
* A new cross-platform Icon set from the Tango Project

Detailed release notes:
(EN) http://www.scribus.net/releases/1.3.4/Scribus-1.3.4.EN_releasenotes.pdf
(DE) http://www.scribus.net/releases/1.3.4/Scribus-1.3.4.DE_releasenotes.pdf http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=143

tomos:
I came across a portable version as well
but it's still at 1.3.3.9 ..

I actually gave up on Scribus because it converted text to paths when importing EPS's which I didnt want for what I was doing.

At the end of the day that wasnt such a big deal - it was just no great advantage over using freehand so I stuck with what i knew best..
This (version 1.3.4) sounds like it's worth a try though  :)

tomos:
Scribus 1.3.4 Release

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
The Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of Scribus
1.3.4 Антон (Anton, newly born son of a Scribus developer)
....
-tomos (June 25, 2007, 09:23 AM)
--- End quote ---
...
unfortunately still not available as a windows installer...

but to keep us going in the meantime
"12/01/2008 - Scribus 1.3.3.11 released"  download somewhere here!

now will i or wont i .... :-\

tomos:
OK - Here's the $64,000 question:

Would anyone use Scribus for production? (Or, is it used in real production? i.e. Not a high school news letter.)

I've used Quark, InDesign and a few other programs in the past. They all worked, but a DTP app? Open source and free? That's a lot of work. Especially to get right.

I suppose you could print plates first then check/test them, but that still runs you a pretty penny. (I've seen the tiniest of errors cost a lot of money in publishing.)

I'm interested in that app... Sounds pretty good, but I'd like to find out opinions before I bother looking at it in depth.
-Renegade (December 12, 2006, 09:29 AM)
--- End quote ---

bout a year & a half on from your questions ... an answer could be helpful to someone maybe :)

well, I'm just researching it again & came across this

Final Checks

Scribus has a Pre-Flight Verifier to examine your documents and look for problems before they reach the production line. With PDF files, I also recommend you put it to one more test. This is especially important for large production runs at a third-party print shop.

Scribus documentation and its Wiki suggest several on-line PDF-checking tools. I use PDF City at http://www.pdfcity.com/index.htm. By using its pre-flight inspection system, you will gain clues to potential printing problems before the printer does. PDF City provides this as a free service and gives any error details in a user-friendly format.
...
I'm impressed by this program. Being open source, it has room to grow with continued input and direction from users. The feature set is robust, and I feel confident recommending it to most small- to medium-size businesses with average to advanced publishing needs.

    Donald Emmack is Managing Partner of The IntelliGents & Co. He works extensively as a writer and business consultant in North America. -
that's a pretty definite recommendation!
http://www.tuxmagazine.com/node/1000225
from round about "2006-09-08" so - hopefully it's only gotten better since..

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