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On 23/04/11 21:14, Gordon Henderson wrote:
Wifey is struggling with Scribus - after X years of using publisher (curtsey of her employer, DCC, who's just made her redundant), she thinks it's utter rubbish.And I have to say, watching her struggle to use it, I'm starting to think that too - a seemingly simple task she showed me in Publisher - inset some clip-art, resize it, move it into place - a doddle in publisher, required that Scribus launch gimp to do the image manipulation...So she's on the verge of spending Â120 on publisher... Unless there is an alternative?It's probably the one thing that would stop her going over to Linux and give-up her XP desktop once and for-all, however...Any suggestions welcome... Gordon
I've been using Scribus to produce our village newsletter/magazine for the last 3 to 4 years. I haven't found anything better under Linux. And the MS Windows version can't be beat on price (free). I certainly couldn't afford to use something like Adobe InDesign or QuarkExpress at around Â300-Â700.
If you persist with Scribus then please join the Scribus mailing lists. Most people there are very experienced (some even produce newspapers with Scribus) and someone will have a solution for anything a newbie finds difficult.
Scribus's major purpose, like most DTP software, is to produce high quality pdfs ready for a print shop; which it does very well. It's not meant to print straight to a desktop printer. To do that use Acrobat, Okular etc to print the Scribus produced pdf.
I've tried MS Publisher under Vbox and it's a toy in comparison but I suppose if only simple leaflets are required and your wife is familiar with Publisher then she should use it. But bear in mind that after producing a few leaflets somebody will ask her to produce something a bit more complex (that's what happened to me!). She'll have to leave Publisher behind and re-learn a different software and unless she has a deep pocket that software will have to be Scribus.
Incidentally while Inkscape and OpenOffice Draw are great for producing drawings they are not suitable for laying out pages. ie. no semi/professional would use PhotoShop to produce a magazine when proper DTP software like InDesign or QuarkExpress or Scribus is available.
Keith . -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq