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Scribus

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Scribus
Developer(s)The Scribus Team
Initial release26 June 2003 (2003-06-26)
Stable release
1.4.3 / 31 July 2013; 10 years ago (2013-07-31)
Preview release
1.5.0svn / 1 January 2012; 12 years ago (2012-01-01)
Repository
Written inC++ (Qt)
Operating systemWindows, Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana, GNU/Hurd, Haiku
Available inMultilingual
TypeDesktop publishing
LicenseGNU GPL
Websitescribus.net

Scribus is a desktop publishing (DTP) application, released under the GNU General Public License as free software. It is based on the free Qt toolkit, with native versions available for Linux, Unix-like operating systems, Mac OS X, Haiku, Microsoft Windows, OS/2 and eComStation. It has a number of page layout features and competes with leading commercial applications such as Adobe PageMaker, PagePlus, QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign.

Scribus is designed for layout, typesetting and to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment. It can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms. Example uses include writing small newspapers, brochures, newsletters, posters and books.

An official Scribus manual, published through FLES Books,[1] has been available since 19 January 2009.[2]

General Feature Overview

Scribus supports most major bitmap formats, including TIFF, JPEG and Adobe Photoshop. Vector drawings can be imported or directly opened for editing. The long list of supported formats includes Encapsulated PostScript, SVG, Adobe Illustrator, or Xfig. Professional type/image setting features include CMYK colors and ICC color management. It has a built-in scripting engine using Python. It is available in more than 24 languages.

High-level printing is achieved using its own internal level 3 PostScript driver, including support for font embedding and sub-setting with TrueType, Type 1 and OpenType fonts. The internal driver supports full Level 2 PostScript constructs and a large subset of Level 3 constructs.

PDF support includes transparency, encryption and a large set of the PDF 1.5 specification, as well as PDF/X-3,[3] including interactive PDFs form fields, annotations and bookmarks.

The file format, called SLA, is based on XML. Text can be imported from OpenDocument text documents, as well as OpenOffice.org Writer, Microsoft Word, PDB (Palm OS) and HTML formats (although some limitations apply). ODT files can typically be imported along with their paragraph styles, which are then created in Scribus. HTML tags which modify text, such as bold or italic will also be handled pretty well. So far, Word and PDB documents will only be imported as plain text.

Although Scribus supports Unicode character encoding, it currently does not properly support complex script rendering and so cannot be used with Unicode text for languages written with Arabic, Hebrew, Indic and South East Asian writing systems.[4][5] In August 2012, it was announced that a third party had developed a system to support complex Indic scripts.[6][7][8]

The 1.6 version is expected to provide a better table implementation, PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-4 and PDF/E support. Footnotes, marginal notes and ePub exporting are under development.

Support for other programs and formats

Scribus cannot read or write the native file formats of other DTP programs like QuarkXPress, Microsoft Publisher, or InDesign; the developers feel that reverse engineering those file formats would be prohibitively complex and could risk legal action from the makers of those programs.[9] Nonetheless, support for QuarkXPress Tag files, MS Publisher files, InDesign's IDML, as well as InCopy's ICML formats has been added to the development branch.[10]

Due to licensing issues, the software package does not include support for the Pantone color matching system (PMS), which is included in some commercial DTP applications. Nonetheless, there are legal ways to obtain and incorporate Pantone colors within Scribus.[11] Scribus is already being shipped with more than 100 color palettes, most of which have been donated by various commercial color vendors, but also include scientific, national or government color standards.

References

  1. ^ "Scribus 1.3 Official Manual". FLES Books. 2009. Archived from the original on 6 January 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  2. ^ "Welcome to FLES Books". FLES Books. 2009. Archived from the original on 17 January 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2011.
  3. ^ "Scribus PDF/X-3 Overview". Retrieved 22 May 2011.
  4. ^ Scribus Metabug 3965: Support for non-latin languages
  5. ^ Scribus bug 1547: Support for Indic Scripts
  6. ^ DAKF (15 August 2012). "Indic Unicode support for Scribus is developed". scribus mailing list. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  7. ^ "Complex Script Functionality". Scribus Wiki. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  8. ^ "0001547: Support for Indic Scripts". Mantis Issue Tracker for Scribus. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  9. ^ Why Scribus doesn't support QuarkXPress and other major publishing applications, scribus.net
  10. ^ "Scribus Wiki tracker of file format support".
  11. ^ http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/How_to_legally_obtain_spot_colour_palettes_for_use_in_Scribus_1.3.3.x_and_later_versions
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