The feature list for Scribus will impress you.

• Supports most image file formats
• CMYK and ICC color management support
• Printing via level 3 postscript
• Transparency support
• Layer support
• Encryption support
• Interactive PDF support
• And much more…

Getting and Installing Scribus is simple. Fire up your Add/Remove utility, do a search for “scribus”, select the results, and apply the changes. Once Scribus is installed you will find it in either your Office or your Graphics menu (depending upon which desktop you use).

When you first fire up Scribus you will be greeted by a simple New Document “wizard”. This wizard allows you to choose from various layouts, page sizes, margins, etc. It’s not until you are actually working in a document that you can see the power of Scribus.

Scribus Working With Template

As you can see (in the image to the left) Scribus can create complex documents. The document you see is actually a single- layered document. This particular document is a template that can be downloaded from the Scribus web site. Personally I would have done this with multiple layers in order to simplify the creation of the document. Creating such a complex single-layered document also makes it hard to select and manipulate individual elements.

Layering is probably one of the key features of Scribus, and one you should definitely grow accustomed to. You treat layers in Scribus as you would in The GIMP, QuarkXPress, Publisher, or any quality print-ready tool.

Once you start playing around with Scribus you will discover useful feature after useful feature. There are features that you will certainly use more than others. The text editor tool, for example, is where you create and edit the text you place in text frames.

Scribus also has some good support paths including:

Wiki

IRC

Mailing list

Bug tracker

There is also a documentation page on the Scribus site. This page has quite a bit of information on using Scribus.

The Downside

The only downside Scribus has is that it can not import other proprietary formats. This was a choice that the Scribus team made because they felt like importing other formats would comprimise the integrity of the original document. In reality this is a smart move, because it won’t make Scribus look like it can not handle Adobe Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, or Microsoft Publisher formats. You can, however, import SVG, EPS/PS documents into Scribus.

Final Thoughts

I have used Scribus from everything to simple fliers, to complex marketing brochures, to books.  I am always amazed at the power of this tool as well as the versatility. If you are looking for an application to create impressive PDF documents, and you want to do so either on all platforms or on a budget, Scribus is the perfect application for the job. Scribus is the perfect solution to your desktop publishing needs.

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PagePlus is a ‘budget’ desktop publishing suite published by Serif. The latest version (PagePlus X3) costs £80 but an older version, PagePlus SE, is offered free-of-charge.

PagePlus SE contains many different paper sizes and when installing, it asks the user whether they are American or European (for paper sizes). PagePlus SE can be therefore be used to design everything from an envelope to a letter!

Most of PagePlus SE’s features are also in Publisher but I feel that PagePlus SE is easier to use when designing something more than a greeting card etc. For example, instead of having to go through all sort of context menus to be able to specify an object’s position, PagePlus SE bears a bar which allows the user to numerically enter information like the position, size and angle of objects. This is much easier than having to right click an item or guess-timate its position.

I also feel PagePlus SE is better with kerning, with this also being in the changebar as opposed to being hidden in a menu!

Some options in PagePlus SE are also more technical: it allows the user to state the rendering they want on screen and on print, for example. The user can also opt for grid lines. There’s also a resource and text manager, where all images and text used inside the publication are listed to allow a quick summary.

Unfortunately, PagePlus SE cannot export into industry-standard formats like PDF and EPS.

Serif host a number of designs on their website which people can import int PagePlus to use.

It may not be Quark, but it’s free and easily up to the same standard as its nearest competitor: Publisher. Unfortunately, like Publisher but unlike Quark, it is Windows-only.

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