Scribus

Scribus

Scribus 1.4.6 under Linux Mint 18
Developer(s) The Scribus Team
Initial release 26 June 2003 (2003-06-26)
Stable release
1.4.6[1] / 11 January 2016 (2016-01-11)
Preview release
1.5.2[2] / 17 May 2016 (2016-05-17)
Repository sourceforge.net/p/scribus/trunk/ci/master/tree/
Development status Active
Written in C++ (Qt)
Operating system Windows, Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation, FreeBSD, PC-BSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, OpenIndiana, GNU/Hurd, Haiku
Available in Multilingual
Type Desktop publishing
License GNU GPL
Website scribus.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 Unix, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, Haiku, Microsoft Windows, OS/2 and eComStation operating systems.

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

Books about Scribus are available in several languages,[3] including an official manual for v1.3, published through FLES Books in 2009.[4]

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, and 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,[5] including interactive PDFs form fields, annotations, and bookmarks.

The file format, called SLA, is based on XML. Text can be imported from OpenDocument (ODT) text documents, 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 and italic, are supported. Word and PDB documents are only imported as plain text.

Although Scribus supports Unicode character encoding, it 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.[6][7] In August 2012, it was announced that a third party had developed a system to support complex Indic scripts.[8][9][10] In May 2015 it was announced that the ScribusCTL project had started to improve complex layout by integrating the OpenType text-shaping engine HarfBuzz into the official Scribus 1.5.1svn branch.[11] In July 2016 it was announced that the text layout engine had been rewritten from scratch in preparation for support of complex scripts coming in Scribus 1.5.3 and later.[12]

As of June 2016 Scribus did not have OpenType alternative glyph support, so ligatures, for example, aren't inserted automatically.[13]

The 1.6 version is expected to provide a better table implementation and support for PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-4, and PDF/E. 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 such as QuarkXPress or InDesign; the developers consider that reverse engineering those file formats would be prohibitively complex and could risk legal action from the makers of those programs.[14] Support for importing Microsoft Publisher is incorporated into version 1.5,[15] and QuarkXPress Tag files, InDesign's IDML, as well as InCopy's ICML formats were added to the development branch.[16]

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. Pantone colors can be obtained and incorporated within Scribus without licensing issues.[17] Scribus is shipped with more than 100 color palettes, most donated by various commercial color vendors, but also including scientific, national, and government color standards.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Scribus.
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Scribus

Articles

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/25/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.