(8)
Your rating: Now say why...
- Download Now
65.9 MB -
Visit Developer's Site
Scribus.net
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, Mac OS X and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation. Scribus/Aqua is a port of Scribus to a native Aqua build using Qt Free for Mac OS X.
What's New
Version 1.4.0:
Major changes and improvements in comparison to the last stable version are:
- 1.4.0 is based on the Qt4 application framework. The initial transition from Qt3 was performed quite quickly, but fine tuning for cross-platform compatibility and taking advantage of new features took quite some time. As a result, Scribus now runs equally reliable on all supported platforms.
- Thanks to the port to Qt4, the Scribus Team now also provides install files for Mac OS X 10.5 or later (DMG or pkg format), as well as a native version for OS/2 Warp 4 and eComStation. Additionally, thanks to feedback from users of other UNIX platforms, Scribus is will build and run on more of those platforms as well.
- Feature enhancements to object handling (e.g. transform tools like in advanced drawing programs), with improvements to existing features like the Scrapbook and the Image Manager.
- Many advanced options for text and typography, like character styles, optical margins, or glyph extension. Undo/Redo is finally available for almost all text-related actions, and a new script enables replacing straight quotes with typographical quotation marks based on language settings. Usability improvements include better cursor placement and movement, faster layout on canvas and interaction between linked frames.
- New features for vector objects, like Boolean path operations, vector effects or a line style editor.
- Major improvements to the handling of fills, like pattern fill, more gradient types, support for external color palette formats (AI, EPS, GPL, PostScript, SOC), and many new color palettes, including those from commercial vendors like Resene and dtp studio, as well as national/government standards.
- A new frame type called "Render Frame" allows for rendering (and subsequently export) the output of every program that can create PostScript, PDF or PNG files via the command line (e.g. LaTeX, Lilypond, POV-Ray) inside Scribus. The initial version of which was developed as a project for Google Summer of Code and this project has developed to allow import of externally produced documents, scientific publications and formulas. More renderers can be added with a simple configuration file.
- Vector import filters: Scribus 1.4.0 provides new import filters for the following file formats: Adobe Illustrator (both EPS and PDF-based), Macintosh Picture (PICT), Windows Metafile (WMF), Xfig (FIG), Calamus Vector Graphics (CVG), Kivio Stencils (SML), and DIA Shapes (SHAPE).
- Regarding bitmap images, the handling of Photoshop files has seen many major improvements, like support of multiple clipping paths or PSD layers. The Image Manager has been rewritten, and new non-destructive image effects have been added. Moreover, Scribus 1.4.0 now supports EXIF data in images, and import of Windows and OS/2 bitmaps (BMP) has been re-enabled.
- Among the major enhancements to Scribus's pre-press features, printing marks and the display of ink coverage in the Print Preview are the most important. In addition, Scribus now enables conversion of spot colors to process colors during PDF and PostScript export with a single click.
- PDF export has seen major improvements as well. Scribus can now export to PDF 1.5, including PDF layers. Another new feature is the option to embed EPS and PDF files in exported PDFs as an alternative to rasterizing them. Also, both font embedding and substitution have been improved.
- For color management, Scribus 1.4.0 now supports both littleCMS version 1 and 2. It's also possible to enable color management with a single click from the main window.
- Additionally, the Scribus Team has added a feature to emulate color blindness on screen.
- Hundreds of minor and major usability improvements have been added.
- The included scripts have been updated, including the addition of the "Autoquote" script in the Script menu to convert straight quotes in a text frame to correct quotation marks for many languages.
- Scribus 1.4.0 is being shipped with many more templates than previous versions.
- The content of the Help System has been rewritten and updated.
Version 1.4.0:
Major changes and improvements in comparison to the last stable version are:
- 1.4.0 is based on the Qt4 application framework. The initial transition from Qt3 was performed quite quickly, but fine tuning for cross-platform compatibility and taking advantage of new features took quite some time. As a result, Scribus now runs equally reliable on all supported more...
Requirements
Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Intel, Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Swift Publishe...+8
iStudio Publis...+5 
Apple Pages+5 
iCalamus+3 
Desktop Publis...+2 
Adobe InDesign...+1
Scribus User Discussion (Write a Review)
Overall:
(8)
(8)
| Downloads:27,294 |
| Version Downloads:1,084 |
| Type:Multimedia & Design : Author Tools |
| License:Free |
| Date:02 Jan 2012 |
| Platform:Intel |
| Price:Free |
Overall (Version 1.x):  |
| Features: |
| Ease of Use: |
Value: |
| Stability: |
Displaying 1-10 of 11
-
-
-
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, Mac OS X and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation. Scribus/Aqua is a port of Scribus to a native Aqua build using Qt Free for Mac OS X.
Copyright © 2012 MacUpdate LLC
- -
+29
Skyhorse reviewed on 20 Jan 2012
bgabesy007 reviewed on 11 Jan 2012
+8
Laos reviewed on 08 Aug 2011
1. Scribus is cross-platform (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X). This is its main advantage and its main disadvantage. It is an advantage as you can move its document files across different operating systems and the result will still look the same (try this with a MS product). It is a disadvantage as you cannot expect a native Mac OS X user interface.
2. Scribus has a professional feature set. As with any professional software it has its complexity and learning curve. But when you start to manage it, it is of real value. I printed a lot of flyers and smaller books with it and was always impressed by its feature set.
3. Scribus is open source and comes for free. It is really impressive what Scribus brings you for nothing. But, as true for many open source projects, its development cycles could be shorter. Of course, we all would like to see every month a new final release, but the available resources are limited. Scribus has a strong development community, which offers continuous support since many years. What else can we expect?
If you do not bring your files to a professional printer often, then this software might not be for you. You might be more pleased with Apple's Pages. If you need to create printable PDFs and you do not want to invest in expensive software like Adobe InDesign, then this is worth looking at.
+104
It is nearly impossible to get an adequate resolution, color managed pdf out of it. I'd say it would be a fast way to do your dough. It is a pity that Apple markets it as a cheap but viable DTP application because it is really no good for anything except output to your desktop printer.
Having said that about Pages, Scribus is simply a cheapskates DTP solution, I would not use it for serious output for commercial print. Unless it has its own method to output to pdf it is as flawed as Pages, whose achilles heel is OSX's print engine.
+8
Scribus has its own algorithms to create a PDF. It does not use the PDF engine of Mac OS X, which makes its PDF output much better.
+1
+104
Can it output spot colors?
+3
Your comments about Pages are rather like someone complaining that a Big Mac doesn't taste like Filet Mignon.
Pages is the 2011 version of AppleWorks. It does what it says on the label. It's not supposed to produce serious output for commercial print.
It's very easy to use and quite capable of producing pretty good quality (for a home user) products.
+8
Pages brings you a lot of features with ease of use, but its layout and text rendering engine is rather limited. It would be more fair to compare Scribus with Adobe's InDesign.
@Rubaiyat
Even tough I never tried it, the documentation says Scribus can do spot colors. Read more information here:
http://documentation.scribus.net/index.php/Spot_Colors
+104
I wish it was AppleWorks II. It is not, it misses the database for a start. Not that AW was a serious DTP.
Apple is quite deceptive about what Pages can do. I have repeatedly asked the local Apple Store staff to stop claiming it is capable of serious publishing and is a complete replacement for Word.
They tend to ignore anything that hampers sales though. We end up with all the confused users in support, along with the Apple Sales staff who made all the exaggerated claims.
The 2 versions for iOS5 and OSx have only added to the confusion. Despite my long experience in Publishing it frequently has me consulting all my references to get things done.
Superficially it is nice and so long as you don't push it past the gorgeous set of supplied templates, even useful.
+3
+104
Pages + Numbers + Bento ≠ AppleWorks.
Bento has no integration with Pages at all and Numbers is neat with charts but is a right bastard with merges. It drives most of our users nuts. How Apple gets this so wrong mystifies me.
+153
+8
+66
Cenocre reviewed on 13 Jul 2010
Next, I TRIED to install templates. They were easy to find, but the instructions were either missing, utterly cryptic, or wrong. This is a classic case of open source assuming that everyone is a UNIX or LINUX geek. After lots of research and trials, I gave up.
So, I just tried to create my own document from scratch and almost immediately got the error, 'The application "pdflatex --interaction nonstopmode" failed to start! Please check the path:' Huh?
Continuing on, I found that the interface was stunning stupid for some tasks, especially related to text. It is incredible that you have to change the text's characteristics in a one window and then go back to the main window to see the effect.
I'm a programmer and run web servers so I am somewhat used to the "logic" and assumptions of the open source and UNIX world. And, I've used Quark since it's intro, Pagemaker, MultiAd Creator, and other DTP programs and have rarely needed to consult their manuals and am very schooled on DTP. I found Scribus to be unnecessarily difficult and illogical. Scribus should and could be a great product and it appears to be very comprehensive, but it need LOTS of help to make it rationally easy to install and use for even the above average user.
A lot of good work has gone into Scribus. I hope that they end up making it a great competitor to Quark. For now I will stick with the surprisingly good MultiAd Creator.
+3
+5
"Professional quality" open source apps sounds good in theory. I'd hoped for a good replacement to FreeHand within Inkscape, but damn, working in X11 with an Windows-like interface was a strain after years with FreeHand MX. Scribus had the same effect.
+2
+5
http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/macosx/gplgs-8.71.dmg
+480
sudo port install ghostscript
+4
+104
First impressions:
1. Seems to have a very large selection of features. Some appear pointed to professional usage.
2. GUI is crude. Windows, particularly dialogues, resize oddly. Buttons and fields scatter when the dialogue box is resized. Functions are not clearly grouped, not helped by the bad icons.
3. Interface icons are cheap wishy washy PC style, don't do their job and are generally indecipherable.
4. Feedback on some actions is either non existent or hard to discern.
5. Palettes are disorganised and can't be docked.
6. Tends to use programmer's jargon naming interface objects
7. Has PC behavior eg It opened the .app twice in my attempts to open sample files and closing all windows closes the application.
8. The Wiki has dead links.
9. The downloadable sample doesn't open in Scribus and there is no dialog saying why.
10 I'd rate this a stable beta.
In all it is a mix of considerable promise, in desperate need of a good UI designer.
Be interesting where they go from here. It seems to be making very little progress at this stage. Nothing since February.
+45
They would actually have done better to make it a plain X11 port. This is so bad a design that I see no reason to bother investigating it further.
+5
On my mac mini Intel the Program starts quick and i'll try try it the nexts weeks.
+39
+1
+41
+153
Since Ragtime has discontinued Ragtime Solo, it might be wise to convert your files to this product, before Solo becomes incompatible with the newer Mac OS's.
This is a definite possibility since it is my understanding that Solo no longer supported.
Unless this product includes a converter, copy and past should do it after creating the appropriate layouts.
+153
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ghostscript/files/GPL%20Ghostscript/8.71/ghostscript-8.71-macosx.tar.gz/download
Install the executable file here:
/$home/usr/bin
Where $home is your root directory of your hard drive.
The 'bin' folder is hidden so you will need to us the Finder 'Go To Folder' menu item or a utility to reveal hidden folders.
In an application that needs it, such as Scribus, in preferences point the gs file path to the executable in your 'bin' folder.
To pont to this file, open the 'bin' folder or leave it open from the install. When in the Open dialog in your program, click on the executable in the 'bin' folder.
+5
Stefanoaz rated on 02 Jan 2012
+15
Jack75 rated on 02 Jan 2012
Batyli rated on 02 Jan 2012
neba rated on 25 Apr 2011