Scribus is an open source DTP application at version 1.3.3.1, but it’s under constant development, so regular checks for new versions are advised.It’s in the nature of open source software that it’s never actually finished, so Scribus should be considered as a beta rather than a ready-to-roll commercial product.

The other aspect of the open source process is an approach to support and installation that it’s not quite as ‘unified’ as a commercial product’s. As well as installing Scribus, you’ll need to download and install GhostScript 8.5.3 or later (you’ll find links at www.scribus.net) for PostScript support and a separate GSView application, which is a graphical viewer for GhostScript.

If you’re technically confident, this will pose no problems. But if you like your installers neatly wrapped up in a single AutoRun interface, you’ll find Scribus a little daunting. Reminders that this is a technical project as well as a productivity tool are never far away – the documentation devotes as much space to version histories and support files as it does to the app’s tools. Having said that, there is a tutorial that explains Scribus layout basics concisely and quickly.

If you’ve used DTP applications before, it won’t take long to find your way around. Because Scribus was originally developed for Unix and Linux, it doesn’t always have the classic Windows look, but the palettes and menus work like any others. The DTP workflow is familiar too. You create a new document, choose dimensions and margins, then add pages as necessary to build a set of masters to make the job quicker. You can mix text frames and graphics, adjusting their stacking order and setting text to wrap around objects.

Typographically, Scribus very good, with full control over font metrics like tracking, scaling and baseline offset. You can create text frames that you type into directly, or add a shape and then convert it into a text container. Scribus is mostly very fast, though text selection can be fiddly and imprecise.

Missing templates
The only thing missing compared with commercial applications is ready-to-use content. In technical terms, Scribus achieves much the same as Serif’s PagePlus, but the difference is that PagePlus comes with a raft of professionally designed templates. If you’re a DTP or design novice, these prove just as useful as the DTP tools themselves. In Scribus, you have to start from a blank page. For professional designer’s that’s no bad thing, but are they really going to be interested in this program?

Scribus doesn’t have the overhead costs of InDesign or QuarkXPress, but the key factor with these programs is that they’re widely supported, known quantities. That’s crucial in an industry where your first commercial print job cost is likely to dwarf your software outlay.

But what’s interesting here is Scribus’ support for the latest PDF formats. Printers are increasingly swapping to PDF for commercial print jobs rather than PostScript or application-specific files. It supports the Adobe PDF 1.4 standard as well as PDF 1.5 features. And it claims to offer full compliance with the PDF-X-3 ISO standard for ‘press ready’ PDFs, so you stand a good chance of finding a format for supplying separated PDF files to your commercial printer. ICC colour management is also included to integrate Scribus into a colour-managed workflow. If your previous experience of cheap DTP programs has been confined to retreads of ancient apps well past their sell-by date, you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. Scribus supports transparent objects, it displays nicely anti-aliased text and graphics, and it even incorporates its own vector drawing tools.

Scribus fills the same role in the DTP world as the GIMP does in image editing. It’s an excellent tool – considering it’s free – that’s at the cutting edge of software development. But it’s also quirky, comparatively poorly documented (for end-users, not for programmers), little-known outside its own developer community and band of converts, and never entirely ‘finished’. If you’re a technically astute dabbler who admires the open source philosophy and you’re committed to making it work, you’ll find Scribus a remarkable and rewarding DTP tool. But if you prefer pre-packaged software ‘solutions’, it’s too rough and ready.