

SCRIBUS FOR MAC WINDOWS
The fact that it requires X11 makes using it somewhat irritating – AquaScribus goes some way to making life easier, but the fact remains that X11 lacks the polish of Mac-native software.įor example, the menu bar is attached to the window instead of the top of the screen – something which has long annoyed Mac-users trying to get to grips with Windows or Unix. There are some ugly aspects to Scribus, but they’re not the fault of the application as such. Some items are located in curious places, and leading is referred to using (incorrect) the word-processing term of “line spacing,” but otherwise it’s pretty easy to find your way around. In interface terms, it’s pretty similar to Quark XPress, and as Quark remains the industry standard, this is certainly a good thing. Scribus is a fine application and for anyone wanting to get started on desktop publishing and layout. The Good, the Bad and the Very, Very Ugly Well, sure they can – as long as you don’t care about decent output, color matching, and working in a properly color-managed workflow. The downside of this is that the Linux geeks have now retaliated by saying that the GIMP’s RGB images can be used in Scribus and exported to CMYK in Scribus. This is invisible to the user and works flawlessly, as far as LEM’s tests went. So how does Scribus deal with CMYK? By using a trick to separate the colors into four single channels.
SCRIBUS FOR MAC PROFESSIONAL
Many Linux geeks, knowing nothing of the worlds of professional prepress and design, ignore these problems and endlessly promote the likes of GIMP for tasks which it is simply not capable of. The real test of any professional layout application is can it handle CMYK separations, and, if so, how well This has long been a thorn in the side of the free-software and open-source movements.įor example, GIMP (see Bring Out the GIMP), the would-be Photoshop competitor, has poor CMYK support due to patent issues. Create a page, draw a frame, import your image or text – so far, so ordinary. Like MLayout (see Killing Quark: Three Layout Alternatives), its interface seems to be modeled on Quark XPress, so most users will be able to hit the ground running. Once up and running, Scribus performs pretty much like every other frame-based layout application. The NeXT-like AfterStep window-manager is being used in order to make the whole experience a bit more Mac-like.
