Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: Dwight Worker on May 10, 2013, 04:30:37 PM

Title: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Dwight Worker on May 10, 2013, 04:30:37 PM
Hello. This is my first post. I am an open source guy. I only use Linux. No Windows or MAC applications for over 5 years. On other books that I have published, I have paid a company to produce the final pdfs for publication. They used the Adobe InDesign. This whole process was very frustrating to me. I had to wait long periods of time in order to make minor changes.
Here are my naive questions:
1. Is SCRIBUS the best open source SW for creating an uncomplicated book? (this book will only have black and white photos along with the text, and a table of contents).
2. If not, what other open source package would you recommend? Remember, I ONLY use Linux.
3. Is it okay on this forum to offer to pay someone to consult and help me to get up to speed on a desktop publishing package?

Thank you very much.

Dwight Worker
workerdw@gmail.com
812 345-0650 mobile   
Title: Re: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Nermander on May 10, 2013, 04:42:42 PM
It depends a bit on your needs, but there aren't many alternatives to Scribus. Different variants of TeX (eg. LaTeX etc) and Open/Libre Office are the major alternatives.

What kind of PDF do you need? Do you need things like footnotes, automatic reflow of content on changes etc?

You can look at the Scribus Wiki for the "success stories" showing what people have done with Scribus, but that mainly tells you the end result, not how they got there.
Title: Re: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Arran on May 10, 2013, 07:16:18 PM
I think it is. With the one exception: table of content. I am sure, this module is still directly out of the computer stone age.

I would therefore recommend writer.

I aam just an ordinary forum-user but think if you want a quick course and pay for it, by all means try it.
Title: Re: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Dwight Worker on May 10, 2013, 09:26:18 PM
Thank you for replying.
With a table of contents with SCRIBUS, will I just have to count the page #s at the end and insert it?
Title: Re: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Nermander on May 11, 2013, 10:14:07 AM
Scribus currently uses a method where you set attributes on items (for example a text frame or image frame) and the TOC lists those attributes together with the page they are on. So the TOC won't list the content of the frame, but the attribute.

http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Creating_a_Table_of_Contents

(There's a flash movie at the bottom of the page)
Title: Re: Is Scribus the best open source SW for publishing a book?
Post by: Davoody on May 14, 2013, 10:54:33 PM
Hello ALL,

Thanks to Nermander and the rest of Scribus community.
FYI; I have evaluated over 30 DTP tools against our requirements and came up with two front-runners; Scribus and FrameMaker!

I am a novice user of Scribus - recently joined the forum! I am currently using Scribus version 1.4.2 on Windows 7. We plan to use (hopefully) it on Linux/Unix servers (Solaris/Red Hat/Ubuntu) as well we usually use the latest versions / patches of the OS.

At a public agency, we are upgrading our enterprise publishing and authoring system. To this end, we have identified two applications; Scribus and FrameMaker to substitute our current tools. Having said this, we are in the "Point of Concept" (POC) process to evaluate both Scribus and FrameMaker against the requirements. I am now asked to create at least three documents to be printed on recycled papers in black ink. The documents are will have 32 pages, 64 pages, and 1024 pages. Once these three documents are created, I have to create a script to merge the three document (to create a book), and create a TOC of the merged document.

I know that I will need our community help to accomplish my project. To begin, I wonder if anyone has a suggestion on best-practices!

Greatly appreciate your help,
David