Response to Questions about our book, “Using FREE Scribus Software to Create Professional Presentations”
After I post a message about our book, “Using FREE Scribus Software to Create Professional Presentations” (
http://greenexameducation.com/) last week, we have received some feedbacks/comments. Many of them are similar, so I choose to respond to all of them here:
First of all, we have several suggestions for you and others who have developed and supported Scribus:
1. The help function for Scribus is TERRIBLE: If you do a search with a term on Scribus, it just takes you to one or more websites, and then you have to go thru pages after pages of information, and still can NOT find help for the simple command you need. It is a total waste of user’s time.
Why is it so hard for Scribus to build the basic help command within the program, like AutoCAD, or MS Word?
2. The way of generating a PDF/x-1a:2001 compatible file is ABSOLUTELY critical for book cover design, it is the dominant file format for color interior book publishing, b/w interior books can be in other file formats.
This is a MAJOR weakness of Scribus. It is ABSOLUTELY important to tell the readers the easiest way of generating a PDF/x-1a:2001 compatible file with Scribus or how to go around and solve the problem. All other formats, like X-3, etc. will AUTOMATICALLY show up as one of the choices in Scribus.
Hopefully, Scribus will come up with a new edition that will export to this format.
Now, back to my book, it is a "for dummy" kind of book that is meant for beginners, and I chose to use COLOR interior to make it easier to read for the readers. This means I have to use the minimum number of pages to describe the ABSOLUTELY critical commands for the readers to learn Scribus in the shortest time and survive.
There are hundreds and maybe thousands of commands in Scribus or any other graphic programs, but you only need to learn a VERY small number of common commands to be able to survive. Once you can do that, you can slowly build up your commands and advance to the next level. On the commands that I do cover, I repeat them a few times to help the readers MASTER them.
If you give a beginner too much information and too many commands, you WILL scare them off, and they’ll NEVER use Scribus, and you are NOT helping them at all, let alone the advanced features of Scrbus.
For this reason, I did NOT discuss:
1. Issue of “color coverage of up to 400%”: Unless you make the cover VERY, VERY dark, i.e., a black cat in a black cave, there is almost no chance for a 397% cover. Even for the black cat cover, if you use pure black, you’ll NOT have any problem at all. So for 99.99% of the readers, this is NOT an issue AT ALL. I may add this to a future b/w version of my book for more advanced users.
2. Snap to guide: Snap to guide is important, but the Scribus snap function is so “elementary” or NOT mature when compared with other software. For example, in AutoCAD, you can snap to midpoint, intersection, endpoint, perpendicular point, nearest point, etc. All these choices are not available in Scribus. Readers can easily play with Scribus and learn this later on their own if they can survive and start to use Scribus. I may add this to a future b/w version of my book for more advanced users.
3. The use of paragraph styles: Readers can easily learn this later on Scribus this own if they can survive and start to use Scribus. I may add this to a future b/w version of my book for more advanced users.
4. Font sub-setting and its limitations: Readers can easily learn this later on Scribus own if they can survive and start to use Scribus. I may add this to a future b/w version of my book for more advanced users.
5. The minimum resolution of graphic image: The minimum resolution is covered in ALL major book printers’ criteria already. There is NO need to repeat it in my book, and each printer may have different requirements: 300 dpi, or 600 dpi, etc.
6. I did advise to ignore some error messages: The error messages show up because of the book template that I imported, and but these will not affect my book cover design. I do NOT want to spend a lot of time to go into details for these error messages.
7. I did introduce using jpeg format barcodes as a last resort: I know manytechnical geeks are against this, but I do NOT even give a damp:
You need to enlarge a book to 800% percent to notice any difference. For a book cover, NOBODY will use an enlarged lens to enlarge a book cover to 800% to read the barcodes.
Using jpeg format barcodes as a last resort is EXTREMELY helpful for someone who is learning Scribus by himself/herself, gets stuck with the barcode problem and has nobody to turn to, and has a deadline to meet. This valuable option will save him/her.
Here is the detailed information about our book:
Using FREE Scribus Software to Create Professional Presentations: Book Covers, Magazine Covers, Graphic Designs, Posters, Newsletters, Renderings, and More (Full Color Edition)
ISBN: 9780984374151
Here is some more info on the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Scribus-Software-Create-Professional-Presentations/dp/0984374159%3FSubscriptionId%3D1QZMGW0RRJC2PX87HDR2%26tag%3Dsalranexp-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0984374159#_ See all our published books at:
http://www.amazon.com/Gang-Chen/e/B001JS00RK/http://GreenExamEducation.com/