A discussion about the typesetting software

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a.l.e

Interesting read, indeed.

There are a few things that I'd like to see in Scribus (and might be not too hard to add):

  • Contextual / conditional paragraph and character styles (including GREP styles): I wonder how to do them in a way that is both simple to program and to use.
  • Multiple hyphenation dictionaries (and external word lists)
  • Minimal number of chars in the paragraph before the first hyphen and after the last one (as alternative to a minimal length of the word)
  • Warn in the preflight verifier for modified frames
  • Color coded view of character and paragraph styles (similar to the white space review mode)
  • Charts and graphs as vector frames
  • Letterspacing applied to a range of text, but only within the range, not after the last character.
  • Multiple baseline grids
  • An external tool for for imposition and prepress.
  • Basic export to EPUB

Aleks100

Does 1.7x version have option to knockout shape color and overprint (out)line?
This is very useful for prepress.
It can be solved by copying outline at layer above but this is easier.

nitramr

@Aleks100 yes, there is. In Properties Palette (Fill or Line) you can click on the color dot to open the color dialog. There is a 3 dot menu where you can switch between knockout and overprint. Knockout is the default.

@a.l.e
I think we need something like a listener on text changes to render the GREP styles while typing. To keep the calculation activity low, it could listen for the active paragraph only. If the style definition has changed, the whole text must be processed at once. The GREP styles could apply temporary like regular styles to avoid a "recalculation" if the style definition doesn't change, but have to be identifiable as "applied" GREP styles in story text. We can start with a simple implementation for color, size and fontface.

I have some additions to your list. I asked an AI what is needed to flatten the learning curve for beginners and make Scribus ready for professional workflows.

The report contains a lot of useful improvements and ideas:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mUlatITRQXkU-NpIS0w_dDPVgCc0qBda0TrNDpEw8v8/edit?tab=t.0

Aleks100

Both fill and line can be knockout or overprint, but I meant for fill to be knockout and at the same shape line to be overprint.

utnik

hi aleks

i know this as 'trapping' (overfilling a shape to avoid blanks).
unfortunately scribus doesn't support trapping, which is usually not a big problem for digital printing but may be a show stopper for offset printing.

you could file a feature request here.

utnik

Aleks100

For offset, screen... every kind of printing but digital.
However, I prefer to set it manually.

utnik

Quote from: Aleks100 on December 24, 2025, 01:23:03 PM...However, I prefer to set it manually.
it's usually not my business, as my work is for digital printing. but i think it would be a good thing to have an editable trapping preset. (editable by selecting which element will overfill and by the amount of the trapping...)

utnik

a.l.e

Nitramr, very interesting summary.

If I understand the text correctly, there are a few things that are already in the pipeline (customizable toolbar, epub export), others that indeed are low hanging fruits (icons, dark mode, UI snapshots), and some that seem wrong to me (the story editor is not put forward by Scribus nor opens on double click, welding has little to do with vector editing, drag and drop does work, one can create snippets that can be reused).

But there is one thing that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable: the reports suggest that Scribus should make big improvements for both professionals and for novices.
My fear, is that following this advice will result in new cool features being added to Scribus without really making the users happier.
Personally, I'd prefer a slightly a different approach that has -- in my eyes -- more chances to make Scribus make noticeable progress for its users:
defining target usages that we want to support and make us the best software in the field.

From what I read from the different Scribus forums, here are some of the common usages of Scribus where we have a chance to be very good:

  • Creation of song books (mostly for churches).
  • Support of RTL languages for individuals and businesses with limited budget.
  • Layout of comics books.
  • Creation of calendars.

Of course, my goal is not to transform Scribus to a software that only targets one or more of these specific fields.
I'd rather like to use our limited resources to make some of our users really happy, while improving the software for everybody.
And once we've made Scribus good for some users, we can look for further goals.