Scribus 1.5.6 and beyond

[@GraphicdesignforFree]

Great video! Thanks for giving Scribus the attention it deserves. I have been working Scribus for 7 years now, and the transition from Indesign (I refuse Adobe's 'renting' model) to Scribus for me was painless. I even prefer Scribus over some paid alternatives. Scribus works flawlessly. And there are many great features in Scribus like the snap to items feature, that are real time savers. In the last years I have used Scribus exclusively for professional printing like books, brochures and flyers. The conversion of sRGB to printing colors is so good that I don't want to use anything else. Combined with Gimp there is absolutely no problem working in sRGB and getting perfect print results; Scribus can do the heavy lifting! Scribus absolutely deserves more love, and I think the 1.6 version will give Scribus a big boost. Thanks again for making the video.

[@jozsefk9]

Would you mind sharing your workflow in Scribus while producing pre-press (PDFx CMYK) ready files please?

[@GraphicdesignforFree]

@@jozsefk9 Hi Jozsef, I don't mind sharing but it's a bit elaborate. Are you familiar with flattening transparencies using pdf (to prevent printing problems)?

[@jozsefk9]

@@GraphicdesignforFree I'm familiar with flattening transparency in Affinity software. It doesn't work in Scribus. Also, Affinity can automatically convert all colors to CMYK if I choose PDFx while exporting the file.

[@GraphicdesignforFree]

@@jozsefk9 I just compared in Scribus 1.5.6.1 pdf 1.3 (which should flatten), and pdf 1.4 (which respects transparency). pdf 1.3 in Scribus indeed fails to flatten correctly (I placed a 50% magenta shape over an image) and the pdf 1.3 output is 100 magenta, so this indeed doesn't work. pdf 1.4 output however works (I opened the pdf in inkscape and there is 50% transparency). But not all printer shops however accept pdf 1.4 (although most do these days). Personally I never use transparency in Scribus (I come from the days that RIP's absolutely hate transparency and will have messed up your design after ripping the pdf). So I avoid using transparency in Scribus and do these things in Gimp (and export a png for Scribus). I haven't tried (layered) TIFF's yet. As said, I work only in sRGB in Gimp, so when I open an image I convert to sRGB. sRGB to Fogra27L CMYK Coated (a generic color profile, not even a specific one) has given for me very good color results until now. When I would ask a printer for their specific icc profile (and when they would provide it, which is not always the case), I would probably get even better results.

[@jozsefk9]

@@GraphicdesignforFree Thank you. I know about that version of PDFx which support transparency, but, so far, printers always insisted on PDFx 2001 or 2002 which is version 1.3... I'll keep playing with Scribus and see how it goes. I love Affinity but I don't like Windows, so that would be the main reason to use Scribus if possible.

[@rodriguez4363]

Thank you for your video.

[@BIGOTEMACHINE]

Hey, finally they'll have .ORA support!!!! I also wonder if the Kra (krita) support will work with files that use filter layers

[@igniz6022]

Scribus is great, I hope you find more people.

[@DrawAndErase]

Finally an update. I will tell you this though as an award winning graphic designer who uses adobe cs because its industry standard at my studio, even though you say desktop publishing is not that popular anymore scribus and indesign, lets add affinity publisher too are the main tools. DTP pieces of software are the most important tools for designers and its the main piece of design software we use. Without scribus leveling up and being at the front, libre graphics will always fall behind for creatives. Inkscape has gotten so good, gimp is getting better, motion graphics are fine and things like akira are great additions for the future. So I hope 1.6 this promised version takes scribus to the next level and allows designers to have a true alternative to start learning and using!

[@LibreArts]

I suspect you are referring to graphic designers who work on print products rather than designers generally :) Unfortunately, there's a limited amount of developers willing to work on Scribus. I'm not sure what the solution to this would be.

[@DrawAndErase]

@@LibreArts Yeah graphic designers, but even though we are more general now in terms of working within web, app development and motion, publishing software is still the main thing as a daily driver. I hope they can find a way to keep going because it is so important. 🙏 Judging by your comments it seems unlikely that someone could come and take over with an entirely new program to fill the void.

[@LibreArts]

@@DrawAndErase Well, I like being nicely surprised :) But a whole new free/libre DTP application out of the blue... That would be quite an achievement. When Franz was writing early version of Scribus, he basically read the entirety of the PDF spec printout, making notes with a pencil as he went (or so the Scribus mythology suggests). People don't do that sort of thing anymore :) It would be far easier to sit down and patiently redo parts of the UI. People even attempted that with the Indigo project (but didn't produce mergeable patches, or so I was told).

[@DrawAndErase]

@@LibreArts Really interesting thanks for the info I remember seeing Indigo, maybe someone can fork Scribus in the future, maybe just on the UI and ease of use part of the software, I wouldn't mind helping out haha. But honestly I do think its really important to keep it going, the barrier of entry for designers to learn can be so expensive when we should be focusing on using our time to create and think!

[@Jacek..]

Importing pdf with vector graphics (multiple pages) is problematic. There are errors - overlapping objects (ver 1.5.7)

[@rilwansmith]

Can you make a tutorial on how to design an annual report using scribus 1.5.8?

[@LibreArts]

Never done such thing before, sorry!

[@EinstonReborn]

Have been using Scribus for a while now and it has great features. Thanks guys! I would like to ask how I go about getting the dark theme working. Any advice?

[@michaelperrigo]

Worked dark theme out of the box for me when I installed the Flathub version. Apt did not work no matter what!

[@frixux]

Great