Get Started With Scribus:2

Download a Version
First: make sure that you know what you are doing. The basic process of installing Scribus on your computer may have both an easy and more complex solution, so choose the one that fits your experience, unless you're willing to be adventuresome. In general, for those unfamiliar with downloading, compiling, and installing software, it would be best to seek out an already compiled version for your system. These exist for various Linux distros, MacOSX, and yes, even Windows (in fact, as of this writing, for Windows automatic installing of the binaries are your only option, and please note that the Windows versions require Win2000 or XP).

Easy Does It - the binaries

Compiling your Own

Visit www.scribus.net and head to the downloads section. Please read the instructions in the documentation section on how to install Scribus for your platform.

You could start with the stable download available. As your skills grow, may I strongly recommend you discard the stable version, and click on the 'changelogs' or 'CVS' button instead. This, because Scribus evolves rapidly on an almost nightly basis. The CVS version is equally stable, and quite often, more stable than the official stable version. It is also significantly ahead of the stable version in its features and capabilities. Every two or three days, I tend to issue the simple two-line commands from my PC, and get hold of a freshly-baked Scribus with a slew of new features added. Try it. You'll love it. Just follow the simple instructions on the Scribus site on how-to install from CVS. For those who don't know, CVS stands for Concurrent Versioning System, a clever way for several programmers from diverese geographical locations to store their software at a central repository as they dynamically work on it.

Do read the requirements page on the site. This because Scribus needs some rather important files installed on your system. For GnuLinux users, I specially recommend just installing the latest release of your favourite distribution. As an example, I spent nearly three weeks trying to install Scribus 1.1.6 under RedHat8. Each time I added a required file, another dependency would crop up. Finally, I just installed the latest Fedora in a separate partition, and Scribus installed within 20 minutes without a murmur.

[Get Acrobat Reader, even for GnuLinux] Scribus is a great tool for creating PDFs. Yet not all PDF viewers are created equal. Especially under GnuLinux. So, head to adobe.com and download and install the latest, native version of Acrobat Reader for your platform, even for GnuLinux. Should you find a newer release of Acrobat Reader for Windows, say Version 6 for Windows, while you have Version 5 for GnuLinux, download the Version 6 for Windows, under GnuLinux. The developers of Scribus recommend you run this version using a Windows-emulator software under GnuLinux, such as WINE or CrossOver, to run this native Windows application under GnuLinux. However, this is not mandatory. You could still work with the older version, or view your files under Windows if dual-booting, or on another machine.

[Match Colors That Print] Finally, if you wish to design publications, you need to ensure colors you see on screen match colors that print. For this, you need to install a special and separate piece of software, called a Color Management System, or CMS. Windows and Macintosh come with a CMS built-in, called ICM and ColorSync, respectively. Under GnuLinux, you need to install a free CMS, called LittleCMS. Download and follow the instructions at littlecms.com. You can also install versions of this under Windows and Macintosh. For this tutorial, LittleCMS is not necessary, though quite helpful.

[You Can Use Your Existing Fonts Collection] Do you have a collection of fonts that you wish to use under GnuLinux? Install your existing TrueType, Postscript, or OpenType format fonts under GnuLinux. You'll find the simple steps mentioned in the documentation section of the Scribus site. For our tutorial, we don't need to install any special fonts. So you can start right away with your first sample publication.

[Sane Workflows] Our magazine is called 'FreedomYug' and it contains a lot of pictures and text. A magazine with a few hundred pages could also have several Scribus files, each with eight to 20 pages. So, it is best to create a folder for each publication. I've created one called 'Fyug'. Inside this, create atleast two distinct folders, 'Text,' and 'Images'. Using a wordprocessor, such as OpenOffice.org, author your articles and save them in the Text folder. For the moment save a version in simple text format, with the extension .txt. While I write this tutorial, the developers at Scribus assure me that soon you can save your text as Rich Text Format (.rtf) and import it into Scribus, with all your typesetting, such as bold, italic, and bold-italic text and other formatting intact.

Similarly, scan or enhance photographs and store them in the 'Images' folder, mostly as *.JPG files.