Get Started With Scribus:2

Download A New 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. There is some detailed information inside your downloaded package, in the INSTALL and README files.

You could start with the stable download available. As your skills grow, may I strongly recommend you discard the stable version, and go to this page to get the latest CVS version. 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. And don't forget the hints mentioned above.

Get Adobe Reader
Scribus is a great tool for creating PDFs. Yet not all PDF viewers are created equal, especially under Linux. So, head to adobe.com and download and install the latest, native version of Adobe Reader for your platform. As of this writing the latest version is Adobe Reader 7.

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 Linux, you need to install a free CMS, called LittleCMS. Download and follow the instructions at littlecms.com, or you may find that lcms (and lcms-devel) can be installed just as Scribus binaries are shown above. 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 Linux? Install your existing TrueType, Postscript, or OpenType format fonts under Linux. 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'. You may use a plain text editor, such as Vim or Emacs in Linux, or Notepad in Windows. You may also use a word processor, such as Openoffice.org, author your articles and save them in the Text folder. Scribus can import Openoffice.org files with some limited ability to make use of text formatting. Later versions of Scribus (1.2.5, 1.3.3 or higher) can also import Microsoft Word files, but the text will lose all formatting during import.

Similarly, scan or enhance photographs and store them in the 'Images' folder. A wide range of image formats can be used, including TIFF, JPEG, PNG and GIF.