Enjoy desktop publishing with templates, layers, CMYK, and more, using Scribus


Scribus is an open source cross-platform page layout (Desktop Publishing) program. The goal of the Scribus Team is to make professional page layout accessible for beginners, without limiting support for professional publishing features such as: spot color support, CMYK color, high grade PDF creation, Encapsulated PostScript import/export and creation of color separations.

Features: Scribus imports many common text formats including OASIS (Open Document) and MS Word docs (via antiword); Supports Unicode text and fonts including right to left text for Arabic and Hebrew script via freetype2; Frames, visible and hidden with support for rounded edges and corners for text and objects, rotatable and scalable; Page Templates and Page Palettes; Document-wide layers – editable and items can be moved within layers; Object linking, grouping, moving, locking, resizing and converting to different object types; CMYK color including ICC color managed previews of images and embedding ICC profiles in PDF documents for accurate screen to print color; Creation of CMYK and RGB color PostScript separations, and more.

Playing a little with Scribus is enough to learn it. Don’t expect MS Publisher’s shiny interface, nor its great support of non-English languages. E.g. you can not write polytonic Greek directly in a text frame, but you can with the special editor included in Scribus and then update the frame.

Overall, Scribus is a great desktop publishing program.