On Thursday 12 July 2007 04:56, Jfo wrote: > Hi > > I believe that for Scribus to be really useful in the general DPT > community it must import Word and Word Publisher text and graphics > WITH FORMATTING. > Do you mean Microsoft Publisher? I didn't think it was in serious use.
I can go half way with your request. I certainly want to have italics, bolding and paragraph breaks preserved when I import MSword. But I don't want the rest of the layout features. If I wanted a word processor type layout I would use a word processor. Customers send me doc files which I immediately convert to either rtf and then LaTeX (two steps) or plain text, depending on the frequency of italics. Then I build the layout properly in either pdftex or Context. With Scribus it is possible to import a doc file (very slow) or convert to odt. If it weren't for those pesky italics I would just go for saving a doc file as plain text and flowing that in. What Scribus needs most is a table formatter. TeX has several. Context alone has three. (Knuth plain tex, Wichura TaBle, Natural tables.) I also use the TeXsis table writer by itself for formatting invoices. so on table writing the score is TeX 4, Scribus 0. > There are other low-cost DTP offerings which need this feature - > but at least they have a full booklet mode. Lacking both, Scribus > is way behind. > I agree. However it is not difficult with psutils to create a booklet from Scribus PostScript output. > Using a mixture of Windows and RISCOS I can achieve a conversion > which is essentially Word/Publisher -> pdf -> RISCOS DRAW ->SVG - > surely Windows can offer something here. Complete RTF import would > help. > > The alternatives are to standardise on Word Publisher! (please no!) > or Ventura (expensive). > There is always TeX which is free. I do novels, pamphlets etc. all the time with TeX. For pamphlets I either use plain tex plus psutils or Context which has extensive prepress layout capabilities. But I start off with Linux as my base OS. IMO LInux is more Open Source friendly than MSWIn. And its cheaper :<). Instead of Ventura which is basically on life support you could try InDesign, also expensive. But like you I am waiting for Scribus to grow up a little more. -- John Culleton
