John Jason Jordan wrote: >> The Scribus stable version is almost up to its 12th point release, ie, we >> are >> working on 1.3.3.12.. No major features are going into 1.3.3.x. >> >> All new work is going into 1.3.5, and some of the issues we face with >> 1.3.3.x >> can and will only be fixed with Qt4 and the versions developed with that >> toolkit. >> > > There are some new features that I find essential and until they are > fully implemented I can use Scribus only for an occasional small > project. Specifically, I am referring to being able to import PDFs > without converting them to bitmaps What specifically do you mean by that?
Do you want to be able to place a PDF element on the page (like in an image frame) and have it embedded without rasterisation when you export the document to PDF? Because that isn't theoretically that hard, though it requires some significant work on the PDF backend in Scribus and the incorporation of a PDF import library. Someone who knew the PDF backend code really well could probably do it (relatively) easily, embedding PDF pages as XObjects . Non-raster export to PostScript is also probably possible (when the PDF doesn't use transparency or other features missing from PS3) by conversion to EPS. I've had a look at doing the PDF-in-PDF embedding XObject work, but I really struggled with working on the PDF backend code in Scribus and landed up moving on to other things (ditto with implementing imposition in the PDF backend). The other possible take on what you're talking about would be importing PDF as fully editable objects. That's not impossible, but it's a whole lot harder than embedding PDFs as resources, and it'd require a bunch of changes and enhancements to Scribus's canvas to support all the various PDF features. Even then, editable text would be exceptionally difficult at best, probably just not practical. I'll be surprised if Scribus sees a really faithful and reliable editable PDF importer any time even remotely soon, if ever. Even Adobe's own products, like Acrobat Professional, are rather limited when it comes to editing PDF and sometimes mangle the PDF in the process. > and, most importantly, tables. I > also need to be able to create editable PDFs where I can specify any > font I want for the controls. That's a PDF version limitation IIRC; you need to be using a PDF version with support for appearance streams on controls. Even then I don't think you can control the font used for user data entry except for using one of the core PDF fonts ( though I could easily be wrong about that ). There was discussion about form control appearance streams some time ago. I have no idea how far it went or if there's any support in trunk for them. > So in my opinion it would be nice if the the occasional problems that > people report (like Ctrl-z not working as expected) can be fixed. I agree, it'd be nice. There are, however, only so many people involved and there's a whole lot to do. -- Craig Ringer
