Scribus vs indesign
Within a document, you can define more than one master page a large document may have many. Think about a magazine or newsletter, where certain elements like headers, footers, page numbers, logos, and the layout of the page are repetitive, yet there are differences between a right-hand and left-hand page. If a normal page uses a master page as its basis, all the elements of the master page will appear on the normal page.
#Scribus vs indesign professional#
That's because in a professional offset printing environment additional colors are often considered spot colors, which can be undesirable.ĭTP also allows for transparency of images, graphics elements, text - whatever you can put on the page. Any other color which you need has to be defined manually. In DTP applications, the color palette contains just a few dozen different colors, more or less.You can flow text around images (or not - try not having text flow around an image in a wordprocessor - yet this may be a desired layout feature in DTP), superimpose images on text (or vice versa), and create color separations for printing. This is an example where that precise control over size and spacing is absolutely necessary. DTP thus gives you complete control over the placement of characters within text, allowing you to fit text within a rectangular or other shape. You also have the capability to stretch a font horizontally or vertically, precisely set line spacing (again, to tenths of a point) and the space between letters (kerning). For example, you may need to match the width of a word with an underlying graphic element. Why is that important? So that you can fit a particular amount of text into an area of specific size. points, but with Scribus the precision is up to tenths of a point. A word processor may offer size choices of 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Once you have your text in a text frame, you can manipulate it with a high degree of precision.Often, it's hard enough just to keep them from moving on their own as you add content to your document. However, as you attempt to precisely place, resize, increase or decrease graphics resolution, or rotate, you quickly discover the severe limitations of these "DTP-like" features. One might counter this by pointing out that word processors frequently have "text boxes", and it is possible to import a picture or graphic into a word processor document. Text from one frame can be continued ( flow) in another. These frames are freely moveable and can be placed anywhere on the page. Content includes text, images, drawings and everything else an author would like to see on the printed page. This means that all the content on a page is placed into frames. Most modern DTP applications are frame-based.This separation comes from the division of responsibilities in professional publishing: one person creates the text content, and another person does the layout.
From this point, only minor changes to the text are done in the DTP application - you don't want to edit long texts this way. After the text is finished it can be loaded into the DTP application. For this purpose, it's better to use a word processor or a simple text editor (with or without markup). A DTP application is not intended for creating text - at least if one is talking about a large amount of text, ie.Everything looks so strange and why can't he type text into his document?Īfter some time, frustrated, the author uninstalls Scribus and goes back to his familiar word processor, accepting its limitations and disadvantages.
The last one in particular has a great advantage: It is Open Source, so why not give it a try?Īfter downloading, installing and starting the application an author who is used to word processors, sits in front of his screen like a rabbit in front of a snake.
And they find professional Desktop Publishing (DTP) applications like QuarkXPress, Indesign or Scribus. So, these people look around for other applications. Or the magazine from the kiosk just looks more professional. Perhaps they cannot fine-tune a layout, or some of their ideas are just not feasible. But at some point, they are no longer satisfied with the capabilities of their preferred word processor. Many people use office suites like Microsoft Office™ or. 3 What a DTP application can't do for you.