[Scribus] imposition or reader?

[Gregory Pittman]

linuxlingam wrote:
> dear all,
> 
> am just thinking aloud to myself:
> 
> a download of adobeacrobat reader 5.0.8, at a whopping 9mb, is happening
> in the background. so far, all the pdfs created from scribus look
> disappointing when rendered under linux-native utilities such as xpdf,
> kpdf, and several others.
> 
> also read on the scribus site that i could even consider running acrobat
> under wine.
> 
> so all this makes me think: wouldn't it be great if rather than
> imposition, the pdf-viewing and rendering issue had its own GPLed
> utility? then scribus could be used as both dtp and as adobe designer
> 9the acrobat forms designer), and the scribusPDFviewer, or whatever you
> call it, the much-needed pdf-display and handling software. no need to
> write it from scratch. just advance the work of the existing pdf
> viewers.
> 

As someone using Acrobat alongside Scribus quite a bit, I have to say 
that I don't see the logic -- Acrobat does what it does so well that the 
performance bar is quite high. Just compare any of the display features 
of Acrobat with Scribus and the speed alone is mind-boggling.

As has already been pointed out, a constant danger to the project is to 
add so many complex features -- word-processor-like, gimp-like, 
sodipodi-like -- that it collapses under its own weight (the "whopping 
9MB" of Acrobat might seem lightweight). Better to interface, hand-off, 
or simply use the multiple virtual desktop features of the WMs to deal 
with these. I have no trouble at all having Scribus running in one and 
Acrobat in another, and closing/reopening over and over again.

Greg Pittman

PS: Acrobat 5 is a whole lot better than Acrobat 4.