[scribus] Buggy Software!

[John Culleton]

On Tuesday, July 12, 2011 10:14:08 am Casey Daniels wrote:
> I used to use MS publisher, sure it was better than 
Scribus in some
> respects,  but in most respects I think Scribus is a 
superior program.
> You can't beat the price either.  If you are worried 
about it crashing
> so much, why not down grade to one of the stable 
releases?  

I have used many versions of Scribus over the years and did 
not find them to be buggy. Even the bleeding edge version, 
1.5.0 is useful. 

But I run Linux. I have noted over the years that many Open 
Source programs have problems with various versions of Mac 
OS. Usually the Linux and Win versions are in the best 
shape simply because more people use them for Open Source 
and thus any bugs get squashed earlier. The great virtue of 
Open Source programs is that the users have a direct route 
to the developers. Commercial firms may have their corps of 
"testers" but these are likely to be experienced users. It 
is the newbie who is likely to try something bizarre, and 
hence shake out an undiscovered bug. 

MS Publisher (old version) was IMO perhaps the worst layout 
program ever offered by a major vendor. I understand that 
the newer version is improved, but not many folks are 
trying it, given its history. 

For book interiors the top programs are InDesign
(commercial) and TeX (free). I tend to use TeX (either 
pdftex or Context, rarely pdflatex) for most of my work and 
yes, I lay out and index books for money.  Scribus is 
respectable, but I can get the job done faster in TeX. 
However I have been doing TeX since the mid 1990's so 
unfamiliarity with the many features of Scribus is 
certainly a factor in my case.  My current project I will 
do both ways, and see how long each version takes. 

For book covers there is no argument. Scribus is the most 
efficient tool, and the 1.5.0 version will even do 
PDF X/1-a format as required by some important printers. I 
even wrote an e-book "Create Book Covers with Scribus", but 
the e-book other than the cover was done in pdftex.

I should emphasize that my problems  with Scribus interiors 
are not due to bugs as such but clumsiness in handling 
needed features, like TOC, index, chapter headings and so 
on. One of my sayings is that you can do anything with any 
software tool if you put in enough time and effort. It is 
time and effort that are key.
-- 
John Culleton
Able Indexers and Typesetters
Cover design, Indexing, Interior Layout
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