Scribus on Windows - Read Me

What is different about Scribus ?

First, Scribus was developed first and foremost on Linux and Unix machines, so sometimes the way things work are not always the 'windows way', but a more OS neutral way. Scribus also is natively ported to MacOSX and the behavior changes are mostly in the way the menus work. Second, a great deal of time and effort has been put into Scribus to generate very high quality commercial grade PDF. Provided you follow the recommended workflow in the documentation, you should have few issues with commercial printing.

Hardware/Software Minimum Requirements:

For Windows 2000 Only - The GDI+ library from http://www.microsoft.com. Unfortunately, as Scribus is an open source application under the GNU GPL, we cannot include this file within the installer. Windows XP includes this library already.

Windows 2000 SP4 or Windows XP - Windows 98 and ME have not been tested and are not supported. Any and all bug reports relating to Windows 9X will be closed quickly.

256 Mb or more system memory - the more the better. 512Mb or more is strongly recommended for larger more complex documents.

Pentium III or better - 750MHz or better

Recommended:

XP Themes Disabled - Use the "Windows Classic" theme is very strongly recommended. There is a known issue with Custom Themes causing document loading problems. This is especially true with third party themes.

Before Installing Scribus

• Install Ghostscript for Windows - Ghostscript 8.54 or newer is recommended. This is important for EPS,PS import and printing. Note: The correct .exe name to use in Scribus' preferences for Ghostscript is gswin32c.exe, not gswin32.exe. In the large majority of cases if Ghostscript is properly installed before installing Scribus, Scribus will automatically detect the location for Ghostscript for you.
• Scribus is very intolerant of poorly constructed or marginal grade fonts. Once installed, please read carefully the font setup section in the help documentation. Scribus may and often will refuse to load fonts which do not follow the True Type and Type 1 specifications properly. What this means in plain English is freeware fonts may work in other programs, but will be rejected by Scribus when starting. Once installed, please read carefully the font setup section in the help documentation. Some of the information is Linux specific, but has detailed explanations why poor quality fonts will cause problems.
• This is beta software which is undergoing many code changes daily. While it is fairly stable and usable, caution is advised. It is not recommended yet for production use. The underlying file format is undergoing rapid changes and will not be finished until the 1.3.4 or later version is released.

After Installing

• The first launch of Scribus or when a new user launches Scribus will be much longer than usual. This is because Scribus is creating a cache file of your fonts. Later re-starts will be much quicker.
• When you select the "Extra Fonts" Option in the installer, this installs two sets of high quality, freely distributable font. One set is the the URW fonts from Ghostscript. This includes 45 type faces which are commonly included with most Postscript printers. The second is the Bitstream Vera font family, widely used on Linux and by many of the included templates.

Again, Scribus is very particular about font quality. Use of freeware or shareware fonts is not recommended. There is an extensive and informative set of notes in the online help about fonts and commercial grade printing. Scribus scans fonts on launch and will disable obviously broken or problematic fonts. Those notes are based on experience both with Scribus and commercial printing.

Console Mode for Diagnostics

There is a second way to launch Scribus: Console Mode. In the Start > Program Files menu there is a second short cut Scribus -console. This mode merely opens a windows command prompt, but will show line by line, each font and its full path being loaded by Scribus. This will also show any rejected fonts and duplicate fonts Scribus finds, along with other diagnostic info in some cases. Duplicates are not loaded, even if they have different names. One of the font tests Scribus performs on launching is to ensure each font file has a correct Postscript name.

The Scribus Team is pleased to make available the only open source page layout application which runs natively on all 3 major desktop operating systems; Linux, MacOSX and Windows. Both online and direct commercial support is available for Scribus. There is a very friendly community which has developed around Scribus with the active participation of the developers. Enjoy!

Scribus Documentation Site (EN,FR,DE, PL) - http://docs.scribus.net

Scribus Home Page - http://www.scribus.net

Scribus Bug Tracker - http://bugs.scribus.net

Scribus Wiki (users for users) - http://wiki.scribus.net

Mailing list (subscription, archives etc.) -http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/mailman/listinfo/scribus