A promising solution for basic publishing needs Unfortunately, it doesn't have the capacity to open files from other desktop publishing software such as InDesign or QuarkXPress yet. Thanks to its enthusiastic developer community, it's able to consistently provide updates with new features and ensures its stability. Some functions that can only be experienced in other programs if you purchase them are available to use here free of charge. Is Scribus as good as InDesign?įrankly, Scribus is far from being as feature-rich as Adobe InDesign but its offers are enough to suffice for your indie publishing venture or personal project needs in a more affordable way. Although importing PDF and EPS will be a hassle as you will need GhostScript to do so and this isn't easy for beginners to scripting.

However, you can drag and drop elements with ease and export documents in EPS, SVG, and PDF format. You have to change them and preview how they will look in another window. Even just changing fonts doesn't happen in real-time. You may encounter several formatting issues when importing text as everything has to be done manually. One thing that isn't so easy to master on this design tool though is formatting. Although the interface isn't as slick as it could be, it works excellently across platforms so it hasn't been designed with any one particular operating system in mind. Although it's completely free, Scribus offers some publishing power including support for CMYK color, separations, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Scribus publisher