Scribus is a free desktop publishing application that supports professional features such as color separation, CMYK, and Spot Color support. It also supports ICC color management and includes a versatile PDF creation feature. We can say it is full of features publishing applications for Windows. It supports many image formats including SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and others.

Scribus desktop publishing software

You can use Scribus to design and produce books, magazines, newsletters, brochures, calendars, etc. In short, anything that requires text to look visually appealing on paper. It also helps in authoring PDF documents and offers advanced features such as forms, buttons, passwords, and more. If we talk about the features of the application, the list may look endless. To give you an overview, here are some of its important features:

Support for many image formatsProfessional image settingICC color managementBuilt-In scripting engineAvailable in more than 24 LanguagesLevel 3 postscript driverUnicode Character encodingImport option for Open OfficeSave it as a professional PDF fileInteractive and professional-looking interface.

It also uses some other software to boost its own functionalities. It uses Gimp for editing images and Open Office suite for some document editing features.

Scribus Interface

The interface might look quite very strange to some but it indeed is very powerful. It is a really nice alternative to Microsoft Publisher. The application was originally intended for Linux but was ported to Windows and Mac soon.  The interface is a bit complex for the newbies but uninitiated, but once you get your hands wet, you will find that it offers a lot more than you expected.

Scribus download

This beginner’s tutorial on the use of Scribus for page layout and PDF creation will help you get started. They are also available in PDF formats. If you think that you can be an author or already are one and want to make your publications look more professional, you might want to check out Scribus.

Can Scribus import PDF files?

Starting with version 1.5, you can import PDFs as vector graphics files. It will be available as collection groups of vector graphics. You can then group elements and images to edit or display them in the document.