As you may know, Scribus is a free, open-source page layout program used for designing brochures, magazines, newsletters and posters. It uses XML-based files, which is not proprietary, unlike other pieces of software.
The latest version available is Scribus 1.5, which brings a big list of changes and improvements.
Highlights of Scribus 1.5:
- The user interface has been overhauled and restructured in many places. For example, the context menu takes a lot less screen estate than before, and the Document Setup / Preferences dialog has been rewritten from scratch. The Scribus Team is aware of the remaining deficiencies and will work on resolving these issues before the release of 1.6.0. In some cases inconsistencies in the UI (e.g. the “Drop Shadow” tab in the Properties Palette) have been deliberately left in place to receive feedback from users as to which way they prefer.
- Scribus can now store bitmap images within its native file format. Previously it was only possible to link to external images.
- Scribus 1.5.0 now offers a “Symbol” or clone feature similar to Adobe Illustrator: If one master object (Symbol) has been modified, all of its copies (clones) are being modified as well.
- With the new “Weld” feature, objects can be combined and moved without being “grouped”, i.e., each object remains fully editable.
For more information, see the official announcement.
Installation instructions:
Up to date packages are available via some third party PPA, so installing the software on Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf, Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr, Linux Mint 17.x, Elementary OS 0.3 Freya and other Ubuntu derivative systems.
All you need to do is add the PPA to your system, update the local repository index and install the scribus-ng package:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:scribus/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install scribus-ng
Optional, to remove scribus-ng, do:
$ sudo apt-get remove scribus-ng