Scribus is the Desktop Publishing Program (DTP) of free/libre open source software world and is available for GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS. As a DTP, Scribus can be used for page layout design for printing press as well as digital press to produce works such as book, newspaper, magazine, flyer and anything consisted of text typesetting and CMYK colors. Scribus is one of the greatest program to create PDF documents. Scribus is also great to work together with GIMP and Inkscape. Scribus is available on Ubuntu 24.04 from the official repository. Now let's show you how to install it and you can start learning right away by tutorials available at the end. Happy typesetting!

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• Zotero (install)
• Zotero integration (Firefox & Chromium)
• Zotero user interface basic 
• Zotero references collecting
• Zotero search through your own references
• GNU Emacs (install)
• Blender (install from PPA)
• Changing phone number in Telegram
• Manual upgrade Mozilla Firefox (via apt)

We're happy to announce UbuntuBuzz 11th edition for February 2016. In this issue, we include it some topics:

• PDF conversion and manipulation with poppler-utils utilities.
• Scribus howto about character & paragraph styles.
• Tor browser & Tor for Firefox.
• How to pass apt-get connection through Tor Network.

• Title: UbuntuBuzz Magazine #11 February 2016
• Contents: 15 articles from UbuntuBuzz blog January 2016
• Format: PDF
• Size: 1 MB
• Tools used: LibreOffice, Scribus, PDFSAM
• Download link: Archive.org

We're pleased to announce our 10th edition of UbuntuBuzz Magazine. This issue is a collection at January 2016, contains all of our December 2015 articles. We provide a direct link to the magazine PDF below. This issue contains some topics such as:

• How to install sK1, a free vector graphic editor for GNU/Linux. 
• How to install latest Inkscape, GIMP, and NINJA IDE in Ubuntu. 
• How to install Synfig Studio in Ubuntu.
• Scribu 1.5 short review.
• How to use packages.ubuntu.com.

• Title: UbuntuBuzz Magazine #10 January 2016
• Contents: 15 articles from UbuntuBuzz blog December 2015
• Format: PDF
• Size: 1.5 MB
• Tools used: LibreOffice, Scribus, PDFSAM
• Download link: Archive.org

There are interesting new features in 1.5 version of Scribus. One of them is table improvement, when it is almost as easy as using LibreOffice Writer's one. Another one are tabbed interface, footnotes, endnotes, calligraphy pen, and so on. Surely, this 1.5 brings so many new features and it's hard to explain them all. We will cover some of those interesting features here.

 

In Scribus, when we use Text Frame, it will choose one font by default. Sometimes, we need to change this default font. To do it, go to menu File > Preferences > Tools > Text Frame Properties > change the default font. In this example, we choose FreeSans Medium 12pt. So, every new frame in new document will have this font.

When a computer crashes, our work with Scribus may be corrupted. Things get worse when user didn't enable autosave. If so, all works when crash happens will be lost. So it is better to enable autosave in Scribus. Go to File > Preferences > Document > check Autosave > set interval time. Smaller value means safer.

Scribus 1.5 NG has released both in upstream (developer source code) and in downstream (i.e. PPA repository). Scribus 1.5 for Ubuntu is available for 14.04, 15.04, 15.10, and 16.04. Notice that it doesn't provide 14.10. Although 1.5 is a testing version (a preview for the next 1.6 release), probably you want to test the new features or its stability on an experiment environment (i.e. live session). This guide needs you to open Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and perform three commands. You will need internet connection to do it.

There are some important options when exporting PDF in Scribus. There are also many professional options I don't know (e.g. I don't have any professional printing purpose). But for my design hobby, I get a good quality PDF when using these. I apply these for my digital magazine. I hope these will useful for you too.

Scibus provides image text flow feature. This is how your text flows naturally around image like you see in many publications. This is reached by editing boundaries (Scribus calls it Contour Line) of an image. The text will automatically flow, following your boundaries form. Follow this example.

In case of text management in Scribus, you will deal with Align Text Left or Align Text Justified. In almost every magazine, the common alignment is justified. The problem is space left outside text and blank space inside text. To resolve these, Scribus brings you sophisticated feature named Hyphenate Text. Access it from menu Extra > Hyphenate Text. I write this article as addition for our previous tutorial. See examples below.

As I said yesterday, I will share how to create magazine cover layout in Scribus. This thing has a little difference compared to internal page layout. You will need a large image as background, a magazine logo, and some icons. Of course I write this tutorial based on my digital magazine I've mentioned. Believe me. It is easy while you know the workflow in Scribus. Enjoy.

I've published a digital magazine created from Scribus. Now, I want to share how to create a magazine like that. So, you can create that magazine yourself. This tutorial tells about internal page layout. I want to tell cover page layout in next tutorial. My foreword is you will deal with F2 (Properties) intensely in Scribus. My magazine picture looks like below. Enjoy.

When you work with Scribus, you save into SLA file format. This SLA file is different with ODT or PDF format. It doesn't contain any picture or file you use inside your design. To proof that, just look at the file size. If you give your SLA file to another Scribus users, they won't open the SLA perfectly because all the pictures or files are still in your computer. Not inside the SLA file. Now, how to bundle all pictures or files so you can give it to your partners or you use it for working with another computer? Here the methods.

1. Open Scribus. 
2. Open your SLA file. 
3. Open menu File > Collect for Output. 
4. Check Include Fonts and Include Color Profiles in the dialog appears. 
5. Select folder to save all files. 
6. Press OS. 
7. Go to that folder, ZIP the folder. You may use built-in Ubuntu archive program or anything. 

Currently I am resuming my old curiosity about page layout design. I used Scribus 5 years ago. At that time, I feel it was difficult to create even just a page layout in Scribus. Now I know, that difficulty was caused of lack in page layout knowledge. At 2015, Scribus reached 1.4.5 version (stable). Scribus has more resources now compared to 5 years ago. Especially its Wiki[1] plus Flossmanuals[2]. I created some layout designs at few days ago. I learnt a few things I was missing 5 years ago. Below you will see some tips from me to design a layout with Scribus to avoid difficulties (time consumption etc.). Remember that it is just basic and somehow subjective (according only to my experience).

Scribus in Action

Summary

1. Paragraph Style
2. Custom Shortcut Keys
3. Guides at Foreground
4. Avoid Effects
5. Collect for Output