What is Scribus? 

Scribus is one of the premier Open Source desktop applications. This makes it one of the best (free) alternatives to Adobe programs like InDesign. It supports professional publishing features and uses a user-friendly interface. You can make magazines, book layouts, flyers, brochures, … The creative options are almost endless!

Here is a link to the website (from which I got the above information).

Working with Scribus: An introduction

Because I’m totally new to Scribus and I have no experience with programs like Indesign, Microsoft Office Publisher or Passepartout I decided to look up some tutorials. Scribus has its own Wiki with an How To category, but I prefer something more visual like a youtube video.

Youtuber Kevin Pugh made a Scribus tutorial called: Basic Introduction and Setting Preferences. Well, this seems like a great way to start so here we go…

1. Open Scribus

When you open Scribus 1.4.6 this is what you see:

The tutorial starts with explaining the default settings and why it’s better to change some settings. The first thing you have to change is the default unit /standaard eenheid: in stead of using points (pt) it’s better to use millimeters (mm).

Since I’m not gonna start with something too difficult, I’m gonna use a single page (enkele pagina). The other options are: double-sized, 3-fold and 4-fold.

2. Setting preferences

When you open Scribus you get a blank page. The first thing you can do (but it isn’t obligatory) is select the grid option. This can help to layout the page. To do that you go to view/beeld and select show grid/raster tonen.

The grid that appears isn’t even though. To fix this, you go to file/bestand and then to preferences/voorkeuren. The handy thing is that you can set your preferences so that they will open like defaults next time you use Scribus.

The first thing I changed were the units (yes, the same thing I changed in the very beginning!). Go to Document, units/eenheden and change the points to millimeters.

After that I went to the grid-options. Go to guides/hulplijnen and select show page grid/toon hulplijnen.

After that I slightly altered the spacing/spatiëring. You want your major grid/groot raster spacing to be 30mm and your minor grid/klein raster to be exactly 6mm.

Okay, so now on to the next setting. Go to pdf-export/pdf-exporteren. Then to color/kleur and change screen/web to printer. Next you select the convert spot colors to process colors. Why? Because spot colors are for professional printers and I/you don’t have one.

That’s it. Now you can click OK.

3. The menu bars

The tutorial suggests splitting up the menu bars so that you can have a clearer overview of what the options are. You can split the menu bar by going to the dotted line until this appears:

You can now drag it to the right. Do the same thing with the other dotted lines.

On the left we have: new file/nieuw, open, save/opslaan, close/sluiten, print/afdrukken, preflight control en save as a pdf/opslaan als pdf.

The next bar is the editing menu: undo/ongedaan maken, redo/opnieuw doen, cut/knippen, copy/kopiëren en paste/plakken.

Next to it is the main bar: select item/ item selecteren, text frames/tekstframe, picture frames/afbeeldingsframe, table/tabel, shapes/vormen, lines/lijnen, drawings/tekenen, rotate/roteren, …

At the end is a specialist button for pdf files. You can for example insert check boxes.

4. Starting with the basics

Now it’s time to start with some very simple basics!

I’m gonna start with inserting a text frame/tekstframe since I’m interested in making brochures and flyers. So I click on the right icon and place my frame somewhere on the left of my page.

I don’t really know what I want to write yet, so I use the sample text option. To do that just right click it and chose sample text/voorbeeldtekst.

Next we are gonna add an image. We click the image frame/afbeeldingsframe icon. As you can see it first adds the frame/size of the image.

Then you right click and add the image itself:

Sadly only part of my image is visible. The tutorial doesn’t explain how to fix that, but it’s dead easy. Just play around with the red border around your image. Also don’t be afraid to move the image itself!

I used a quite large image as you can see. It’s better to use smaller images but of course this was just an example.

Now there is also another way to adjust images and play around with them. For this example I’m gonna use the smaller version of the image.

So after inserting your image you go to windows/venster and click on properties/eigenschappen.

Now you can , for example, alter the shape so that the text flows around the image.

If you turn that option off, it looks like this:

If you go to edit shape/bewerken you can basically alter as good as anything that has to do with that shape. The tutorial didn’t elaborate on that, but I played around with a few options and these are the results:

I enlarged the image.

I tilted the image.

And I changed the shape.

Okay, back to the text frames now. In magazines there are usually a lot of images and text frames and sometimes the text from one box continues into another one. To do that we first add a new textframe/tekstframe.

Now we are gonna link the two text frames. You click on the one with the text in it and then you go to the icon link textframes/textframes linken. You select that and then you click on your empty frame and tadaaaa, you linked the two frames! The text now flows from one frame into the other!

So if we put everything nicely together we can, for example, make something that looks a bit like the page of a textbook: We have the course text (which flows from one text box into another) and some exemplary images.

Now that you know how the basics work, you can get into the more fun stuff like making a flyer, poster or a brochure!

In the next blogpost I will make a flyer or a poster and get more into how you can add your own text.