Apple to Linux Journal - Scribus is actually amazing

2025-03-29

The full Scribus window with left toolbar and panels docked on each side.

In my last post I shared a few things that turned out to be incorrect or just lacking in information. Honestly, I should have known I'd not taken enough time and should have used the app another day or two before posting.

First, I incorrectly stated that there was no way to neatly organize the free floating palettes by docking them to the side of the document as I'd come to expect based on past use of Adobe InDesign and then Affinity Publisher. Not only can they be docked but it turns out it is possible to dock them on both sides of the document! I don't know how I missed this. I'm sure I tried dragging them to the side and that nothing happened. Apparently I didn't try hard enough.

Second, I wrote that I was used to having the usual toolbar on the left side of the document. Turns out, the top toolbar palette can easily be relocated via drag and drop to the left side of the app window. Jeesh. I hadn't even tried to move it.

Third, I also mentioned that the toolbar icons were too faint and barely usable. Turns out, there are multiple choices in the settings app for the toolbar icons. I tried the other two options and they work as expected with easily viewable toolbar icons. That said, it remain's true that the dark mode does not work, at least not on my computer. Unfortunately, this remains true in the 1.7 beta. I hope they get that resolved as darkmode feels essential at this point.

Lesson learned: Take more time before posting first impressions!

Also, before going any further, I just want to tip my hat to the developers of Scribus which was initially released in 2001. This FOSS app has 24 years of development behind it. In hindsight, the title of that first post, "Can I replace Affinity Publisher with Scribus", is in indicator of how little I knew of Scribus when I opened the app the first time. I hadn't even bothered to read a review. I mention all this because I think it demonstrates the bias I had going into the experience. I assumed that a FOSS app would not be as capable as one offered by a for-profit company.

Okay, on to the real point of the post which is to offer a few more notes on my experience thus far. Mostly the focus here is in trying to manage layers/page elements in a Scribus document as that is what has proved most difficult for me thus far. It's been a couple weeks since that first impressions post after about 9 hours of use. In the days since I've converted another client project to Scribus and put together a simple flyer for a client. The simple flyer was, well, simple and easy to manage in Scribus.

The other was a 2 page, six panel marketing mailer with lots of layered elements and that was a challenge at first. Two of the panels consist of a grid layout with text over polygons over images. 25 "layers" on one and 65 on the other. I struggled at first because Scribus has two kinds of layers. There's an actual Layers panel where one can define different layers but there is also an option for stacking elements that are not defined as layers. Oh, and those elements can be grouped which I expected would make for better organization. Let me dig into these three and explain how I'll use them going forward.

Viewing and Managing Stacked Elements

This is similar to what one might do in Apple's Pages app or other similar apps. Add a new polygon, say, a square with a gradient and that's an element. A text box is another. In any document with many elements it's going to get out of hand very quickly especially on a smaller screen like the 15" I'm using. I'm sure 27" display would make it a bit easier but it still seems a bit clumsy. All of these elements are viewable in the Outline Panel but it's still just a long list of elements in the document.

As new elements are added they are given generic names based on the object type and order of creation: Polygon82, Text43, Image24 and so on. For comparison, Affinity Publisher just calls each new element a layer and each one is labeled based on the file name or initial text. Sunshine.jpg appears with that name in the layer panel. A text frame is titled based on the first few words typed into the text frame. It makes for easy management. And those are layers are page-based so there are fewer to look at.

With Scribus elements are not split-up per page but are document wide. In a graphic heavy document design, say, a 12 page annual report with images, call-out boxes, charts, etc, managing elements all those elements with generic names is going to be quite an effort.

All that said, it is possible to click over to the the "Info" panel and manually relabel an object name. It's extra work but I think probably necessary. Going forward I'll label objects as I add them.

Groups?

There is an option to group elements but it seems very difficult to work with. Clicking on a group does not allow for drilling down to select objects. It just selects the group. To work with objects in the group the user must use the Outline panel and select objects in the group from there. Lots of extra mousing and clicking going on. Layers to the rescue?

Layers

Looking at the Layers page for the Scribus Wiki Manual it would appear that I'm planning to use Layers in a way not intended or well described. The description on that page would seem to suggest a somewhat restrained use of layers. Partly this reflects the fact that layers are document wide rather than page specific. My intention is to create a new layer for each document page. I'd expect that a 12 page document will have one layer per page and only elements for that page will be added to that layer. It should make for easier management of the elements on that page. Essentially I'll set-up and manage layers in the same way that Affinity Publisher does automatically. I think this will work fairly well but it leaves me scratching my head. Again, I'll admit and reiterate, I'm new to Scribus.

I've now logged about 30 hours with the app. I definitely have a better feel for it and it's far better than my first impressions left me. I was far too quick to form a negative opinion and should have known better. Even at 30 hours of using the app I was learning more this morning as I started writing this post. A learning curve should be expected with a powerful app like Scribus. I had to put in a similar effort into learning Quark and Indesign 25 years ago.

I'm no longer worried that the app won't be up to the task. Over the coming weeks I expect to spend more time reading the Scribus wiki and forum as I learn or encounter issues. It's up to me to actually make the effort to learn the app.

A lesson I'm learning as I go into the second month with Linux and FOSS apps is that it's important to be aware of my bias and to give more credit where it is due. And, flowing from that, to acknowledge the time and energy put into building this app ecosystem which I am increasingly grateful for. Thank you to the many volunteers who have built so many useful apps for people to use.

More on Scribus soon!

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