{"slug": "scribus", "name": "Scribus", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 9, "warners": 1, "score": 2.868, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-12-08", "latest": "2026-09-16", "why": "Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 4, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": "scribus.net", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.scribus.net", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Scribus"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 762745287, "item_id": 47671580, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47671580", "by": "Duanemclemore", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "InDesign -> Affinity Layout or Scribus or VivaDesigner", "excerpt": "No, the concepts are the same. The button you push is incidental. For example, the GNU Image Manipulation Program now has non-destructive workflows and adjustment layers - and can easily easily be configured with photoshop-like keybinds anyway. That's not to mention free-to-use tools like Affinity. The things an architecture student needs it for are: Photo adjustment: Lightroom -> Darktable Photo retouching: Photosho", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "InDesign", "story": "Adobe modifies hosts file to detect whether Creative Cloud is installed"}, {"id": 739285697, "item_id": 46205356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46205356", "by": "thw_9a83c", "date": "2025-12-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There is also Scribus [1].", "excerpt": "> They also are actively decreasing the value by sunsetting Publisher in October 2026. You have my sympathy. I was also a frequent MS Publisher user, and I always felt that not many people knew about it. It's a useful, simple DTP package suitable for many less complex page layout scenarios. After the End-of-Support announcement, I switched to the LibreOffice Draw already. Fortunately, LibreOffice Draw works quite nic", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices"}, {"id": 739171856, "item_id": 46198241, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46198241", "by": "Guestmodinfo", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "excerpt": "I used Scribus. Top choice for replacing Publisher by open source software. Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "context": "", "use_case": "Desktop publishing", "switched_from": "Microsoft Publisher", "story": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 762530993, "item_id": 47658187, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658187", "by": "mikae1", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "more competent alternatives to Scribus for Linux", "excerpt": "I looked at more competent alternatives to Scribus for Linux and I must say VivaDesigner[1] looks pretty awesome. It's 149 \u20ac for the buy-once version. But I believe you have to pay for upgrades... [1] https://viva.systems/designer/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Discontinuing Publisher. Alternatives?"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["desktop publishing", "cmyk color adjustment", "print layout for photo books", "automatic page layout", "page layout"], "compared": [{"slug": "microsoft-publisher", "name": "Microsoft Publisher", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "adobe-indesign", "name": "Adobe InDesign", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "inkscape", "name": "Inkscape", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "libreoffice-draw", "name": "LibreOffice Draw", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47522173", "title": "Personal Encyclopedias", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46192186", "title": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49731395", "title": "A coffee shop owner used AI to make a menu poster. Then came the angry DMs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48040622", "title": "Inkscape 1.4.4", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47664205", "title": "Adobe modifies hosts file to detect whether Creative Cloud is installed", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47645035", "title": "Microsoft Discontinuing Publisher. Alternatives?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-04": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"compare": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 795714963, "item_id": 49732185, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732185", "by": "k310", "date": "2026-09-16", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Pages on a mac or Libre Office or Scribus", "excerpt": "The article contains a rather beautiful example done via camera (and product photography demands that you get the froth and lighting just in time and just right) decorated by an artistic employee. The owner had to resort to her standby Canva when the employee left, but lacking time due to a newborn. To me, having followed all kinds of embedded links over to Vermont and Germany, the latter example being extraordinaril", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A coffee shop owner used AI to make a menu poster. Then came the angry DMs"}, {"id": 768666210, "item_id": 48041638, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48041638", "by": "robinsonb5", "date": "2026-05-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "import the SVG into Scribus and modify the colours there", "excerpt": "Inkscape is awesome - I use it regularly for extracting design elements from PDFs and vectorising bitmaps. It works surprisingly well for simple CAD tasks, too - I've used it in combination with TinkerCAD to produce some 3D-printed parts. I just wish its CMYK handling was better. When I need CMYK or spot colour / overprint output I generally save as EPS, open in a text editor and adjust the source accordingly, but it", "context": "", "use_case": "CMYK color adjustment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Inkscape 1.4.4"}, {"id": 762745287, "item_id": 47671580, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47671580", "by": "Duanemclemore", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "InDesign -> Affinity Layout or Scribus or VivaDesigner", "excerpt": "No, the concepts are the same. The button you push is incidental. For example, the GNU Image Manipulation Program now has non-destructive workflows and adjustment layers - and can easily easily be configured with photoshop-like keybinds anyway. That's not to mention free-to-use tools like Affinity. The things an architecture student needs it for are: Photo adjustment: Lightroom -> Darktable Photo retouching: Photosho", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "InDesign", "story": "Adobe modifies hosts file to detect whether Creative Cloud is installed"}, {"id": 762530993, "item_id": 47658187, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47658187", "by": "mikae1", "date": "2026-04-06", "stance": "warn", "quote": "more competent alternatives to Scribus for Linux", "excerpt": "I looked at more competent alternatives to Scribus for Linux and I must say VivaDesigner[1] looks pretty awesome. It's 149 \u20ac for the buy-once version. But I believe you have to pay for upgrades... [1] https://viva.systems/designer/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Discontinuing Publisher. Alternatives?"}, {"id": 760473984, "item_id": 47529624, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529624", "by": "geek_at", "date": "2026-03-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "physical books are a greate idea. I do something similar but with email and more pro-active [1]. I have created my son an email address when he was born and I'm sending him things from our lives and ask family members to to the same. Just to write them about themselves and send photos of their current homes and gardens and partners. I imagining him looking through his email when he's 18 and reading personalize messag", "context": "", "use_case": "Print layout for photo books", "switched_from": "", "story": "Personal Encyclopedias"}, {"id": 760464609, "item_id": 47529038, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529038", "by": "72deluxe", "date": "2026-03-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Once you know that, you can set up Scribus appropriately.", "excerpt": "I did spend some time getting some LLM to write a generator (in C++) of a scribus XML file for automatic layout, but it wasn't effective. I need to get back to looking at that, as it would be very useful. As my photos range in aspect ratios and formats (4:3 and 3:2) and I have thousands and thousands of RAW photos to process and \"finish\", it's an ongoing work! So for now I am just doing it manually, with the help of ", "context": "", "use_case": "automatic page layout", "switched_from": "", "story": "Personal Encyclopedias"}, {"id": 754369810, "item_id": 47148113, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47148113", "by": "syradar", "date": "2026-02-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Scribus is an open source project but I\u2019m not sure how the quality is in that.", "excerpt": "We used Adobe InDesign at my last work, which I believe is an industry standard. Affinity Layout if you don\u2019t want to sell your kidney to Adobe. Scribus is an open source project but I\u2019m not sure how the quality is in that.", "context": "", "use_case": "Page layout", "switched_from": "", "story": "Justifying Text-Wrap: Pretty"}, {"id": 739285697, "item_id": 46205356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46205356", "by": "thw_9a83c", "date": "2025-12-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There is also Scribus [1].", "excerpt": "> They also are actively decreasing the value by sunsetting Publisher in October 2026. You have my sympathy. I was also a frequent MS Publisher user, and I always felt that not many people knew about it. It's a useful, simple DTP package suitable for many less complex page layout scenarios. After the End-of-Support announcement, I switched to the LibreOffice Draw already. Fortunately, LibreOffice Draw works quite nic", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices"}, {"id": 739171856, "item_id": 46198241, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46198241", "by": "Guestmodinfo", "date": "2025-12-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "excerpt": "I used Scribus. Top choice for replacing Publisher by open source software. Scribus is very intuitive and with enough time I could churn out a beautiful looking effective resume on my first try", "context": "", "use_case": "Desktop publishing", "switched_from": "Microsoft Publisher", "story": "Microsoft increases Office 365 and Microsoft 365 license prices"}]}