Scribus on Windows How-To

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Scribus 1.3.3.14 for Windows (TM) installer.

Ghostscript 8.70+ 32-bit installer - required for EPS,PS import and print preview. Ghostscript is also required for the Barcode generator, since this involves creating and displaying a vector graphic. Ghostscript can be installed before or after Scribus. It's a good idea to pay attention to where ghostscript gets installed, in case Scribus doesn't automatically find it.

Documentation

Hardware Requirements

256 Mb or more system memory - the more the better as Desktop Publishing requires a lot of memory for any complex layouts.
Pentium III or better CPU at 750MHz or faster speed is highly recommended for performance considerations.

Software Requirements

GhostScript installation instructions. Installations of Scribus and Ghostscript are independent events, and either one can be installed first. If Scribus fails to find ghostscript, and you know you have it, go to File > Preferences > External Tools and search for your gs executable. After you save this location, you will need to restart Scribus to be able to use ghostscript.

Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003 and Server 2008 will run Scribus natively.
Recommended: Disable XP Themes - Using the "Windows Classic" theme is very strongly recommended on lower end systems. Custom Themes can cause problems and sometimes you may not be able to create new documents.

Windows 2000 Only - The GDI+ library from http://www.microsoft.com is required. As Scribus is an open source application licensed under the GNU GPL, we cannot include this file within the installer. Install this library into: "C:\Program Files\Scribus-1.3.x" or "C:\Winnt\system32" directory or other directory in your path.

Windows 98 and ME are not supported at all as there are many functions in Scribus which depend on features available only on Windows 2000 or Windows XP.

Before Installing Scribus

  • Install Ghostscript before installing Scribus. Ghostscript 8.70+ or newer is recommended. This is important for EPS,PS import and print preview. The file naming conventions can be confusing. gs870w32.exe is the normal Windows installer, which in turn installs two .exe files. The correct .exe name for use with Scribus is gswin32c.exe, not gswin32.exe. Setting this properly will avoid error messages on start up and Scribus will makes a best effort attempt to auto-detect Ghostscript's location on install. More details: Scribus Preferences
  • Scribus is very intolerant of poorly constructed or marginal grade fonts.Once installed, please read carefully the font setup section in the help documentation.

After Scribus is installed

  • The first launch of Scribus or when a new user launches Scribus will be much longer than usual. This is because Scribus is creating a cache file of your fonts. Later re-starts will be much quicker.
  • Again, Scribus is very particular about font quality. Use of freeware or shareware fonts is not recommended. There is an extensive and informative set of notes in the online help about fonts and commercial grade printing. Scribus scans fonts on launch and will disable obviously broken or problematic fonts. These notes are based on experience both with Scribus and commercial printing. You can detect which which fonts are not loading and why, by opening a command prompt and starting Scribus as follows:
    c:\Program Files\Scribus\Scribus.exe --console --fi 
  • The full list of command line start options is
    c:\Program Files\Scribus\Scribus.exe --console --help