Scribus is an open source alternative to other publishing software out there, the most popular one being Microsoft Publisher. These tools can allow you to create professional looking newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, and more. Scribus lets you do it for free.
Scribus is available on multiple distros of Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, and OS/2. The Windows installer measures in at a 20 MB download. You will also want to download and install Ghostscript from its SourceForge home to allow some advanced functionality (and remove an error message at start up about ghostscript not being installed).
With Scribus, you can create a new project and have the paper size pre-set for you to many layouts like a single page, double-sides, or different kinds of folds. You can also set the paper size, orientation, and the number of pages you’ll need. You can also open previous documents like those created as Scribus Documents (*.sla, *.scd), OpenDocument Draw (*.odg), OpenOffice Draw (*.sxd), Scalable Vector Graphics(*.svg), PostScript(*.ps, *.eps), and PDF files. Those are also the same file formats you’ll be able to save to, particularly with the simple ‘Export to PDF’ button. You unfortunately cannot open Microsoft Publisher’s .pub files, but nothing else can open this proprietary format so I guess that’s expected. You can create a document in Microsoft Publisher and save it as a PostScript file and open it in Scribus. However, that may affect colors and object positioning depending on the PostScript printer you use to create the file. You can find more tips regarding opening Publisher files in Scribus from the Scribus wiki.
You can start your project with a few preset templates or just add everything you need with text boxes and images. Scribus is comparatively weak when it comes to clip art, but you have the whole Internet at your disposal. You can easily embed any image you want in tons of formats. Tweaking image properties is also simple yet fully functional. Anything else you need to do with images can easily be done with Paint.NET.
Scribus is very simple, straight-forward, and free. It’s definitely worth considering before purchasing Microsoft Publisher or the more expensive Office suites that come with Publisher.
To really unleash the functionality of Scribus, you can get the official published manual from Amazon: Scribus: Open-Source Desktop Publishing
Download Scribus for high quality, open source desktop publishing software.