Scribus handles these with ease and the layout will look almost exactly the same as in any other desktop publishing app. If you want a ready made book template, you go to Project Guttenberg and download an example such as Frankenstein and upload it to Scribus. You can also add Page Numbers in Scribus by going to Insert > Characters > Page Numbering. You can build Master Pages that serve as a template for everything else. You can of course choose from a huge number of fonts (or add your own fonts), separate colors, change styles and enlarge certain areas. The most common tools you will use are Outline, Layers, Styles and Properties.

You can add layers upon the frames for extra depth and creativity. You can drag and drop these around to your heart’s content until the layout is as you want. Inside these frames you can put things such as text, images, graphs and other elements.

When you start with a blank document, you arrange the layout using Frames. There are also presets for A4, A5 page sizes etc. When you open a new document, you can choose from single page and double page layouts, choose the page dimensions, margin sizes, Bleeds. If you’ve used Adobe InDesign then then Scribus will feel familiar although the interface is nowhere near as refined or intuitive as Adobe’s product. If you’re already familiar with frames, layouts and typesets then you’re already half way there.

If you’re new to desktop publishing, then Scribus will definitely take some learning. You can read more about this in our Adobe InDesign review. You can also get some very generous student and educator discounts of 60% off Adobe Creative Cloud which is an extremely good deal considering you get all of Adobe’s industry leading design software included (full Creative Cloud review here). If you’re a student of design or publishing however, Adobe dominates to design field and you’re far better off biting the bullet and splashing out on Adobe InDesign. Some even argue that Scribus compares with professional desktop publishing software like Adobe InDesign and while we feel this is definitely stretching it, it’s certainly a very accomplished DTP software considering it’s completely free to use. If you’re an indie graphic designer or working on a budget then Scribus is a tempting option – after all since it’s an open source project released under the GNU license it’s completely free to use.

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