publisher drop-in replacement

[Thorsten Wilms]

On Thu, 2010-09-02 at 10:58 +0000, Tom Davies wrote:

> Windows has "Publisher" but surely linux has an equivalent if if it can't read 
> ".pub" files?  Does anyone know a package that works in a similar way or that 
> people will find more intuitive?  Preferably a program that has been ported to 
> Windows but can produce generic output that can be used by a few different 
> packages in linux.

Publisher is a so called desktop publishing (or simply "layout")
application. This puts it into a family with Framemaker, Quark Xpress
and Indesign, but users of those might scream at this claim. Publisher
has a strong focus on templates and is aimed at users with no or little
training in this area.

I think the only useful layout application on Linux is Scribus. It has
the required capabilities and is said to have excellent PDF output. Last
time I used it, it had performance and stability issues, though.


> Publisher has an interesting way of allowing several text-boxes with formatted 
> text along with other boxes containing pictures or other types of elements.

This stuff in boxes approach is typical for DTP apps. Note that Open
Office Writer has such capabilities, too. Though I don't even know if
you can link frames for text flow. It certainly doesn't help much with
precise placement of objects.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/