Scribus Major Release

Scribus, one of the most famous open source application for desktop publishing is now releasing a major release after several years of development. Every users that have been using Scribus 1.3.x series will be happy with this good news since it has more than 2000 feature requests and bugs fixed since the development of this new version started.

I would like to mention some of the major highlight on Scribus 1.4 taken from it's Release page :

• 1.4.0 is based on the Qt4 application framework, thus Scribus now runs equally reliable on all supported platforms.
• Scribus now provides install files for Mac OS X 10.5 or later (DMG or pkg format), as well as a native version for OS/2 Warp 4 and eComStation.
• Feature enhancements to object handling (e.g. transform tools like in advanced drawing programs), with improvements to existing features like the Scrapbook and the Image Manager.
• Many advanced options for text and typography, like character styles, optical margins, or glyph extension. Undo/Redo is finally available for almost all text-related actions, and a new script enables replacing straight quotes with typographical quotation marks based on language settings. Usability improvements include better cursor placement and movement, faster layout on canvas and interaction between linked frames.
• New features for vector objects, like Boolean path operations, vector effects or a line style editor.
• Major improvements to the handling of fills, like pattern fill, more gradient types, support for external color palette formats (AI, EPS, GPL, PostScript, SOC), and many new color palettes, including those from commercial vendors like Resene and dtp studio, as well as national/government standards.
• A new frame type called "Render Frame" allows for rendering (and subsequently export) the output of every program that can create PostScript, PDF or PNG files via the command line (e.g. LaTeX, Lilypond, POV-Ray) inside Scribus.
• Vector import filters: Scribus 1.4.0 provides new import filters for the following file formats: Adobe Illustrator (both EPS and PDF-based), Macintosh Picture (PICT), Windows Metafile (WMF), Xfig (FIG), Calamus Vector Graphics (CVG), Kivio Stencils (SML), and DIA Shapes (SHAPE).
• Handling of Photoshop files has seen many major improvements, like support of multiple clipping paths or PSD layers. The Image Manager has been rewritten, and new non-destructive image effects have been added. Moreover, Scribus 1.4.0 now supports EXIF data in images, and import of Windows and OS/2 bitmaps (BMP) has been re-enabled.
• Among the major enhancements to Scribus's pre-press features, printing marks and the display of ink coverage in the Print Preview are the most important. In addition, Scribus now enables conversion of spot colors to process colors during PDF and PostScript export with a single click.
• Scribus can now export to PDF 1.5, including PDF layers. Another new feature is the option to embed EPS and PDF files in exported PDFs as an alternative to rasterizing them.
• Scribus 1.4.0 now supports both littleCMS version 1 and 2.
• Scribus Team has added a feature to emulate color blindness on screen.
• Hundreds of minor and major usability improvements have been added.
• The included scripts have been updated, including the addition of the "Autoquote" script in the Script menu to convert straight quotes in a text frame to correct quotation marks for many languages.
• Scribus 1.4.0 is being shipped with many more templates than previous versions.

If you plan to compile your own Scribus package on your Linux operating system, please take a look on the Compilation page as they now switch to CMake and leaving Makefile as they now are Qt-based. For Windows and Mac OS X, there's no need to worry as they ship the native format for those platforms.