Scribus 1.5svn

I have been a user of Scribus since 2007 when I designed a 3-fold pamphlet for TRUWinnipeg.org.

Played with it for a few years, but not really seriously because it's newer than InDesign and PageMaker before it. Scribus just doesn't (yet) have all of the features that make desktop publishing software a breeze to use.

So recently I've been testing out the new 1.5svn (Beta) version of Scribus and it has some additional features that weren't there years before. I'm using it to create a 10-12 page document making recommendations on improving public transit here.

It does now have support for bullets and numbered lists. It has klunky support for creating Tables of Contents.

Data Tables

Data table (cell-type) feature has been reworked, but needs a lot of TLC before it's usable. For example, it is extremely time consuming to style each and every cell. You cannot just select a whole Row and say "use Header1". No, you must select each one. Same thing with the data cells. InDesign does it better, and has a built-in feature where you can color alternate rows.

TOC (Table of Contents)

To create a Table of Contents page is not as easy as it is in LibreOffice or MS Office. You need to create a frame, create a style for it. When that is done, you also need to right-click on the text frame and select 'Attributes..." from the menu so you can manually enter each TOC entry.

Alas, there is minimal documentation page on the Scribus Wiki on how to create a TOC. It's too short and most likely needs to be rewritten to explain the procedure better. There is but one video on Youtube on how to do it. The guy doing the video spent a whole 2 mins. Besides those two tutorials, you're pretty much on your own with this feature.

I managed to create the first line and then had problems creating subsequent TOC entries. Do I use the same 'Attributes..." screen (item 2, item 3, etc...), or do I create newer ones?

There has been talk of a newer interface and procedures for TOC creation. Other people who use Scribus have recommended just creating them manually for now. Easy for a short document, but a PITA for longer ones.

Scribus would really benefit from a Google Summer of Code program.