I have put together the last couple quarterly eZines for T2CHK. The software I have on my computer is MS Publisher, which I find clunky and lacking in professional features. It is a far cry from Adobe PageMaker (now called InDesign, as a friend informed me), a desktop publishing program that I used when I was in college. I was ready to switch to using MS Word to put together the eZines, but I got to thinking last night that there probably was an open-source desktop publisher.
There is! It is Scribus. Totally free, totally awesome. I followed the Get Started with Scribus tutorial last night to make a mini-magazine. It does everything I remember PageMaker doing and more. And it puts out PDFs for free — that costs an arm and a leg if you want to add that feature to Adobe Reader.
I’m sold on open-source software. This blog runs on WordPress with many free plugins. I edit my photos and create other graphics with GIMP, a free and awesome alternative to PhotoShop. I can create SVG graphics in the free Inkscape rather than spend hundreds on Adobe Illustrator. Adobe Reader (for pdfs) tends to crash my computer, so now I’m using FoxIt Reader, which integrates with the free and superior web browser Mozilla Firefox through the Firefox addon, Firefox PDF Download. (That’s a mouthful.)
When we’re in the market for new computer, we may very well go open-source instead of Windows. The only thing I haven’t yet tried is OpenOffice, which would be the alternative to MS Office. After all I’ve written in favor of these free alternatives, It might surprise you to hear that I am a big, big fan of MS Word and MS Excel. If OpenOffice could offer what they offer, I would be the happiest camper in the world.
These links are all included in my sidebar, under “Open Source Software.”
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I really like a lot of open source stuff as well. I use many of those.
~Luke
Very impressive! How did you locate them?
Sangeeta, it’s really not that impressive. Anytime I wanted one of them, I googled “open source photo editor” or “open source desktop publisher” or … you get the idea!
Love, Wardeh
We run a LINUX OS, Mandriva 2007 and will be upgrading to 2009 soon. I use Open Office, it is really nice. We use the GIMP too. I will ask Robert about some of the software you have listed, it looks interesting. Thanks.
Shari,
That is so good to know! Thank you. We have just begun looking at computers. The frustrating part is that all our school-related CDs have to have Windows. So we probably will have to keep one computer on Windows just for that. Love, Wardeh
That is what I meant to bring up- wouldn’t the school related software be windows based? I am now inspired to use more open source software!
We have a mulitple boot system. On my computer I have Mandriva 2007, Windows 2000NT, Madriva 2009 (it is the beta OS offical release Nov) With LINUX you can partition the hard drive to run mulitple OS. Too Cool. So you could have LINUX for online use and run Windows for your schooling CD’s. Robert could help you get this going, if you would like.
That sounds just like what Jeff mentioned the other day. Thank you for mentioning it and offering Robert’s help. What I find really helpful is knowing not only that this is possible but that it works for others.
Love, Wardeh
Wardeh, I use VM (virtual machine – vmware.com)
The workstation is free. Right now I’m running Windows 2000 on top of Windows XP. When my old machine was going south I just used a tool to clone it into a VM then copied it onto my new XP PC with VM installed. Poof all my software, settings, etc. appeared just as they were on my old machine. With VM you create machines like docs are made in Word, you can back up and clone VM’s easily. All you need is the storage space and reasonable ram & cpu, all of which you would get with any new PC. Running VM is just like starting up a new computer, only on your already running computer.
Now here is why I told you all this – you can run a Windows VM on your Linux system! No dual boot required. You can ‘play’ around with many different systems, settings and software. Something doesn’t work just delete it. And you can plug in an USB drive and copy your entire machine (VM) on it, unplug and store as secure back up.
I also run my system this way to protect from viruses and hacks, but that’s more advanced
than this post requires.
I run a server for several ministries and I’m looking to set up a VM server for them soon. It’s a great tool.
Love ya,
Jami
Jami, wow! Thanks for writing all that out. I am pretty sure Jeff will know what you’re saying and that I can grasp it eventually. We’ll definitely consider it. I’m looking forward to making soap with you — I’ll teach you how to do soap and you can teach me about VM! Love, Wardeh