As I mentioned in an earlier post, each year, I create my own Christmas card to send to family and friends. This year, I created the card entirely in Linux using the free Open source desktop publishing program Scribus.
Scribus is incredibly powerful and gives you the tools to do everything all the other desktop publishing programs can do.
The interface is very straightforward. Simply create a text box and start typing or import text. You can drag images, text, shapes,etc. anywhere on the page. You can also drag objects off the printable page and move back on to another page. Scribus allows you to set up master pages,as well, so certain elements will automatically appear on each new page that is created.
One feature that I love about Scribus is the "Collect For Output" option. When creating a publication, Scribus links all your fonts and images. When you invoke the "Collect for Output" function, all of these images, fonts, etc. are collected and saved into one directory. This allows you to copy this directory (folder) to a thumb drive and move your publication project to another computer.
This came in quite handy when I created this year's card. I was able to use this option and take the project from my studio to the office where I had Scribus on my office PC.
This year's card design wasn't a folding card, but rather a strip reprint on one side and my contact information on the opposite side. I was then able to print three-up, cut to size, and then enclose in a business size #10 envelope.
You can see more screenshots of Scribus on this page. Scribus comes pre-installed on many Linux distributions.
Or, buy a Linux system for the holidays and turn Scribus loose and create your own holiday card.
Get Linux and get creative!
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