The Scribus Team has announced the release of Scribus 1.6.0, an open-source desktop publishing program.

Scribus 1.6.0 Release

The Scribus Team is pleased to announce the release of version 1.6.0. Scribus 1.6.0 is the long awaited release in the next stable series, replacing 1.4.8 and development versions in the 1.5.x series. This version has been in development for some years and contains thousands of enhancements and fixes across all areas of the program. It has more features, is faster, and is more stable. All users of versions of 1.5.x and lower should migrate to 1.6.0.

The list of changes below is a high level summary of each of the changes included since 1.4.8 was released, and in each 1.5.x development version.

Most important changes

General

• User interface overhaul from 1.4.x including new icons, and support for light/dark mode.
• Resource Manager for online resources such as dictionaries
• Improvements to the canvas rendering on Hi-DPI screens.
• The Barcode plug-in has been updated and offers new features such as “GS1 Digital Link URIs” for retail barcoding.
• Several new commands have been added to the scripting engine, so as to make the document creation via scripts easier and more versatile. Many new Scripter commands were added as well as updates to the Scripter documentation
• A new feature is the possibility to search for a particular function, like one can in GIMP, G’MIC or Photoshop. If possible, the new dialog also shows the menu path.
• A new PDF-based output preview is now available.
• Python scripting was migrated from python version 2 to 3
• Addition of XeLaTeX support to Render Frames
• With the new “Weld” feature, objects can be combined and moved without being “grouped”, i.e., each object remains fully editable.
• Scribus offers a “Symbol” or clone feature similar to Adobe Illustrator: If one master object (Symbol) has been modified, all of its copies (clones) are modified as well.

---

Text / Typography / FontsScribus 1.6.0 provides some of the most often requested text features, among them:vertical justification of text; orphans and widows control; foot and end notes (experimental feature); text variables (experimental feature); cross references (experimental feature). Scribus enables applying a background color for selected text and also offers this option within character and paragraph styles; Font embedding code was completely rewritten from scratch to enable support of complex scripts such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese and Hindi that arrived in the 1.5.x development series. We are more than grateful for the magnificent work that the Oman House of Open Source Technology team completed, led by Khaled Hosny. Scribus provides access to advanced OpenType features, such as ligatures and alternate glyphs. Typing on the canvas and text rendering in general has become a lot faster. Previews for fonts are now available in font selectors. The “Text” tab was moved from the Properties Palette to a new palette. Fonts that have been rejected are now listed in a separate tab in the Document Setup / Preferences dialogs. This enables users to know why a certain font installed on their system doesn’t show up in the font selectors. Important Note: Those with a collection of older Scribus documents can and should keep their older versions installed or at least the installable distribution/package as text layout will change due to the improved text layout engine. GraphicsA feature-rich plug-in called ‘Picture Browser’ enables asset management for graphics files by tagging them or creating graphics collections. Graphics files can be dragged into a Scribus document from the Picture Browser. Scribus supports all advanced gradient types available in Adobe Illustrator and XARA Designer, including mesh gradients. One of the most-requested features, drop shadows, is available, albeit still experimental. For documents that comprise many large (in terms of file size) bitmap images, a configurable image cache has been added. It can buffer image files to the hard drive and free RAM, so Scribus can continue to run smoothly. File Import / ExportScribus can store bitmap images within its native file format. Previously it was only possible to link to external images. Scribus includes a large number of new or rewritten import filters, although not all of them are of equal quality, and some are still experimental.RTF and DOCX importers Major PDF import improvements Krita’s KRA format A Markdown import filter has been added DTP Files

• Scribus 1.6.0 can open / import files created by other DTP programs, namely:
  • Adobe InDesign XML (IDML)
  • Adobe InDesign Snippets (IDMS)
  • Adobe PageMaker (P65, PMD)
  • Apple iWorks Pages
  • Microsoft Publisher (PUB)
  • QuarkXPress Tags (XTG)
  • VIVA Designer XML
  • XARA Page & Layout Designer (XAR).

Thanks to the work of the Document Liberation Project and particularly David Tardon, experimental import filters for ZonerDraw vector drawings (versions 4 and 5) and QuarkXPress documents (versions 3 and 4) were added.

Regarding DTP formats not yet supported, a workaround is sometimes to use an output format as an option. Accordingly, Scribus 1.6.0’s PDF importer was rewritten from scratch, and Scribus can now reliably open many PDF files directly with the original layout intact. For Windows users, Scribus also comes with reliable import filters for Microsoft’s PDF alternatives: XPS (Windows Vista and 7) and OXPS (Windows 8 and later).

Vector Drawings

• The import filter for Adobe Illustrator files was rewritten from scratch and Scribus’s graphics capabilities have been expanded accordingly, so most AI files can be imported or opened. Scribus can detect hybrid AI files and enables users to choose between the AI and the PDF version.
• The import filter for OpenDocument graphics files was rewritten and expanded, so Scribus can now open and import ODG drawings and ODP slide shows.
• Layers in SVG files are now supported if an SVG document is opened (vs being imported into an existing document).
• Thanks to the libraries provided by the Document Liberation Project, Scribus can now import native MS Visio and CorelDraw files.
• Other new import filters:
  • Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM)
  • Photoshop Custom Shapes (CSH)
  • Micrografx Draw (DRW)
  • Enhanced Metafile (EMF)
  • StarView Metafile (SVM)
  • WordPerfect Graphics (WPG)
  • Xara Designer (XAR).

Bitmap Files

• Scribus supports the open standard Open Raster (ORA) for complex bitmap files, including advanced features like layer effects or paths.
• With GraphicsMagick installed, Scribus can import all bitmap files supported by this program, including GIMP’s native XCF format.
• Scribus can import PGF bitmaps, an open alternative to JPEG 2000.

3D

With  OpenSceneGraph (OSG) installed, Scribus can import 3D objects in all formats supported by OSG into a new frame type called “3D Annotation”. Scribus also offers limited editing functions, such as setting the lighting source or the default display mode for a PDF-3D-capable PDF viewer.

---

Colors and FillsSupport has been added for, or usage improved for:CIE L*a*b* and CIE HLC color models and new color palettes, which are also available in the color editor SwatchBooker’s SBZ file format, which means, among others, that all color palettes from the Open Colour Systems Collection (http://dtpstudio.de/downloads/OCSC_1_0.zip) can be used inside Scribus with their original color model (CIE L*a*b*) intact. Color palettes in the Adobe Color Swatch (ACO) and AutoCAD ColorBook (ACB) formats, as well as Adobe Swatch Exchange files (ASE), and GIMP Gradients (GGR) and GIMP Patterns (PAT). The former color manager has been extended to a Colors and Fills manager to reflect the new capabilities. The Resource Manager, as well as the official Scribus Resources pool have been expanded significantly, because Scribus provides direct access to the more than 300 (mostly commercial) color palettes of the Open Colour Systems Collection in the LAB color space. We would like to thank dtp studio oldenburg and the initiative freieFarbe for making these color palettes available under a Creative Commons license. The Resource Manager user interface also received some enhancements. The “Wikipedia RAL Classic” color palette was updated using Wikipedia’s LAB color values. Color palettes in the new ISO standard CxF3 (See: https://www.xrite.com/de/page/cxf-color-exchange-format). CxF3 files can not only store palettes in different color models (e.g., RGB, CMYK, LAB) and output intents, but also allow for storing spectral colors, which enables even greater color precision. Scribus was the first DTP software that supports this demanding standard. Color precision for fill colors has been expanded to 64 bit floating point. Existing import filters have been upgraded to support the LAB color model (where applicable). Output / PrintingSupport of PDF/X-4 was included in the PDF exporter. Support for PDF 1.6 export, including embedded OpenType fonts. An exporter for Microsoft’s XPS format is included. With the exception of the Windows platform, Scribus can now use a PDF-based and newly written printing engine. PostScript is still available, but will be removed over time. Technical/OS-related updatesScribus 1.6.0 uses Qt 5.15.x as its UI toolkit in team-released packages. The minimum version to compile Scribus from source is Qt 5.14. Scribus now follows the XDG standard for configuration files. Therefore, the Scribus preferences directory on Linux distributions has moved from ~/.scribus/ to a new default location ~/.config/scribus/ Build system improvements supporting new dependencies, updated host operating system changes and new CMake functions macOS:The Intel version supports mac OS 12 and higher, and the Apple Silicon version supports mac OS 13 and higher. Windows:Windows 7 is the minimum version supported. Additional NotesChangelog for 1.5.0: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=60Changelog for 1.5.1: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=60Changelog for 1.5.2: https://bugs.scribus.net/view_all_bug_page.php?filter=161020Changelog for 1.5.3: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=102Changelog for 1.5.4: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=99Changelog for 1.5.5: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=106Changelog for 1.5.6: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=110Changelog for 1.5.7: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=112Changelog for 1.5.8: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=114Changelog for 1.6.0: https://bugs.scribus.net/changelog_page.php?version_id=116More details are available from the Scribus Commit Mailing List archive (http://lists.scribus.net/pipermail/scribus-commit/).Future

Scribus 1.7.x is the new unstable series. While we will maintain Scribus 1.6.0 as a stable version, most development will focus on 1.7.x and features and Qt6-based enhancements. 1.7.0.svn is developing relatively quickly with the integration of a new palette and docking system, new SVG based icons and many more features.

We will look to update documentation in future 1.6.x releases and hope to launch a community documentation project in the future.

We have no plans to fix issues in the 1.4.x branch of Scribus. No versions have been released for some time and the 1.6.x series is the stable series going forward. All branches are available in subversion (svn://scribus.net) as well as on our downloads links for all previously release versions. We encourage all Linux and *BSD distributions to switch their stable version to 1.6.0.

Download Scribus 1.6.0