A Printshop Equivalent for Unix? 59
mcorliss asks: "I'm trying to convince my wife to switch from Windows to Linux. However, one program she loves is Broderbund's
PrintShop, which I haven't found a Linux equivalent of yet. Does anyone know of such a product, preferably one that's free and fairly easy to use?" For banner creation, there's Gozer and AAType, but they aren't the easiest of things to use. Unless you consider The GIMP, software for designing greeting cards (another PrintShop specialty) seems to not have appeared for Unix. So is there an all-around equivalent for PrintShop for Unix users? If not, can you get close to that same functionality using a specific set of Open Source software? If it turns out neither of the first two questions produce encouraging answers, would anyone be interested in starting an Open Source project to fill this niche?
Re:TEH FUTARE of SLASHDOT PISS FROST phirst poast (Score:1, Troll)
Re:TEH FUTARE of SLASHDOT PISS FROST phirst poast (Score:1, Flamebait)
It's not a lot of fun to be maintainer of a stable branch -- no glory, lots of bitching if anything breaks...and Marcelo is *young*, and could be doing other stuff.
That said, he does release releases more slowly than Linus (which might be reasonable, given that people were complaining about Linus' lack of QA in the stable branch). I do wish that he would enforce fewer things going into -rc releases, though. There should be one or two -rc releases per version, and only bugfixes in an -rc.
Also, he's had that one high-profile fuckup.
Same thing.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The sad part is, she has actually shown a strong intrest in Linux.
I tried to get Print shop running under wine but was stopped dead by what else, Linux's dismal printer support.
You want to get mad, try loosing all your formatting in a program that essentially does nothing more than formatting.
I think that is the key though. Print shop does little but formatting, with some stock pictures, formatting templates and a heavy dose of ease of use thrown in.
Keep that in mind if you think of something that might work. Whatever replaces print shop, must replace print shop, not quark.
Re:Same thing.. (Score:2)
is to use Adobe Acrobat (writer) to
"Print to PDF" in wine. then open up
acroread or ghostview and print.
this is all in theory, and adobe acrobat does cost money...
Re:Same thing.. (Score:1)
Re:Same thing.. (Score:1)
Re:Same thing.. (Score:2)
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Maybe they only have one computer.
Why not?
Re:Um, why ? (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, you might ask why I don't just install these on windows. Well, mainly, because she has an old machine with a celeron processor, and both windows 98 and 2000 ran horribly on it. Her machine was crashing at least a couple of times a week. I have now installed Linux on it, and it runs beautifully. So, although she would like to get a replacement for this one application, overall she's happier with Linux than she was with Windows.
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Really, the only problem I see with her using Linux is that there are a few applications which Linux doesn't have an equivalent of (or doesn't have a user-friendly equivalent of). I don't agree with some of the other posts, that maintain these aren't important applications for Linux. If Linux is ever going to become a mainstream OS then it's going to need to offer these applications (if you don't want them, then don't install them).
So, I guess the bottom line of my rambling is, why shouldn't I try to convince my wife to switch from Windows to Linux?
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Holy shit! You need to crawl out from under your rock and meet the real world.
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Re:Um, why ? (Score:1)
Me again... if you want to see amazing, look at the job that Apple did moving from m68k to PPC - an operating system that ran on two totally different architectures, but which let you use applications for either.
Or NetBSD - the same kernel and userland ported to more than 30 different architectures.
MS wasn't even able to keep to their original ideal of developing NT on Alpha, in order to remove any x86-isms.
Linux vs Windows (Score:2)
There's a certain argument that there's a long term benefit to using free software in terms of dollars and customizability.
Re:Linux vs Windows (Score:1)
And freedom.
That is a consideration, you know. Unless you want the industry to be owned by criminal corporations like MSFT. Using free - or at least, non-criminally produced - software is like buying stuff made in the USA by union workers instead of in China by prison laborers (on in the USA by prison laborers, for that matter); it may be more expensive in the short run, but in the long run you're buying the kind of world you want to live in.
Well... (Score:1)
whee (Score:1)
Re:whee (Score:1)
It also made greeting cards (provided you could handle the proper folding technique).
I think that is what's missing nowadays. Not enough people making banners from their Okidata printers, with huge blocky graphics on them. It really was a neat idea once.
Why Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
This attitude explains why there are so few Linux versions of software.
I've never used Printshop... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is an arrange the photos and print them out type of software, but it lets you do other things besides, and it has some assistents for specific tasks, that I presume you can add to.
Unfortunately, it uses the XForms widget set, so it looks pretty ugly. Also I had to mess about with my fontpath to put my 75dpi before everything else in order to see some of the dialog boxes properly.
I would love to see this app ported to qt or gtk, and a few other features added.
A good open source project (Score:1)
Another Thing Linux Needs To Fix (Score:3, Insightful)
What potential Linux users hear is this: "If I want that program, I'll have to learn to program myself, or wait for some anonymous Linux developers to do it for me."
So the choice becomes:
1. Quit my day job and take a couple of years learning to be a competent developer;
2. Wait for someone else to write what I want for Linux;
3. Keep on using a commercial platform and shop around.
Guess which option wins.
Scribus? (Score:1)
Why switch? (Score:3, Insightful)
One thing you need to ask yourself is why, if her Windows software does what she needs, do you want her to switch? Remember that what is the right solution for one person, such as yourself, may well not be right for someone else. Are you trying to convince her for an ideological reason of your own, to "convert" her? Because that just sounds like a recipe for strife, particularly since dual-booting is so easy these days.
Re:Why switch? (Score:1)
Maybe he can't afford the endless upgrade path Windows leads a user on?
Re:Why switch? (Score:2)
I find myself in the same situation: My wife uses Windows to
1) Surf (including getting email via the web)
B) Use Quatro Pro for budgets and stuff
Third) Use Wordperfect for letters and other docs.
There is no reason she couldn't do that stuff in openOffice on Linux, and we wouldn't have to give Micro$oft the right to inspect our hard drive and remove any files they think are suspicious.
My biggest problem, though: my kid's games. They are in kindergarten and 1st grade, so they aren't quite ready for Doom yet (I don't think). I've looked around a little, and it seems that there are very few options for kids games outside of Windows (even for the Mac).
So the kids will learn to duel-boot
Re:Why switch? (Score:2)
Re:Why switch? (Score:1)
Can you spare $300? (Score:4, Informative)
The question is, is that worth $300 to you?
Re:Can you spare $300? (Score:2, Informative)
the BIGGER problem... (Score:1)
Mind you, were I to do it, I'd probably print to ps and launch a program to print. Not to mention the burden of supporting perhaps one of the true "newbie-type" applications for Linux. "It won't print!"
augh...
Everything is there, but you need to search (Score:1)
I use CUPS for overall printing control.
I generate PDF or PostScript (or raw prn) files from a variety of applications. For a recent birth announcement card, I used Gimp and got very, very good results.
No doubt you could use [La]TeX, too.