There's a lot of cool open source, pro-level production software available for Macs: GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, etc. Some of these have dropped support for PowerPC, but you can download older PowerPC versions that are mature and still useful. Scribus is one such example. It's a layout and publishing application for publishers needing a wee bit more than Microsoft Office, yet finding a pre-compiled installer for a PowerPC version was like being on a scavenger hunt. Even their Sourceforge site seemed to be scrubbed of older versions. After a bit of googling, I finally found one lonely
download link at 1-2-3 Printing. Scroll down to the link for "Scribus_1.3.3.10_Mac.zip" and download. This version will run on Tiger and up. I also included this in my
Mediafire folder in case the above link disappears.
When you first start Scribus, you get this error:
So to use those features, you need to install Ghostscript available
here. After installing, then go into Scribus's preferences in the External Tools section, and under PostScript Interpreter enter /usr/local/bin/gs for name of executable. That's the path to Ghostscript. Then you should be good to go.
To get a newer version of Scribus, I suppose you could install it via Macports or Fink, but if you wanna endure that pain, you might as well go full-on Linux:)
Scribus is one of the better open source "replacement" apps, but if you can buy an old copy of Adobe CS1 or even Pagemaker for cheap, you'd be better off. I have never understood why they can't bundle Ghostscript with it. Something to do with the licenses, right?
ReplyDeleteThanks this might help me. My old MacBook that I take out with me from 2006 is still running 10.4, because stupid me hasn't upgraded the ram on it yet.
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