Re: [Inkscape-user] Inkscape and Uniconvertor
On 8/26/14 3:53 PM, Chris Mohler wrote:
On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:21 PM, Ken Springer
<snowshed1@...3003...> wrote:
> Not being "end-to-end" is an issue where it seems most open source
projects
> have some catching up to do. Plus bugs, which is why I finally gave up on
> Libre Office. I think that's frustrating for many new uses of open source
> software that are used to more options instead of having to go to extra work
> to do the additional converting.
I find the opposite. I have InDesign 2014 and it's impossible for me
to overstate how much I loathe booting into Win7 to use it. And from
the days of Illustrator 6 and Photoshop 4 all the way through the
current versions of the Adobe suite there have always been potential
pitfalls when moving items from one program to another. In other
words, I find it *easier* to move most things through formats in the
open-source world. To be fair, some things are harder.
Agreed, there's always
been the pitfalls, and always will be. Simply no
way around it, as programmers make mistakes, specs for a particular file
format often changes as time goes by, and new features will always come
along.
These days, though, most people who use computers don't want to have to
do things outside the program they are using. I'd wager most don't know
how, and don't want to have to go through those extra steps. In fact,
my friend is downright pi$$ed it doesn't export jpg, which arguably is
probably the most common file format out there for graphics. And for
her use, and my usual uses, jpg is the better choice.
Myself, I'll do it, but I don't like doing it anymore. I simply want to
get the job done as fast as I can. By fast, that means eliminating any
other needed steps of other software when I know some software will do
it for me.
Is it Adobe, Win7, or both that you loathe?
I'm way happier with linux as my main OS and XP running in its
little
virtual "jail cell" for when I need the Adobe stuff. I have lots of
little scripts and tweaks that really make my life a thousand times
easier than when in I'm in Windows. I think my favorite is the 'chop'
command. 'chop 2 4' means: take every PDF in the folder, remove all
pages except 2 and 4. Really stupid, but beats having to fire up some
GUI once a month to trim a set of files. I could go on, but I won't ;)
I really
would like to try Linux. On the computer I built, I even left
space on the boot drive to install Linux some day. But time is a
factor, I have none. LOL So, those extra steps you don't mind doing
keeps me just further away from the opportunity to try Linux.
The fact that you have those scripts and tweaks puts you in a class of
user apart from the average user today. That's not a bad thing, but
it's also something I lost interest in long, long ago. There are other
things in my life I'd rather do. :-)
It also depends on the users needs. For me, I might have to do
something like your chop command once in 4 months. That's not worth my
time to even attempt a script, since I can do the same thing using
Preview in OS X Mountain Lion. Not as quickly, but not really egregious
either.
Anyway, wandering a bit more toward the topic - Scribus doesn't
have
all of the features of InDesign (nor will it, or should it). But it
is a solid DTP program, and makes excellent PDFs. When I need to lay
out a multi-page item, it's my first choice. Never had any trouble
importing Inkscape drawings into Scribus either.
I can't imagine ever needing
all the features of InDesign. Heck, I
don't even know what they are. LOL Even worse, I can't imagine even
wanting to pay for it. <G>
Being an open source program, I'm not surprised there's no problem
importing Inkscape drawings. Just like you rarely have problems
importing MS files into MS software. From the outside looking in, it
seems there's a lot of cooperation in this area.