#dtpcomparison.txt
program Laidout
    website http://www.laidout.org
    platform linux

program Scribus
    website http://www.scribus.net
    platform linux, mac, windows

program InDesign
    website http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/
    platform mac, windows

program Quark
    website  http://quark.com
    title    officials might refer to it as QuarkXPress
    platform mac, windows
program Inkscape
    website  http://www.inkscape.org
    platform mac, windows, linux
program Xara
    website http://www.xara.com
    platform windows
program Illustrator
    website http://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator/
    platform linux, windows, mac




section Infrastructure Features

item Impositioning
    Laidout      yes, .01
    Scribus      no
        note \
            You can use use Laidout in limited circumstances to impose Scribus documents. This is done with
            a Scribus script that calls Laidout. See <a href="http://laidout.org/scribus">here</a> for more info.
            A different <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Imposition_Plugin_Discussion">plugin</a>
            was being developed during Google Summer of Code 2007, but it seems to have never been
            completed. Other relevant links include
            <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/How_can_I_make_a_booklet_using_Scribus%3F">making booklets
            from Scribus</a>, and
            the <a href="http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=83">imposition bug report</a>,
            in which there is much discussion.
            Other info <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Imposition_Plugin_Discussion">here</a>
            and <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Imposition">here</a>.

    InDesign     partial
        note \
            It seems the built in impositioning of InDesign is quite limited. It can do left/right booklets, and
            fold out style imposing, which is simply several pages placed side by side. You need to get plugins
            for more thorough imposing.
    Quark        no, and I ask you, why the hell not??
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no

item  "Folding signature based impositioning"
    Laidout      "yes, .091"
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     partial, booklets only without a plugin
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no

item  "Mobius strip impositioning"
    Laidout      "planned, .098"
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no

item  "impositioning involving non-rectangular pages"
    Laidout      "yes, .01"
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no

item  "Spreading page contents over several pieces of paper, so you can print out a really big layout from your small printer"
    Laidout      "yes, .08, click for tutorial!"
        url   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N79bFZmlKLU
    Scribus      "partial, something to do with PageSets maybe"
        note  \
              Scribus is set up to handle several papers right next to each other in a grid.
              In the file, there are PageSet sections. You can copy that and insert new
              PageSets. This allows spreading objects across many papers, but suffers from
              each page having to touch each other
              exactly, which leaves you with gaps if your printer cannot print to the edge
              of the paper. As of 1.3.5svn, There does not appear to be a way to edit these page sets
              in the gui. You have to edit the file manually.
    InDesign   yes, like Illustrator, in a grid with specified overlap value.
    Quark      partial, limited to spanning normal page spreads
    Inkscape    no
    Xara
    Illustrator yes, in a grid with specified overlap value. Overlap since 2008-ish?
        note  \
              Appears to be auto laid in a grid with one overlap value, accessed from the Print dialog.

item  "Math calculations in input boxes"
    Laidout     planned, for .1
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign    yes
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara
    Illustrator
item  "Plugins or scripting"
    Laidout     planned, for .1
        note \
            Since Version .09, there is a very rudimentary command interpreter. It can process simple
            math and a few commands like Open(), Reimpose(), and Export(). Future versions will have variables,
            looping, and much more access to objects.
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign    yes
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara
    Illustrator
item  "Edge feathering (as seen in Xara), or equivalent blurring"
    Laidout
    Scribus
    InDesign
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        yes
    Illustrator
item  Metafont-y erase brush, aka a knockout "color" or knockout groups
    Laidout
    Scribus
    InDesign
    Quark
    Inkscape
    Xara
    Illustrator
item  "Fill applied to stroke"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape   yes 
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Editable textwrap path, independent from the actual object"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Editable clip path"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Use objects as mask (softmask in pdf speak)"
    Laidout      
    Scribus     yes, 1.5 has a new Transparency tab, where you can use patterns as a mask
    InDesign     
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Color separations"
    Laidout      
    Scribus     yes 
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Color system capabilities flexible enough for any number of inks (think "deviceN", not just RGB, CMYK, CcMmYK, etc)
    Laidout     planned, .1
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "ICC color profiles"
    Laidout     planned, .1
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign    yes
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Autotrace images"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Spread editor"
    Laidout      yes, much improved as of version 0.095
    Scribus      partial
    InDesign     partial
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "overprinting/trapping on per object basis"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "UCR, BG"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Rotate whole page view on screen by arbitrary degrees, not just portrait/landscape"
    Laidout     yes, .01
    Scribus     no
    InDesign    no
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    planned, active development 2016ish
    Xara        no
    Illustrator no
item  "Preflight verifier"
    Laidout     planned, .1 
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Collect for out"                            
    Laidout     planned, .098
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Record macros, like Pagestream, Vim, or Openoffice!"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     planned, In Scribus 1.3.x Roadmap Extras marked as in progress
    InDesign     
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Non-destructive Bezier patch transforms on any object"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Arbitrary f(s,t) transforms, and f(s) or f(t) transforms for paths"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Guides that are arbitrary paths, not just vertical and horizontal lines. "                            
    Laidout     planned, for .1 or .2 
    Scribus     no
    InDesign    no
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    yes, Version 0.46, via snap to path, and rotatable straight guides
    Xara        no
    Illustrator no
item  "Aligning groups of points, text, and/or objects to paths"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Tablet support, stylus, eraser, mouse allowed different functions"                            
    Laidout      planned, for .1
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape     partial, pressure support, but each input is same tool
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Ability to use odd control surfaces like midi controllers, a la the Gimp"                            
    Laidout      planned, for .1
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "<a href=\"http://www.nuigroup.com/\">Multi-touch</a> support, or support for the <a href=\"http://www.x.org/wiki/XI2\">poor person's version</a> using 2 mice and XInput2"
    Laidout      partial, 0.091
        note \
            Only the object tool has this (the poor person's version) in .091. More of that sort of thing
            will be built into future versions.
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 




section    Non-text Tool Features
item  Images                            
    Laidout      yes, .01
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Linear, and circle color gradients"                            
    Laidout      yes, .02
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "On canvas gradient color spot editing"                            
    Laidout      yes, .02
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape     yes, .46
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  
item  "Patch gradients (aka mesh gradients)"                            
    Laidout      yes, .01
    Scribus      yes, 1.5svn, colors->gradient->mesh, only 12 point mesh, not full 16
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     yes, dev version since 2015ish, awaiting new SVG spec to make standard
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Image mesh distortions"                            
    Laidout      yes, .03
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  "Lines/polygons"
    Laidout      yes, 0.093
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Engraver fill"
    Laidout      yes, 0.094
       note See <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zgIkkDaj-HA">this</a>, for instance 
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape     partial
        note \
          There are several ways to make a series of hatchings in Inkscape. One is the nearness guide, where nearby lines are detected
          and when you draw a new line, it is drawn at a certain distance away. Another way is the
          <a href="https://inkscape.org/en/doc/tutorials/interpolate/tutorial-interpolate.en.html">Interpolate</a> extension, which interpolates
          between two different lines, creating a field like effect.  
    Xara         
	Illustrator  plugin, Widthscribe from Astute Graphics looks nice.
item  "Ellipses, arcs, chords"                            
    Laidout      yes, .093, via '0' to lay bezier points along a circle, then scale to ellipse
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Paths composed of different types, such as a circular arc to a bezier segment to a straight segment, and still allow specialized editing of such shapes"
    Laidout      planned, for .1
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Beginning/end/middle arrows and such"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign    
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Repeater tool along path"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     partial, only works with paths, Path Tools->Path along Path 
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Cloning objects, optionally with link backs to original objects"                            
    Laidout     yes, 0.094
    Scribus     partial, Duplicates yes, but referenced clones not yet (see scribus bug 1704)
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 



section   Text Features
item  "Text. Any text at all. I mean, come on!"
    Laidout     yes, 0.096. Simple unlinked, unflowed caption boxes. Each box has to be a single font, orientation, size, and color.
    Scribus     yes
    InDesign    yes
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    yes
    Xara        yes
    Illustrator yes
item  "Text on a line"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Text flowed across linked boxes"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Manual layered color fonts (one file per layer), text editable as if it were a single font"
    Laidout      yes, 0.096
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Opentype color fonts"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Opentype feature support"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Mixed right to left, left to right"
    Laidout
    Scribus    planned, for 1.6, the text engine retwritten from scratch
    InDesign   yes
      note \
        Complicated history, but looks like CC supports this. Non-cc from CS4 can use the 
        World Ready Composer, if you can find it.
    Quark
    Inkscape
    Xara
    Illustrator
item  "Vertical text"
    Laidout
    Scribus
    InDesign
    Quark
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara
    Illustrator
item  "Text streams in separate files, comparable to images not being embedded"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape     
    Xara         
    Illustrator  
item  "Convert Text to editable path"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         
    Illustrator  yes
item  "Math equations support"
    Laidout     
    Scribus     partial, 1.3.5 via Render frames and LaTeX
       note \
           As of 1.3.5 anyway, you can render formulas in Scribus Render Frames, then copy the frame, then paste
           the frame while inside a text stream, from within a text frame. Pasting while in story editor will
           paste a bunch of xml data
           that is used as text rather than as an image. Suffice it to say inline graphics needs a bit of work.
    InDesign    plugin, MathMagic, for instance
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Story Editor"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     yes 
    InDesign    yes 
    Quark       no
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Tabstops that lie on arbitrary paths, not just vertical and horizontal lines. Someday will be gone the days of rigidly defined and poorly accessed tabstops!"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item "Tables"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      planned
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Automatic Hyphenation and justification"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Insert sample gibberish text!! Yeah!"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Numbered and unnumbered lists"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape     
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Generated pages, for instance for tables of contents, bibliography, index"
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape     
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
#item  "The power of <a href=\"http://www.tug.org\">TeX</a>"
#    Laidout      
#    Scribus     no
#    InDesign     
#    Quark       no
#    Inkscape    no
#    Xara        no
#    Illustrator no




section  Export
item  "To image"                            
    Laidout      yes, .08, requires Ghostscript
    Scribus      yes, can mass export each page to separate image files
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  EPS/Postscript                            
    Laidout      yes, ps in .01, eps in .03
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes, by printing to a file
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator 
item  Html
    Laidout      
    Scribus     
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara         no
    Illustrator 
item  PDF                            
    Laidout      partial, .08, but not EPS objects
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     yes
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator  yes
item  Scribus                            
    Laidout      partial, .08, images and groups only
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  SVG/Inkscape                            
    Laidout      partial, 0.08, no image warps, not some radial gradients
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara         yes
    Illustrator 
item  "Openoffice.org Draw"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Passepartout
    Laidout      partial, 0.07, groups and images only
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  Laidout
    Laidout      yes
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  TeX/LaTeX                            
    Laidout      no
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     partial, you can save as LaTeX with pstricks
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
    


section  Importing
item  "Multiple images at the same time"  
    Laidout      yes, .05
    Scribus      plugin
        note  \
            <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Automatic_import_of_images:_Versions_not_requiring_Tkinter">These
            plugins</a> allows you to dump in images potentially to multiple pages, but you are restricted to
            a grid of 4, 6, or 12 images per page. If python programming doesn't scare you off, you could modify
            it to be more adaptible.
    InDesign     yes, in CS3, what a clever Place tool!
    Quark        partial, by dragging and dropping from a file browser
    Inkscape     partial, by dragging and dropping from a file browser
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  EPS                            
    Laidout      yes, as a whole, .06
    Scribus      yes, can break down the eps into its parts, has trouble with masked images and patch gradients
    InDesign     
    Quark        yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Html                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     partial
        note \
            Using the "Get Text" option in a text frame. 
            CSS not supported yet. Text is pulled from the body element, and you can use these tags:
            div, a, p, br, h1, h2, h3, h4, ol, ul, li, pre, code, b, u, i, em, strong, sub, sup, del, u.
    InDesign     
    Quark       partial
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  PDF                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus     partial, pretty sure it's done through importing rasterized pages
    InDesign     
    Quark       yes
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Scribus                            
    Laidout      partial, .09, very partial
      note \
          Scribus import works with mixed results. 
          As of .092, master pages and text variables are importable.
          As of .091, linked text and table frames stay linked, even in tiled impositions.
          The best way to use the importer is for reimposing. For this, import all data as mystery
          data, and all that data (other than master pages) will be passed through on export.
          If you do not import all as mystery data, please beware that images whose frames do
          not match exactly with their image
          boundaries are not handled correctly. This will hopefully be handled in .094.
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  SVG/Inkscape                            
    Laidout      partial, .09, images and groups only
    Scribus      partial
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape     yes
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  "Openoffice.org Draw"                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      yes
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Passepartout
    Laidout      partial, 0.09, text boxes are imported as mystery data
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item  TeX/LaTeX                            
    Laidout      
    Scribus      partial, 1.3.5, via Render frames, rasterized and imported
        note \
            <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Embedding_other_external_tools_into_a_TeX_frame">Scribus
            render frames</a>, in addition to TeX/LaTeX, 
            also allow importing many other formats, like gnuplot, lilypond, mathml, as long
            as you have a renderer installed somewhere that can convert those things to an image format
            or PDF that Scribus can import. You can edit the source text within Scribus,
            then have the render frame re-render. The TeX input has a fancy symbol selector, which is convenient.
    InDesign     
    Quark       
    Inkscape    
    Xara        
    Illustrator 
item  Laidout
    Laidout      yes, in the sense that you open a document, but no partial import
    Scribus      no
    InDesign     no
    Quark        no
    Inkscape     no
    Xara         no
    Illustrator  no
item Externally rendered formats (for instance, <a href="http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Embedding_other_external_tools_into_a_TeX_frame">Scribus render frames</a>)
    Laidout      planned, for .094
    Scribus      yes, Render Frames
    InDesign     
    Quark        
    Inkscape     
    Xara         
    Illustrator  


