First and foremost a small disclaimer: My knowledge is pieced together from reading into the topic on various sites on the internet. It is not the all-go-to. But these posts might give a good starting point for those who want to dabble into some text-layout.
Software
I read "Text-Layout" with Word a few times for those who are enterprising self-publishers. And although it is possible to use Word for it (or LibreOffice), my toenails start to curl (german expression - I don't know if there is an english equivalent, but I think everyone can imagine how painful that is).
Then there are the professional programs, like Adobe InDesign, or QuarkXPress. The former needing you to pay every month for it's usage as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud, the latter just seriously expensive. Both can be seen as industry standard. But for those who just start out, or those that have a very limited and little budget, these programs aren't that feasible.
I am using Scribus:
Scribus is already quite powerful, but it has some limitations. It is still being developed actively, but very slowly at the same time. If anyone is interested in putting a lot of tables into their publication, Scribus is not the way to go. At least currently.
But everyone else can go ahead and give it a try. The current stable version is 1.4.6, the current development version is 1.5.3. I am using 1.5.4svn, which takes a while to find, but it seems more stable than 1.5.3, and has some features I have grown fond of. Using it, you should always be aware that there is a risk in using in-development-candidates.
There are two rules that should apply universally to every software you use:
- Save often!
- Make Backups regularly! (meaning one, or even better two different drives)
Next time, we will create our document, andlook at a few fonts, and the difference in selecting fonts in Scribus and Word.