Hi there. I'm from Christchurch, NZ.
I'm on the verge of learning Inkscape. I did the first series of exercises a few weeks ago but haven't done anything since...til now.

I'm interested in learning to create Pdf magazines. I've got the passion, the creative talent, the 'big picture' insight into life. All I gotta do is figger out how to make it happen.

I've got most of the freebie software: Paint.net, OpenOffice suite, Gimp, Scribus. So, I am starting to familiarise myself with file type compatibility.

Here's the thing: lately I have been learning Scribus as it seems the most like "desktop publishing". Yet, I'm not entirely happy with it - it's kind of awkward and a bit weird to learn.

On the other hand, Inkscape seems really nifty and neat, even though I don't have much experiance with it yet. Inkscape also seems like it is an SVG visual design program, but I am wondering if I could use it more specifically as "desktop publishing". You know: chucking in clumps of OpenOffice text along with the visual stimulation...

What do you reckon. Is it possible?

It is absolutely possible to bring in text "clumps" with inkscape, however the main limitation with inkscape for this purpose will be absence of multipage support. Of course, you could simply do each page as an individual file in inkscape, export each page as its own pdf, and then use PDF Split and Merge to make a single pdf document.

Welcome martinz1!

I'm just about to try my 1st attempt at writing a tutorial using Inkscape and exporting to PDF. The 1st problem I've run into, is links get lost in the export. It has been recommended that I try Scribus, so that's my next step. Maybe we'll stumble through, each helping the other, huh?

Since I've sort of promised the tut, I may end up doing something else instead of PDF for now. But still will probably try to learn the PDF way.

Anyway, welcome aboard!

I haven't used Scribus for a very long time, but I'm a firm believer in using the right tool for the job. I would be creating the graphics in Inkscape and they putting them together in Scribus. Scribus is meant to be about creating a page layout, not necessarily creating the graphics (if that's the limitation you're experiencing). Likewise, Inkscape is not a page layout program, and you'll struggle with it's handling of text. I'm sure Scribus would be more advanced in this area.