Software I like: Scribus

Desktop publishing software, for text documents with complex layouts, including posters. When a document is exported to PDF, checks are performed for things like text overflowing text frames and inadequate image resolution. Text is entered in frames, and text frames can be linked (Item ► Text Frame Links) so text can flow from one to another.

• Downloads; pre-release verion 1.5.5.svn (latest as of 2018 Nov 3); source code
• Wiki
• Forums
• 2 links to introductory material
• Issue tracker

Notes

• There is no longer much need for Edit ► Edit Text With Story Editor, for most purposes double click on a Text Frame for WYSIWYG editing. Do Windows ► Text Properties to display the dialogue for setting attributes and styles.
• For figure captions, select an image frame and a text frame and use Item ► Welding ► Weld Items to attach them together.
• Text wrapping: For frame to be wrapped around, in Properties ► Shape, set desired type of Text Flow Around Frame, and make sure the frame is at a higher level than the frame whose text is to wrap around it: right-click on frame and select Level ► Raise (or Raise to Top).
• For sharing the native .sla file, use File ► Collect for Output to gather all the images and fonts (and more) together in a Zip file. This is because a Scribus document doesn’t normally contain images or things like that. Instead, it links to the things like images, which makes the .sla file smaller and lets you change the image without needing to change anything in Scribus.