Specialist software for Linux in the newspaper industry

[LeithR]

An acquaintance of mine works in the Newspaper industry, we have been talking about the relative merits of MSW compared to Linux.

He said

"Linux has come on a long way but I still get issues with some comparability particularly my networked photocopiers/printers, which I can get partial drivers for but which miss big things like duplex printing and scanning and type setting software that the newspaper need us to use for our adverts is only available on Mac and Windows"

Does anybody know of Linux software that can cope with the above requirements or is the Newspaper industry just too specialized?

[Hotdog]

LeithR,

Printer support in Linux really depends upon the printer's manufacturer. Hewlett Packard for example, has done really well by providing a driver base called HPLIP (HP Linux Imaging and Printing). The Linux kernel will correspond with any printer that you can plug into a serial, parallel, or usb port, or on a network. But, that does not mean that you can print usable text or images. So, it is the manufacturers, not Linux which is lagging behind.

However, PostScript, used heavily in the printing business, is device independent and works well with Linux. This is especially true if the printer contains PostScript natively within its firmware. If your print machines contain PostScript, Linux will do fine in your environment.

I do know that there is a wonderful typesetting software called LaTeX with various frontends that produces production quality output. It even works good with a small Linux distribution like Puppy. It communicates with PostScript printers, too.

[LeithR]

Many thanks for your reply Hotdog.

[step]

I once dealt with a large Newspaper. They used very specialized software, so-called vertical solutions; stacks of customized software applications that link many workflows together, from article writing to adverts writing to editing/approval to page formatting all the way to controlling the printing press. It definitely was complex and critical stuff.