[Gllug] Poster design software

[Ryan Cartwright]

Alain Williams wrote:
> I have taken the job with my school P(T)A of producing posters for various events.
> Nothing due to my (non existant) artistic ability but on the basis that I know about
> computers and so must be good at that sort of thing -- wrong.
> 
> The first lot I produced with OpenOffice, well it kind of works, but won't let me[**]
> overlap text with images and lots of things that I would like to do for posters advertising
> the next PA fundraising event.

OOo (well 2.0 at least) will let you do this.
Insert your picture then insert a text frame (view the draw toolbar and 
insert it from there).
Text frames will overlap an image and you can rotate it as well (to any 
angle).

> Can you recommend what s/ware I should use ? I would like to:
> 
> * Put some images in with the text
> * overlap text with images
> * Put text at greater than pointsize 96 (max OO allows)
> * Have text at interesting orientations (eg 45 degrees)
> * Text to have graduated colours (eg deep red at the top, fading out down each letter)
> * Work on a linux box, it would be nice if a M$ version existed so that I could give others 'source'
> * Generate an output format that I can share with others - another PA member has an A3 printer - I don't
> 
> [**] or I haven't worked out how
>

All of this can be done with OOo - including windows support.
That said, I prefer to use Scribus for many flyers and posters, mixing 
it with Inkscape and The GIMP for image manipualtion.

As for output you can share - If others won't use OOo you can always 
produce a PDF.

HTH
Ryan
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