I have found that this forum software integrates very nicely with WordPress but the default template is, in my opinion, an awful mess of tiny fonts (‘font-size: 62.5%‘!) and impenetrable DIVs.

I had made some progress with integrating the design of the fora with that of the rest of the site. Then, I installed BBpress 0.74 over v0.73 and, being a bit dim, lost the changes I had made.

I think the principle benefit of having a forum at the moment is that it presents a less intimidating interface than WordPress.

A lot of open source software has previously been let down by poor documentation. Not Scribus. It already has enough documentation for me to make good use of it and this appears to have been written by a user rather than a programmer.

The two key differences between Scribus and its commercial counterparts appear to be speed and beauty. As with many open source applications, the icons could be a lot prettier and the program could run more quickly. Frankly, with the money that is saved by not buying commercial software, cheapskates like me could possibly afford to buy a faster machine (or more RAM).

Because the program fully supports SVG, users can make good use of the Open Clip Art Library, a repository of mostly good quality public domain files. One oddity I discovered is that I get a far better end-result by creating a PDF before I print than by sending my work direct to the printer.

For those who are interested, the first open source NftP is available here for download as a 1 megabyte PDF.