## Help!!

### Finding Help

We fully acknowledge that Scribus and DTP in general are complex. Scribus has tried to anticipate and adapt to the various needs that designers have as they create a layout to meet their needs. This is by nature an imperfect process, so we encourage you to familiarize yourself to the resources available, and also to give us feedback about how Scribus is meeting your needs, but also about how it’s not and how it might do a better job.

#### The Wiki

Even if you’re not currently having issues, it’s a good idea to learn about the wiki, where there is a sizeable body of information about how to use Scribus and deal with various particulars about its usage. At the same time, we acknowledge that some of the information may be a bit dated, so if you see something there in which the screenshots poorly match up with what you see on your screen when you are using Scribus, let your own experience take precedence over what you might read.

If you appreciate the help you get on the wiki, you might consider helping others by updating the wiki articles, correcting errors, or even adding new articles to explain some process to others. We always like to see new Success Stories about how Scribus helped you with some project.

#### The Mail List

This is where to go if you’re having a problem you can’t solve, but it’s also a good place to know about even if you’re not. Anyone can access the Archive, but it’s something of a manual operation. Probably better is to consider subscribing to the list, where you will get a pretty steady stream of other users questions, comments, complaints, and the responses they get. For some, this seems to become an annoyance to get this uninterrupted flow of emails, but remember, you don’t have to read every one, and it can be helpful to set up a folder in your email client for these emails to automatically be saved in.

Once you gain some experience, you may find you can help other users with their questions by responding on the list.

#### Bugs!

Sometimes when something isn’t working right it’s not your fault. All software has bugs. In addition, it may be that the developers haven’t anticipated some particular situation you have, so the programmed behavior doesn’t meet your needs – that’s called a ”feature request”. Feel free to browse the bugs site to see if someone may have already reported a problem you are seeing. If you want to report something new or ask for some new feature or function, then register for an account.

#### Developers

Maybe you’re a programmer, and you want to help on a more elemental level, by offering some advice on how to make the Scribus code better. Maybe you’d like to do some programming on Scribus yourself to help out the project. The place to start is by connecting with the Scribus-dev list, where again, there is an archive of past posts, and a separate registration to receive emails posted there.

#### IRC

Last but not least, you might need help NOW!, and also need to be talked through some problem step by step. For this, your best solution might be to go to #scribus channel on chat.freenode.net, where you can hopefully interact with someone to answer questions on the spot. Be aware that most of the people who can help are on Central European Time or thereabouts, so timing your visit is helpful.