Laying out the 404 Media zine(tedium.co)
tedium.co
Laying out the 404 Media zine
https://tedium.co/2025/12/10/404-media-zine-linux-affinity/?
15 comments
Thanks for pointing out VivaDesigner—I’m surprised in the many obsessive searches to find something like this, it never came up! (I will note that there are a lot of pretty obscure layout programs out there. At my first newspaper, I was brought in to help with the transition to CCI, which was a full-stack publishing tool popular with newspapers of the era. As a result of this, I was introduced to their old system, by Harris, which relied on Windows NT 3.1. Fun times.)
This project is probably a no-go with it (for kicks, I did try importing a PDF of the final doc) but I will keep it in mind in the future from an analysis standpoint.
The other point I’d make is kind of a tipping-point argument. While VivaDesigner can export into IDML it looks like, Affinity has gone just mainstream enough that it won’t be turned away at print shops, which is a real risk. PDFs can get you most of the way, granted, but some print shops want to edit the file, which makes sense.
This project is probably a no-go with it (for kicks, I did try importing a PDF of the final doc) but I will keep it in mind in the future from an analysis standpoint.
The other point I’d make is kind of a tipping-point argument. While VivaDesigner can export into IDML it looks like, Affinity has gone just mainstream enough that it won’t be turned away at print shops, which is a real risk. PDFs can get you most of the way, granted, but some print shops want to edit the file, which makes sense.
Oh my goodness! I - really did not- expect to reach the author himself! Hello sir, your work is rad and am excited to see the zine!
My partner and I run our design studio on Linux these days and so we're always on the hunt for software to better replace the PC / Mac software we walked away from, so I explored running Affinity a couple years ago and couldn't get it going properly. Then last year I had to put together a big important document, so I had extra motivation to find a replacement.
I tried almost literally everything that was Linux native over a few weeks when I was getting started. I was impressed with VivaDesigner, but decided to just use LaTeX in VSCode - ahich was both awesome and terrifying for what wound up a 390pg document. And would be a huge PITA for this purpose.
Back to your post specifically - I can imagine how insane the old system you helped replace was.
And yes, I think that the "tipping point" is an important consideration. Maybe in Germany where Viva is based they might not think twice if you bring in a live file, but it does seem like Affinity is far and away the leading challenger in the states. I'm sure it's a miniscule share and Adobe is still the 8,000 pound gorilla.
But that's the thing about tipping points right?
My partner and I run our design studio on Linux these days and so we're always on the hunt for software to better replace the PC / Mac software we walked away from, so I explored running Affinity a couple years ago and couldn't get it going properly. Then last year I had to put together a big important document, so I had extra motivation to find a replacement.
I tried almost literally everything that was Linux native over a few weeks when I was getting started. I was impressed with VivaDesigner, but decided to just use LaTeX in VSCode - ahich was both awesome and terrifying for what wound up a 390pg document. And would be a huge PITA for this purpose.
Back to your post specifically - I can imagine how insane the old system you helped replace was.
And yes, I think that the "tipping point" is an important consideration. Maybe in Germany where Viva is based they might not think twice if you bring in a live file, but it does seem like Affinity is far and away the leading challenger in the states. I'm sure it's a miniscule share and Adobe is still the 8,000 pound gorilla.
But that's the thing about tipping points right?
Quick add: I tested VivaDesigner on some old InDesign docs and I found it did not handle color blend modes very well, which is kind of an essential for a risograph project like 404’s. Nonetheless, the fact that it was able to open an InDesign doc more or less intact makes it a useful tool for a switcher.
> AI-based
No thanks, I'll use Scribus.
Different mod schemes (ctrl-click and such) than InDesign, but I'm sure I can get used to that, adjust the settings, or patch it. Might have worked for them though, good suggestion!
No thanks, I'll use Scribus.
Different mod schemes (ctrl-click and such) than InDesign, but I'm sure I can get used to that, adjust the settings, or patch it. Might have worked for them though, good suggestion!
Does Scribus have the customizable bindings like GIMP, where you can download someone's helpful remapping of the Adobe keys to GIMP? I'm pretty sure you can make it even closer.
Indesign was such a satisfying way to layout documents. I just cannot reproduce the same feeling using affinity products. Shortcuts feels wrong, defaults feels wrong, etc.
I wish Adobe stayed the 2004 company version of Adobe. They were good.
I wish Adobe stayed the 2004 company version of Adobe. They were good.
Enjoyed this a lot. I, too, spent many years involved in print layout. In my case it was a lot of QuarkXPress. My friend aptly described it as a “very cross program” but it was quite efficient once I learned it.
Very interesting read. Always love learning how new media tackles old media processes, I'll be interested to see how the zine fares long term.
I actually built my own InDesign clone just before wrapping up with my last employer (inspired by Photopea) given how fed up I was with InDesign and its quirks.
It was a pretty neat little product - ingested all our website stories and automatically laid them out into a newspaper, which could be further edited in the browser or output as print ready PDFs that would go straight to the printers' FTP server.
I'm willing to bet there's a huge market out there that's itching to jump ship from InDesign as soon as Affinity proves its worth. Adobe has squandered their moat. I've already worked with companies that now do all their desktop publishing in Canva - still get an eye twitch from that, but it worked and staff preferred that mess over InDesign.
I actually built my own InDesign clone just before wrapping up with my last employer (inspired by Photopea) given how fed up I was with InDesign and its quirks.
It was a pretty neat little product - ingested all our website stories and automatically laid them out into a newspaper, which could be further edited in the browser or output as print ready PDFs that would go straight to the printers' FTP server.
I'm willing to bet there's a huge market out there that's itching to jump ship from InDesign as soon as Affinity proves its worth. Adobe has squandered their moat. I've already worked with companies that now do all their desktop publishing in Canva - still get an eye twitch from that, but it worked and staff preferred that mess over InDesign.
Lutris is so fantastic, if anyone here is on Linux and needs wine, try Lutris. It puts each app in its own wine prefix, its just nice to use.
I don't know why but I could never get it to work properly and had more success with the Bottles flatpak instead. I should really check out a tutorial for Lutris because people are always praising it and I feel it's more of a me problem that I can't get it to work.
Remember when the word, "zine" used to have the connotation of a hobbyist project, because most people couldn't afford/justify the cost of printing full-sized magazines at scale?
Rather than a tool of mass-distributed propaganda, in an internet medium where making digital copies is cheap, masquerading under the guise of the "little man"?
Rather than a tool of mass-distributed propaganda, in an internet medium where making digital copies is cheap, masquerading under the guise of the "little man"?
What are you referring to in the second line of your comment? That doesn't describe 404 Media.
Scribus is available on Linux but the interface is Spartan. Maybe also you could put your fingers on Greenstreet Publisher which used to be freeware 20 years ago, but if you get old windows in virtualBox, TBH nothing has changed. I mean what? Fonts maybe would need conversion to TTF?
[deleted]
edited to add: I am however surprised that Ernie didn't just go for VivaDesigner [1], as it does seem to be a more drop-in InDesign replacement and is Linux native...
[0] https://open.spotify.com/episode/0TG6fsy7cLEkOEj8SIm8ci?si=4...
[1] https://viva.systems/designer/