hi in scribus 1.4 you cannot open a pdf file through "file > open". if you force that, you're lucky that you get a blank page and your house does not catch fire.
in the development version 1.5.x you can indeed open pdf file, but just take care that scribus is not a pdf editor: what you can do with a pdf file in scribus is limited! (but very useful, when you accept the limits!) ciao a.l.e
