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Mawvint

Hi.

Just got this Scribus but I'm finding it really difficult.

First of all I want to put my front cover up on the first page. I'm a perfectionist though and want it to fit EXACTLY.

Well I made a 595x842 image. I then reset Scribus page dimensions to exactly 595X842. I then put on an image frame and put the image in the frame. I made sure the image frame was 595x842 also and then positioned it to be 0x0 on the page. So in theory this would come out PERFECT with no white space.

I proceeded the export the document as a PDF and then opened it in Adobe Reader. It all looked fine. However I zoomed in 1600% and I saw white space on the right side. The top, left and bottom were fine.

I've checked some professional eBooks the same in Adobe Reader and there was no white space on their front covers.

How can I make the front cover fit PERFECTLY?

Thanks a lot.

Also side questions:

1. Is it possible to use Scribus to make a full eBook? Can you center the text, make nice headers etc. like in MS Word and make it all look really professional?

2. Is it possible to create a table of contents without having to write one up manually? Will it pick up certain titles etc. and draw it up for you automatically?

Thanks a lot!

Mawvint

Can I just say, the white space I see to the right of the page when I export and view as PDF, is minuscule. I just tried one of the Scribus sample covers and I see the same white space.

Is it totally unavoidable? I just need my product to be as professional as possible.

Nermander

I can't tell what the white space depends on, but the number one way printed materials handle the situation is: Bleed.

Did you make sure you did not scale down the image inside the frame?

Mawvint

I just pasted the image on, dragged the image frame to fit the full page and then resized the image to the frame.

Nermander

You pasted the image?? As far as I know Scribus does not support pasting images, images must be "imported" (because Scribus does not save the image in the document, it only includes a link to the image file).

There are a lot of options for scaling the image so if you haven't looked at them I suggest you start with that. Scribus handling of images is a bit different from many other programs, but once you learn it I think it is better. Think of the image frame as a "window" over the image, the window can cover only a part of the image or even cover space outside the image. The size of the frame and the size of the image are not necessarily linked to each other.

Mawvint

Thanks yes I meant imported or whatever. I think I might have pasted from clipboard though. That doesn't matter though.

My page dimensions = my image dimensions = my image frame dimensions

My image frame is also at position x0y0.

Yet I export as PDF and see white space to the right. This suggests that it's unavoidable?

Mawvint

When I export I do get an error which I can ignore... it says "Image resolution below 144 DPI"?

Meho R.

#7
Yes, check image dimensions again. There must be something wrong with your image's proportions. E.g., I couldn't create an image in GIMP with dimensions 595x842 pt, but only 595x841.9 pt, which is enough for proportions not to match. Check your bitmap editor's capabilities to create a document with exact dimensions you need.

The easiest way to correct the problem using Scribus instead of a bitmap editor might be as follows:

1. Create a new document in Scribus, dimensions set to: 595x842 pt.
2. Create a new Image Frame with the same dimensions and coordinates x=0 and y=0, as you did before.
3. Right click on the Image Frame > Get Image..., to import the image.
4. Right click on the Image Frame > Adjust Image to Frame. Zoom to 3200% and take a look at the right side of the image. There is a white line? Go to the next step.
5.a. In Properties palette, go to "Image" tab and simply untick "Proportional" under "Scale to Frame Size", so that the image fits the Image Frame perfectly. Or, alternatively, do that manually as follows:
5.b. In Properties palette, go to "Image" tab, click on "Free Scaling", uncheck "Keep X and Y scaling the same" (the small binding icon just right of "X-Scale" and "Y-Scale" fields). Now click inside the "X-Scale" field and, with Alt and Shift keys on keyboard pressed, use your mouse scroll to change the value. Increments will be very small and you'll correct the problem easily.

This usually isn't the best approach, because you're changing the proportions of the image, but in case of only fractions of point, it shouldn't be a problem.

As for the resolution, if your document isn't intended for press, but for on-screen reading only, you probably can ignore the warning. But for press, you'll need at least 300 DPI.

Nermander

There is some confusion here... What is the unit of the figures for the sizes?

Points? Pixels? Something else?

A bitmap image never has physical dimensions, they only have pixels.

A page (or a frame) in Scribus can not have dimensions in pixels, because pixels don't have a size.