Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: saucjedi on May 16, 2014, 12:45:05 PM

Title: Getting text for text boxes from an external file
Post by: saucjedi on May 16, 2014, 12:45:05 PM
Hello,

This is my first post here, so I hope I am posting it in the correct forum (since I am a beginner). If it is not, please admins, move it to where it belongs.

I am starting to typeset a novel I have written by using Scribus. The text is stored right now in MS Word format, and I hope that with a proper work in Scribus, it ends looking better before exporting it to PDF.

Now, as I see, I have to paste text into text boxes and such, and as I started working, a doubt came to me: If I need to correct something in the text (altough I have reviewed the novel, changes may happen, little changes, no major ones), I have to repaste it again... is there any way to link the content of the boxes to some external files (like plain text files for example, or some sort of RTF or similar)?

Thanks in advance.
Title: Re: Getting text for text boxes from an external file
Post by: Nermander on May 16, 2014, 01:07:01 PM
Short answer: No, not currently.
Title: Re: Getting text for text boxes from an external file
Post by: saucjedi on May 16, 2014, 02:10:43 PM
Quote from: Nermander on May 16, 2014, 01:07:01 PM
Short answer: No, not currently.

Well, it's a start. At least I know that there is no way, so I won't lose any time with this.

By 'not currently'... do you mean that the proposal is on the developer's table or that you hope that someday it gets done?

Does anybody know of any other Scribus-like software (such as InDesign of QuarkXpress) which does this? I would like to check it out how the feature works in them, if they have it.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Getting text for text boxes from an external file
Post by: GarryP on May 16, 2014, 02:46:01 PM
This won't be possible - in any meaningful way - until Scribus can handle importing character styles. At the moment it can only handle paragraph styles. So any character formatting done since importing would be lost when the text was refreshed.

However, I think that 1.5 might have this capability when it's released as there are some Mantis Issues regarding importing character styles but you're more likely to get better info from the mailing list or IRC where the developers hang out.