Postcard layout

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Bleep

I've spent all afternoon trying to create a simple postcard which people can use to fill out their name and address (and then send to Parliament).

The area where people can enter their name and address has two columns. The first column holds the labels ('Name', 'Address' etc.), which should be right-aligned. The second column should just have dotted lines at the bottom. I'd normally use a table for such a layout but I gather that Scribus can't vertical align text within a cell (leaving aside the eye-balling approach). Using tabs almost worked - it just doesn't allow me to right-align the labels. And I didn't get anywhere when I tried used columns.

I'm wondering if I'm missing something blatantly obvious. Is there really no way to vertical align text in a table cell?


GarryP

#1
Hi Bleep.

Unfortunately Scribus doesn't have a "vertical bottom justify" function. See this post for a bit more info: http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,1266.0.html

However, I've quickly knocked up something which might give you some idea of what you can do.

The frame on the left uses right-justified text that has been "nudged" to the left - "Properties / Text / Columns & Text Distances" - to give a gap.

The frame on the right uses tabs filled by dots - "Properties / Text / Columns & Text Distances / Tabulators..." to create the areas to be manually filled in. The text has also been "nudged" to the right to give a gap.

If you don't need the gaps just remove them.

Both frames are aligned to the baseline grid so text "lines up" correctly down the page. If the lines are too close set the baseline grid larger ("File -> Document Setup / Guides").

I hope this helps.

Garry.

P.S. It's a very quick knock-up. You'll probably want to mess around with it to produce exactly what you want.

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Nermander

I had no problem solving this using tabs?

First tab is a right adjusted tap (for the right edge of the labels), then a left tab for the left side of the dotted line, and a third tab (with fill) to the right edgde.

What you need to do is hit a tab BEFORE each label.

GarryP

Yes I agree, you should be able to do it just using tabs but I've found the tabulator to be less than reliable at times. Bleep seems to have had problems with it too.

Sometimes it works as expected and sometimes it doesn't. The results seem to be random - or at least according to a pattern I've not been able to figure out yet.

That's why I suggested using only a simple single tab in each frame, to keep possible problems to a minimum.

(I don't think I'm having trouble because I'm not using them right. The problem seems to be inconsistent and difficult to track down which is why I haven't logged a Mantis ticket.)

But you're correct that tabs should be able to do this if you get them working right.

Bleep

Thanks GarryP and Nermander. Using frames worked fine, although creating the lines by using tabs was a bit of a struggle. For some reason a tab would create the first line but after a carriage return a tab wouldn't do anything. I solved that by copying and pasting the first line.

If it's useful for anyone, attached is the end result. (The card should be useful for anyone living in the UK as you can use it to stop all those annoying Virgin Media and Domino's Pizza leaflets Royal Mail keeps delivering!)

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Nermander

Quote from: Bleep on March 08, 2014, 10:48:21 PM
Thanks GarryP and Nermander. Using frames worked fine, although creating the lines by using tabs was a bit of a struggle. For some reason a tab would create the first line but after a carriage return a tab wouldn't do anything. I solved that by copying and pasting the first line.

When I tried I made a Paragraph style that contained the tab settings, and used that style for all the lines.

As opposed to many other programs, the "new" paragraph you get when hitting Enter does NOT inherit the direct formatting of the paragraph before. It usually gets the frames default style if I don't recall wrong.

There used to be similar issues when applying direct formatting during typing. If you typed a text, changed to Bold font and continued typing, the text you typed would not become bold... I'm not sure if that bas been fixed (because it's not what most users expect).

I think the issue is that Scribus applies the formatting only to the text selected, but when no text is selected the formatting does not "catch" anywhere.

I've learned to always use styles for everything...

Bleep

QuoteAs opposed to many other programs, the "new" paragraph you get when hitting Enter does NOT inherit the direct formatting of the paragraph before. It usually gets the frames default style if I don't recall wrong.

I just tested this and you're right. Unless the tab stops are defined in a paragraph style Scribus won't apply the tab settings to the whole frame - the styles will only be applied to the line you happen to be editing.

So yes, always define styles first!