Duplicate a group of pages??

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Justjax

I have a setup for a book with every 8 pages repeating.  Is there any way to select all 8 and duplicate them?

a.l.e

the short answer:

no, not really.

but keep on reading...

at first i thought, that you should fill a feature request and that in the meantime you can use a simple python script to do it.

then i went to the python script help and found out that it should be possible, but the script will be slightly more complex (you will have to manually query and apply the master page and copy each item individually. there is no copy page function there.)

not a big issue.

but there is something else in there: importing pages from a document.

well, you can do it also for the UI, then:

- quit scribus.
- make a copy of your document.
- open the original file.
- import the pages from the copy of the document.
- multiple times.

now, since i have never felt the need of such a feature and i never heard anybody asking for it, i wonder if scribus should really have a fancier "copy page" command or if the hack described above (if it indeed works!) is just good enough...

most people will want to add at most batches of 2 pages... and in those case, two well crafted master pages should be enough...

p.s.: on the one side, a small new feature cannot be bad... on the other side, every little thing added to scribus makes the code and the UI more complex... sometimes it is hard to choose.
in this case, we could also argue that every minute put in getting the "page import" to work perfectly is better spend than a minute used to add a "to ... from" into the "copy pages" dialog...

Justjax

#2
Thanks for the information.  I tried that.  When I went to import page, it said "found nothing to import."   :(

This feature does exist in InDesign.  FYI. 

a.l.e

we don't want to copy indesign.

we want to be better than indesign :-)

(well, the fact is that if with very few resources you try to copy a giant like indesign, you will always the be the ugly duck... so we have to create a software with its own goals...)

which version of scribus are you using?

are you importing the pages with the page > import dialog?

i've tried with the current 1.5 and it seems to work...

GarryP

Justjax, can I ask a stupid question please? Why do you have every 8 pages repeating?

E.g. Is it the same exact full pages repeating? Or is it just the layout that will be repeated but each repetition will have different content?

I'm just wondering what you're trying to do as it sounds like an unusual thing to me but I obviously don't know what you're doing, hence the question.

It may be that there's an alternative solution depending on what you want the final product to be.

a.l.e

... well, i'm not justjax... but there are lot of catalogues (or courses lists) with such a structure...

each "product" is a bunch of pages...

having a separate document with the standard pages seems to be the simplest solution...

... but i'm interested in hearing your suggestion!

Justjax

#6
I'm creating journals and each section of 4 full pages repeats a number of times.    Lots of fill in the blanks and blank pages with lines. 

Justjax

I'm using 1.4.6.   I just downloaded it a week or so ago.  Seems like it was the latest stable version.


Justjax

a.l.e.

I go to page>insert>from file is my only option

So I chose the saved .sla file and it says there's nothing in the file to import.

Obviously I'm new to this.  The course I took, the instructor used InDesign.  But I'm a huge believer in open source so I'm giving this a try. 

There was another cool function she used to put lines after a word using the tab function.  Not finding that, but it would certainly be handy.

Thanks for all y'alls help.

Nermander

You can set a fill for tabs also in Scribus.

a.l.e

please open a new topic for the tabs :-)

"ordine e disciplina!" :-)

in 1.4, the menu entry is called "page > import"

...

poindexter

#11
Hello all,

°°°UPDATE°°° found a work around fix, though it would still be easier were
Scribus to have the copy multiple pages function.

Original message (now redundant):


I have a similar issue to JUSTFAX. My book bears the same text
frames and image frames throughout, I.E: the odd pages are more or less
but not quite, mirror images of the evens,
and this pair of pages I want repeated over all 300 pages of my book.

Making master pages of the
first two sides I designed,
I.E: pages 1 and 2
does not work as I cannot edit into them

So, the design of my pages is the same throughout
I just need to edit the text frames each and every page
with different text

So, I have designed my ideal mirror pages,
but now i want 150 pairs, each the same; 300 sides/pages.

I was surprised there is no copy multiple pages tool.
There IS a copy page tool, but for just 1 side(1 page)
In a mirror pages file this pastes 1 page at the end.
Good, yes, but then I have to paste a left,
then I go back and copy and paste a right;
then I go back an copy and paste a left... ad infinitum, ad 300.

Working with mirror pages it seems I have to do this.
Or is it just me being a novice?

I have tried Importing pages but it tends to import 1 page and in a very skewed way
so that the text frames are moved and end up in a different position.

Kind regards to one and all


GarryP

It's probably not an ideal situation but you could create a document with the pages as you want them and then import that document into another document as many times as you want. You can create a two-page document and import it eight times to get a sixteen-page document, or you could import the two-page document twice to get a four-page document that can then be imported four times, etc. Create your "standard sections" in their own documents and then import the sections as you need them.

bastianilso

Hi everyone,

Found this on web search, ran into the same issue (I was working on a year calendar and had to duplicate 5 pages corresponding to one month). Just wanted to say I made a script to perform this action:

https://github.com/bastianilso/scribus-duplicate-page-range

I hope this helps anyone searching for something like this in the future.

lensman

Was looking for exactly this. Installed the script and ran it. Was told I needed Python 3. Installed Python 3.11. Ran script again. Still needed Python 3. Re-started computer (Windows 10). Script error still kept telling me I needed Python 3. Too bad. Would have been very handy script.