When I try to preview a document, it comes out blank.

Previous topic - Next topic

Sparxz


I am using Scribus 1.4.7, & Ghostscript ver 9.22, on Kubuntu/Ubuntu  18.04.1 LTS ; Release: 18.04; Codename: bionic


When I try to preview a document, it comes out blank.
I have tried toggle of things like transparency etc.


I thought by upgrading from Scribus 1.4.6, would cure this, but did not.

Is there any way to fix this ?

Thanks.

a.l.e

i fear that you're using the "file > print preview" command, which is probably not what you are looking for.

the print preview that most people are using is to be found in "view > preview mode" and through the the "eye" button at the right side of the status bar...

the "file > print preview" should be renamed, but nobody could find a better name until now...

Sparxz


Have been using the File Print Preview for years.
Works now on same version of Scribus 1.4.7. Win7.
Tried what you mentioned, and does not work.

It's some kind of bug rendering preview, that is carrying across two version.

Print Preview is important, particularly if using a single monitor.
Looks like I will have to install Scribus on Wine, or use only on my Windows 7  Netbook,
which would complicate my workflow.

Thanks for reply


a.l.e

Of course the "file > print preview" does work!

But it does not do what most people understand under "print preview".

Most of all, it does not preview the way your job will look when printed on paper by a prefessionnal printer.
(but, as an example, it helps you understand which inks might be used during the print process)

And, of course, "view > preview mode" does work on a single monitor... I've never used anything else with Scribus.

You can of course try to install Scribus on Wine, if you like that... but if you upload your .sla file, I could try to have a look at it and see why it comes out blank : - )

Sparxz

#4
Using two of the Scribus example templates, one with eye icon enables, and one without.
and trying to preview.

Also tried with Scribus through Wine. Strangely the same problem.

No preview either way.

So nothing to do with SLA file.

Same version 1.4.7 works fine in Win 7.

Any ideas.




[attachment deleted by admin]

a.l.e

here an example how i use the preview mode:

https://webmshare.com/play/D4a5Q
(i've reuploaded the file... the previous link did not work correctly)

it just works...

Sparxz


Hi, I never passed much attention to the "Screen preview" (eye icon enables) you pointed out.
I thought it was just for testing eg color blindness, but now I see its value.

Over many years of versions, I was just used to 'File' -> "Print preview" feature, as generic, as used
in Apache Office/LibreOffice etc. Pity, it does not work(some bug), but at least I can fall back
on the feature you showed.

Thanks.

a.l.e


akh

I've found what triggers the problem1 in Scribus 1.4.6 (v1.5.3 works as expected).  If an element is set to non-printable2 and is part of a group then all elements in the document are treated as non-printable.  The attached document will trigger the bug.  Text frame B is set to non-printable, the rest are set to print.  If you ungroup text frames A and B then the issue goes away and preview works fine.

TLDR: Preview works if you don't have non-printing elements in groups.

1 I've only encountered problems with previewing, not with printing.
2 In the GUI this is the "Disable export" icon in the Properties window; in the .SLA file it is the PRINTABLE="0" attribute.

[attachment deleted by admin]

a.l.e

as you can read in

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=15427

groups are not implemented "correctly" in 1.4.
so, if it works in 1.5 i'm not sure it should be fixed in 1.4, since it might be lot of effort put in a legacy version... and since the scribus workforce is very limited, i would prefer the team to focus on the development version!

... and i really see few cases where somebody would want a group with some items printable and some not... : - )

but i made a try with 1.4 :

- three shapes in a .sla.
- one of them set to not to be exported.
- group them.
- it shows correctly in the preview (view > preview mode): one of three shapes "missing".
- it exports correctly in a pdf : one of three shapes "missing".

then i tried your file: i see the issue...

it seems to happen with text frames and not with shapes...

akh

In my case I'm using text frames with a particular style for index entries.  I'm running my SLA through a Perl script that looks for these, compiles an index, then sets the index elements to hidden1 in the output document.  Most of these index text frames are standalone but some were grouped with their corresponding section heading.  That's how I found the bug's trigger: my working copy was fine but the processed one was broken.

I would concur that this should probably be a "won't fix" since the work-around is easy enough and the trigger use-case is obscure enough.

1 When working with a raw SLA file, it's a lot easier to hide an element than it is to delete one.

a.l.e

in a different thread, could you publish the details on how your index system does work?

i'm working on a table of contents for scribus... and if the index is easy enough to code (having a good specification and some sample code would help :-), i might do that, too... once the table of contents does work...

akh

It's nothing fancy or particularly well-engineered.  In my manuscript I am placing index entries in text frames (with a specific style applied) alongside the places they refer to in the body of the text.  My Perl script simply reads the file, determines which pages the index entries are on, sorts and de-duplicates them, writes them into an already allocated text frame at the end of the file, then saves to a new file.  I have a couple of special notations for main entries (***) and multi-page entries ({n-page}), etc. and my book includes an atlas so those entries are being pulled from a text file.  Pretty ad-hoc.

I've attached a couple of screenshots to give you an idea of how I've got things working.  The first shows the working copy with the index entries in blue off-page (the ones on-page are for cross-references, also handled by the script). The second shows a portion of the generated index.

(BTW, I'm new to this board; where should this message be posted?  Not here I presume)

[attachment deleted by admin]

a.l.e

i like what i see (but i would not suggest anybody to do it with a perl script that modifies the .sla... we need that to work inside of scribus).

if you're ready to help getting this feature inside of scribus a detailed explanation of how this work could go into a new topic in http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/board,23.0.html ...

as far as i can tell from your screenshot, the hardest part will be to provide a visual way for defining the keys...