Perectly running fuinctionality stops working sudddenly

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pierruel

Good evening,
Is there a limit of weight or the number of the pages of a .sla document ? I'm creating a music score using .jpg images of the original pages. I was able to import 147 images (each one in A4 size after fitting to the frame) and suddenly I can't import the 148th image. I obtain only that the filename of the image is displayed in the middle of the image frame. Has somebody already experienced this issue ? Can somebody tell me what's going on ? What mistake I have probably done ?
Many thanks in advance.
Best regards.
And happy New Year to everybody.
Pierre

a.l.e

hi pierre

yes, that's possible: scribus needs to put in memory all the images and if can't fit them it will fail.

but if it's that single image that is not working and, after restarting scribus you get the same result, i fear that it's the image that is "wrong".
if you have the current stable version of scribus (1.4.x), the most common error that leads to this "message" is that you have a png image with a .jpg extension.
renaming the image as .png or saving the image as .jpg will solve the issue.

or  the image has an error and you need to recreate it.

and are you really manually importing 150+ images into scribus just to create a pdf?
sometimes, learning a bit of script programming might be very helpful : - )
... or use the extras > picture browser in scribus to create and fill the pages in one go.

if you share your files we will probably be able to tell if you have hit a scribus issue or if you're "doing something wrong"...

ciao
a.l.e

pierruel

Hi a.l.e,
Very kind of you that extensive answer. The best for me is to attach my .sla file as you proposed.
My images: they result from an export out of my music sofware, Harmony Assistant, to .jpg files. For that reason all my images shloud be of the same type and quality.
Because of the weight of the original music file, I worked on it in 4 parts. The problem I'm telling about happened with the 4th part. That 4th part contains about 40 pages and everything went allright until page 22, then the 23th page went wrong: I got no thumbnail beside the list of .jpg files and nothing was imported but the filename of the image. Aso with the rest of the images.
Thank you for spending time on that issue (and forgive my English; I would be better in French !)
Pierre

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pierruel

Hi again a.l.e,
Just an addition: I tried to work separately on the end of my score but the problem is the same if I try to import an image in an empty .sla file (with the same layout as the original one): nothing is imported.
Best regards
Pierre

a.l.e

hi pierre

i could load your images in your .sla file.

so the most likely candidate is a memory issue...
when working on a new document with fewer pages, make sure that scribus has released the memory it has being using for the big document (can you try closing scribus).

if you're on windows, you might try to deactivate all antiviruses while you're adding the last images to the scribus document.
don't browse the internet, read your mails or do other "dangerous" things while the antivirus is off and do not forget to re-enable it when you're done with scribus.
that's a "dangerous" thing to do, so only try it if you're comfortable with it and exactly know how to turn your antivirus on and off.

scribus is not using your memory in an optimal way, but you should be able to find a workaround that will give you a pdf with your images.

i've tried to find an "easy" way to create a pdf with nicely formatted pages (by using imagemagick and/or libreoffice) but i could not find a solution that would give ok results. sorry.
i wonder if anybody has a sane solution for such an "easy" task...

pierruel

Thanks again a.l.e,
First I'll make sure nothing else is running when I import images and if it doesn't solve the problem I'll disable my antivirus and other background tasks if any.
Will be back soon.
Pierre


dragonfly

You might try pandoc to merge a number of images via command line (which OS is in use?).

I use a python script with subprocess method to merge a long list of pandoc arguments, since in your case the command line would be very long. And/or pandoc would have to be run in batches of files. I can offer a sample python script if you cannot work out how to create a pandoc subprocess script in Python. But it is an interesting learning exercise to work this out.

Over a year ago I contributed to a thread on integrating output from LilyPond and I suggested Atom editor for such multiple image concatenation. Search in this forum for "LilyPond".

Incidentally, I do not write music scores. I approached this as a parsing exercise.




RodneyLee

Load all images as layers into GIMP and save as .PDF if all you need is the pdf
also if its just the pdf you need Vuescan with save to and add pages to PDF as you scan
are the images truely B&W or full color files, that could make a difference in file size (I think)

pierruel

Thank you dragonfly and RodneyLee,
Your proposals are very clever, far more that my one-by-one procedure but look: I have already imported about 150 .jpg and I still have to import about 25 ones. On the other hand, as far as scripting is concerned, I've made some programming in VBA and my experience is that it takes me 10 % of the time to write an app a  90 % to debug it ! Better use the and method. I think I'll do as answered to a.l.e.(thanks): I'll free as much memory as possible and get rid of the 25 last pages the old way. Third: It's much probably the last and unique time I compose a piece of music of about 200 pages... Many thanks to both of you anyway. And Happy New Year to everybody.
Pierre

a.l.e

hi pierre

if it's a one time thing and all the tips above fail, you can give me the .sla with the intro pages and two sample pages where to put the images and all the images in a zip file and -- as long as it takes me less than half an hour to do and you're not making (much) monetary profit from the result i can create the pdf or you and send it back to you.

you will need to upload the files to a file sharing service and send me the link.

this having been said, scribus should be able to create a 40 pages pdf with a jpg file on each page.
even if 1.4 MB jpgs are pretty big (scribus will decompress each image before loading it... i think).

there are a few more things you can try:

- make sure that all the images have a low preview setting (since you already have inserted most images you will need to right click on each image frame to change its preview level), restart scribus, and see if you the can insert more images.
- delete the rest of the pages from the .sla and create a new -- even smaller -- .sla for the rerst of the images (as always, restart scribus to make sure that the memory is freed).

ciao
a.l.e

pierruel

Hi a.l.e.
Many thanks.
In the meantime I made as much as possible free memory but it wasn't enough and I did as you suggest at the end: build a new .sla for the rest of the pages. I had just to be aware of the right page/left page issue and about the pages numbering. I didn't find the way to have the folio beginning from a higher number than 1 but never mind, I wrote the rest of the pages numbers manually. Now I have finished my pensum and I can have it printed.
As far as a pecuniary benefit is concerned, I hope very much that somebody will play my music and I'll get a plenty of copyright, but I'm not sure  ;D
Full success to everybody.
People on this forum are very helpfull, congratulations.
Friendly yours
Pierre

a.l.e

hi pierre

concerning the page numbers: file > document settings > sections

i had a closer look at one of your jpg.

if this is what you have put into your pdf, there is some risk that the printed pdf will not look that good.
i fear that you have put too many pixels in there, and -- on the other side -- pushed the compression too far.

depending on what you notes program supports different export formats would have been better. the simplest choice being png or tiff with compression.

ciao
a.l.e

pierruel

Good evening,
I made some former experiences with printing sheetmusic and I find the printing quality I obtained was pretty satisfactory. Probably would a more experienced user get  better results but for the time beeing I'll satisfy myself with the quality level I'm able to get now. Thanks again.
Best regards
Pierre