Text source file change

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pavlii

Hi - I am newbie to this forum :-) I am trying to use Scribus for a couple of days and I have to say it is pretty nice piece of SW (I had worked in Corel Ventura, Quark and InDesign programs in the past) but I would like to ask one question which I cannot answer by myself: is there any way of automatic/manual check whether imported text/picture has been changed?

I usually work in the way I create a couple of pure text files in Notepad (every chapter separately for example) and I import these files onto text frames for the following work with Styles etc. If I do later on any small change in source text Scribus does not know about that (when I open the Scribus file with already imported text) and I cannot remember whether this feature exists in Quark or InDesign (I do not own these programs - I had only worked with them in the past - so I cannot try this). I think this feature was there - for both texts and pictures imported but I am not sure.

For me it is enough to know this feature is not in Scribus (for any reason) so if I find any mistake in texts I have to correct it directly in Scribus (maybe later on in the source texts if needed). How is the behaviour for imported pictures I did not test yet - will try.

Thanx for any answer and regards!

Pavel

dragonfly

I have not applied the following idea to Scribus but my first port of call in comparing two files for differences (whether it be an *.sla or other file extension) is to use Meld command line.

Install meld first then follow this guide ..

https://meldmerge.org/help/command-line.html


pavlii

Hi dragonfly, thanx for reply - I will try :-)

Rgrs, Pavel

a.l.e

it's not easy to track changes.
and scribus cannot do it.

it's even harder if you have modified the text in both the source and in the frame.

also, if you're formatting your text in scribus, it's not easy to keep the styles when applying the changes from an external source.

depending on the way you create and edit your text files and the the type of formatting you're applying to your text, it might be possible to create ad hoc python scripts that keep the scribus file in sync with external sources. but i don't think it's trivial (or even possible) to create a general solution that works well for all (or even most) cases.

personally, i've done something in this direction for a comic book (it was about exporting all text and re-importing it translated), and if you very specific needs i can see what i can do for you.

pavlii

Hi a.l.e - thanx for reply. Well I think it is not necesary to have such this functionality in such this program. Everything is just about the fact as soon as I load the text file inside the frame I have to make any further corrections in Scribus directly. That is not problem for me because of the workflow I use ;-)

The only reason I had created this topic was the fact I was playing with 4-columns text inside the frame and I had created shorter text I needed....so I added more words into the source TXT file and got the idea to test the Scibus` behaviour when I reload the .sla file with previous version of the source text - and nothing happened. That is all :-)

I finish all source texts always prior loading them into their frames in Scribus` document....so if I find any mistake inside text I will correct it in final document.

Pavel

a.l.e

if you don't format the text in scribus then it's trivial to create a script that checks the files for changes and if a file has been changed since the last check overwrites the content of the matching frame.

on the other side, it's even easier to do the changes in scribus and use the existing script to export the content to a text file (as far as i know the script exports all text frames, but it would be trivial to create one that exports only the selected frame: https://github.com/aoloe/scribus-script-repository/blob/master/export-all-text/export_all_text.py)