hi falsedog
there are two settings to be considered:
- in 'document setup' → 'guides' → 'placement' you can arrange the stack of the different items. make sure that the 'margins' are on top of the 'content objects'.
- in 'document setup' → 'guides' → 'colors' you may select a color with a better contrast to your background color (if needed…)
as with most settings in scribus,
'document setup' will affect the actual file while the same settings in
'preferences' change the behaviour of scribus for all the files you create later.
utnik