Multiple frames with same content (for date information)

[HGDC84]

Hello everybody!

I would like to ask if there is a way to link frames in a manner that they all display the same text, and changing one's text automatically applies the same changes to other frames linked to that one. If there is, how to do it?

I am asking this because I want to create a monthly newsletter magazine for a local organization, and would like to be able to change the displayed date information (the name of the month and year) without applying it separately to each page the information appears on.

While I do know about the possibility to create an automatic date information using scripts and/or render frames, both seem to have their problems (or at least I haven't found out how to solve them):
a) Using render frame (using Latex) - the resulting text is way too big and I can't shrink it any further after choosing the smallest font size. Also, I don't know if and how it is possible to view the name of the month instead of numbers, and how to display it in my native language instead of English.
b) Using Python script - only shows the name of the month in English. This is an issue as I want to make the newsletter in my native language.
c) Applies to both of these - It seems like that the automatic date can only be applied to the current date. This is a problem because I would like to be able to define the month and year information myself, as the newsletter should be published on first day on every month, and I may need to send the PDF file for printing before the month has changed.

So, any ideas how to do this? While I could create multiple text frames and use the standard link function of the Scribus, it will show the month and year multiple times in the text editor and each would need to be changed manually, which still would be a bit of elaborate.

Thanks for advance for all the help, and apologies if this is a stupid noob question, I am still getting used to Scribus...

[utnik]

if it is always at the same place, a text frame on a master page could be the solution.

utnik

[AdmFubar]

Hello everybody!

I would like to ask if there is a way to link frames in a manner that they all display the same text, and changing one's text automatically applies the same changes to other frames linked to that one. If there is, how to do it?

I am asking this because I want to create a monthly newsletter magazine for a local organization, and would like to be able to change the displayed date information (the name of the month and year) without applying it separately to each page the information appears on.

While I do know about the possibility to create an automatic date information using scripts and/or render frames, both seem to have their problems (or at least I haven't found out how to solve them):
a) Using render frame (using Latex) - the resulting text is way too big and I can't shrink it any further after choosing the smallest font size. Also, I don't know if and how it is possible to view the name of the month instead of numbers, and how to display it in my native language instead of English.
b) Using Python script - only shows the name of the month in English. This is an issue as I want to make the newsletter in my native language.
c) Applies to both of these - It seems like that the automatic date can only be applied to the current date. This is a problem because I would like to be able to define the month and year information myself, as the newsletter should be published on first day on every month, and I may need to send the PDF file for printing before the month has changed.

So, any ideas how to do this? While I could create multiple text frames and use the standard link function of the Scribus, it will show the month and year multiple times in the text editor and each would need to be changed manually, which still would be a bit of elaborate.

From what i can determine there isnt a insert date command in scribus to do what you's want and make it easy. You would have to use script for this.  I would get a little elaborate to code, depending on your exact needs, but should be possible.Is this date information part of page number? or more of a masthead?
Edit:
All I had to do was look one link further and i found this
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Date_Setting_by_Script

[amair]

Hi,

you could do it like that: Set cursor in a textfield and call "Insert / Marks / Variable Text". Give it a "label" and the text to fill in. Now you can use "Edit / Marks" to edit that text and it will be changed in any textfield used.

It's not an automatic date, but maybe it helps.

Regards,
Andreas

[HGDC84]

if it is always at the same place, a text frame on a master page could be the solution.

utnik

Thanks for the reply and suggestion. While I do see that applying the date info on the master page could help, I'm not sure if I could change it easily for each month's issue. Or is there an easy way to do that? Just by editing the master page template separately each time?

Thank you for your reply anyway, and appreciate your reply and possible further tips!

[HGDC84]

Hello everybody!

I would like to ask if there is a way to link frames in a manner that they all display the same text, and changing one's text automatically applies the same changes to other frames linked to that one. If there is, how to do it?

I am asking this because I want to create a monthly newsletter magazine for a local organization, and would like to be able to change the displayed date information (the name of the month and year) without applying it separately to each page the information appears on.

While I do know about the possibility to create an automatic date information using scripts and/or render frames, both seem to have their problems (or at least I haven't found out how to solve them):
a) Using render frame (using Latex) - the resulting text is way too big and I can't shrink it any further after choosing the smallest font size. Also, I don't know if and how it is possible to view the name of the month instead of numbers, and how to display it in my native language instead of English.
b) Using Python script - only shows the name of the month in English. This is an issue as I want to make the newsletter in my native language.
c) Applies to both of these - It seems like that the automatic date can only be applied to the current date. This is a problem because I would like to be able to define the month and year information myself, as the newsletter should be published on first day on every month, and I may need to send the PDF file for printing before the month has changed.

So, any ideas how to do this? While I could create multiple text frames and use the standard link function of the Scribus, it will show the month and year multiple times in the text editor and each would need to be changed manually, which still would be a bit of elaborate.

From what i can determine there isnt a insert date command in scribus to do what you's want and make it easy. You would have to use script for this.  I would get a little elaborate to code, depending on your exact needs, but should be possible.Is this date information part of page number? or more of a masthead?
Edit:
All I had to do was look one link further and i found this
https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Date_Setting_by_Script

Thanks for your reply.

I'm thinking about having the name of the month and year on both the front page and on every page next to the title of the magazine in the upper section of the page.

I did try the scripting, but had issues with it. It gave me various error messages when attempting to run the script. It did print the month name and the year in some cases, but there still was a problem in that the name of the month was in English, and I would like to have it in Finnish (because that's the language of the newsletter).

Thanks for your reply and suggestion anyway, will have to consider attempting to write the appropriate script for the purpose.

[HGDC84]

Hi,

you could do it like that: Set cursor in a textfield and call "Insert / Marks / Variable Text". Give it a "label" and the text to fill in. Now you can use "Edit / Marks" to edit that text and it will be changed in any textfield used.

It's not an automatic date, but maybe it helps.

Regards,
Andreas

Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I could give that a shot. The system possibly doesn't need to be fully automatic (and on some occasions, having it as an manual input could even be an advantage!), just that it could change the data on multiple frames at the same time or at least with as little hassle as possible. It can get tedious to having to type it separately on each page and/or copy-pasteing and repositioning it on every page.

But I'll see how it works out for me. Thanks for the suggestion!

[HGDC84]

if it is always at the same place, a text frame on a master page could be the solution.

utnik

Hi,

you could do it like that: Set cursor in a textfield and call "Insert / Marks / Variable Text". Give it a "label" and the text to fill in. Now you can use "Edit / Marks" to edit that text and it will be changed in any textfield used.

It's not an automatic date, but maybe it helps.

Regards,
Andreas

Thank you very much, both of you. Decided to combine these two tactics and found out that this way, I can mark the month and year exactly the way I wanted. Thank you so much   

EDIT: For other people wanting to have a similar system, make sure you first enter the Master page edit mode by selecting Edit -> Master pages and ensuring that do the marking for all the Master page types used separately. I first created the Master pages for front page, left inner pages and right inner pages, then defined the fields as Andreas adviced. Works great for me :-)