New User - How to change multiple paragraphs in Story Editor?

[ehbowen]

I have a novel in prepress which was formatted by a freelancer in InDesign. Now I'm attempting to use Scribus to reformat it for Large Print.

I'm not using the InDesign file; I attempted to import the .idml and got a tangled mess. Instead I'm going back to the original text in LibreOffice and redesigning the new large print edition from scratch, with all new styles.

The problem I'm running into is that I've got a lot of dialogue, single line paragraphs and such. As I'm going through chapter by chapter and changing them to the new styles, it's taking a great deal of time. Is there a way in which I can select and change multiple paragraphs in the same operation? It would be a great time saver.

[AdmFubar]

You might want to look at the story editor for applying styles. It has the option of applying styles from a list in a drop down menu on the left of the window.

Select the text frame and press CTRL-T to open the story editor.
I dont think it is what you are really looking for, but hopefully this is closer to it.

[PatJr]

I haven't found a way to do that either, be sure to post back here if you find a way

[AdmFubar]

Press F4 to open the style editor, and create you needed styles. then select the text frame you want to apply styles to. Open the story editor CTRL-T, and in the story editor window, on the left will be a sections to apply styles per paragraph. Remember to apply the style to the frame, by using the update text frame icon, or using CTRL-U.
Keep in mind you wont see the style applied in the story editor window. Just in your document after you update the frame.

[ehbowen]

Press F4 to open the style editor, and create you needed styles. then select the text frame you want to apply styles to. Open the story editor CTRL-T, and in the story editor window, on the left will be a sections to apply styles per paragraph. Remember to apply the style to the frame, by using the update text frame icon, or using CTRL-U.
Keep in mind you wont see the style applied in the story editor window. Just in your document after you update the frame.

That's what I've been doing. But I have several thousand paragraphs. You mean that I have to go through and change them one by one? No multiple selections?

[ehbowen]

Press F4 to open the style editor, and create you needed styles. then select the text frame you want to apply styles to. Open the story editor CTRL-T, and in the story editor window, on the left will be a sections to apply styles per paragraph. Remember to apply the style to the frame, by using the update text frame icon, or using CTRL-U.
Keep in mind you wont see the style applied in the story editor window. Just in your document after you update the frame.

That's what I've been doing. But I have several thousand paragraphs. You mean that I have to go through and change them one by one? No multiple selections?

Well, I thought I had it. But it didn't work.

The first step was enlarging the story editor window. That revealed a right-pointing arrow at the upper right of the window, and if I clicked on that it would update the styles for all highlighted paragraphs. So far so good.

The problem came when I tried to "Update Text Frame." It wouldn't update! Everything stayed at the same default font and text size! See the screenshot below. The chapter heading and first paragraph I updated the old way, one paragraph at a time. The rest of the chapter I tried to update with multiple selections. No good. Nothing updated, although the paragraphs are showing the correct text style. I tried going into the styles window and re-saving; I tried exiting the document and restarting Scribus. No change.

This is frustrating and should qualify as a bug.

[ehbowen]

This is frustrating and should qualify as a bug.

Well...I went into the Mantis bug tracker and found out that this was reported as a bug. Eight years ago!

I updated the bug report with my own information and screenshot (which it seems I couldn't attach here). So we'll see if anyone looks into it this time.

[utnik]

hi ehbowen

Well...I went into the Mantis bug tracker and found out that this was reported as a bug. Eight years ago!

...afaik there was no such bug eight years ago and there is none now...
if you select the whole text (or a couple of paragraphs) in the story editor, you can change the whole selection by selecting the style on the upper right of the window and apply it for the selection.
maybe you tried to change the style by selecting it on the left of the story editor window, where you can define it for every single paragraph.
(it works for me on mac os and lubuntu – and if my memory is right, it worked on windows as well...)

utnik

[AdmFubar]

utnik has noted that there is a drop down n the story editor.
There is now automated process to apply various paragraph or character styles in any dtp package. However  if you can explain a work flow, or potential workflow that you are using, we might be able to supply some tips to reduce the manual workload.

Can I assume that you have a large amount of body text? with some smaller set of needed styles that need to be added?

[a.l.e]

sometimes i wonder why somebody is formatting some text in scribus and that person does even have the properties and content palette open.

i've seen people using the story editor in a meaningful way, but why on earth would somebody not even try to select the text in the frame and apply the style with the drop down in the content palette?



you won't be able to select paragraphs across the frame boundaries (which is a real bug that has been left unfixed for years!), but that does not seem to be the what is bugging the user in this case...

[ehbowen]

hi ehbowen

Well...I went into the Mantis bug tracker and found out that this was reported as a bug. Eight years ago!

...afaik there was no such bug eight years ago and there is none now...
if you select the whole text (or a couple of paragraphs) in the story editor, you can change the whole selection by selecting the style on the upper right of the window and apply it for the selection.
maybe you tried to change the style by selecting it on the left of the story editor window, where you can define it for every single paragraph.
(it works for me on mac os and lubuntu – and if my memory is right, it worked on windows as well...)

utnik

That's exactly what I tried, and you can see the results in the screenshot I uploaded to the bug tracker:


The style tags changed...but the styles themselves did not, when I 'updated text frame.' Nor would they change when I updated the style editor.

[ehbowen]

utnik has noted that there is a drop down n the story editor.
There is now automated process to apply various paragraph or character styles in any dtp package. However  if you can explain a work flow, or potential workflow that you are using, we might be able to supply some tips to reduce the manual workload.

Can I assume that you have a large amount of body text? with some smaller set of needed styles that need to be added?

I do have a large set of text; it's a full length novel. And there are a fairly small amount of styles which need to be applied. I wasn't using @a.l.e 's suggestion of the content palette because I haven't been able to select text in the text frame; whenever I try it just moves the text frame. Undesirable. Again, I'm brand new to Scribus although not to desktop publishing (look up "Gold Disk Professional Page 1.0 for Amiga" in the ancient history texts); I'm still learning the user interface.

Another problem I'm running into is experimenting with other page sizes. Right now I'm working on a 7" x 10" trim size page, but after looking into print costs and such I think I'll go with either 8" x 10" with the present styles in hardback, plus 6" x 9" with a slightly smaller type size in softcover. I felt that the best way to play with this is to get all my text 'tagged', and then save it as a file so that I can re-import it into the new page sizes. Perhaps you can suggest a more efficient workflow?

What I'm doing right now as a work-around is:

• Copying an entire chapter's worth of text from LibreOffice to the clipboard, then
• Going to the start of the new chapter in Scribus's Story Editor and inserting one blank line, then manually changing it to the major style for that chapter (normally my Body Text LP [Large Print]), then
• Paste the text from the clipboard into that blank line. The paragraph styles will propagate from it all through the pasted test, then
• Deleting the text for that chapter which I originally imported from my file and which is still showing "Defaut Text Style", then
• Going through the text and selecting the oddball lines (section separators and chapter headings, mostly) which need to be changed and updating them manually, one at a time, then
• Updating the text and exiting Story Editor before moving on to the next chapter.

[ehbowen]

One more question: Is there a way to export (just) the styles from a document to later re-import them into a new document? As I said above, I'm wanting to experiment with different page sizes and formats, and I'd prefer to not have to re-invent the wheel with my styles, just tweak them a little bit for the new variants. If there's a way to do this I haven't found it yet.

[a.l.e]

I haven't been able to select text in the text frame; whenever I try it just moves the text frame. Undesirable.

If this happens, this is a bug worth being reported!

I just tried with the 1.5.9 I have here and I could easily select some text in the frame and apply a paragraph style to it.

I could even click at the start of the selection to be and shift-click the end of it to get the selection in a comfortable way (the start and end of the selection do not even have to be at the start / end of the paragraphs, just inside of it)

On the other side, the Story Editor needs a new concept and a new implementation: as it is now, it does more harm than good (even if it is useful to some people in some specific cases).

Personally, it's more urgent that a selection can span across frames and pages! (inside of a set of linked frames).

[a.l.e]

import them into a new document

there is an "import" button in the "style manager"

you don't even need to export the styles, you can import them from a different scribus document.