what is "file / print preview"? it shows horrible things :)

[jeepe]

hi,

I stumbled upon file / print preview by sort of an accident...
later I didn't remember how I got there...  took me an hour to get back there again...

in Scribus 1.5.8 it showed a layer with transparency (a rectangle filled with white at opacity 60% or so) as a fully white rectangle... opacity 100%....

I changed, as we can do this thanks for your developing work, to 1.6...

now it's only PDF or postscript.. (level 1-3)


The PDF version looks as I'd imagine... (right or wrong)
that transparency problem doesn't happen..

BUT STILL...

a drop shadow effect, of white letters over almost magenta background
look like brownish, and totally crappy....
despite the print preview (CTRL + ALT + p) shows a decent image...
and the exported PDF looks good on my RGB monitor...

So what does this file / print preview even does?
What parts should we take seriously of what we see and what not?


Anyway, I attached two screen shots...
one with "print preview" (CTRL + ALT + p), and one with File / print preview


the example graphic is text over color rectangle.. with dropshadow applied...
black 100% shade opacity 60% blendmode normal


thanks in advance!!

Peter

[a.l.e]

i would guess, that the pdf based print preview gives you results that respect the settings, you have defined in the "export to pdf" dialog.

the "normal" preview, probably just removes all non printable things from the screen...

[jeepe]

You mean that the preview mode is not preview mode, just "view mode"?

As to the settings...
what you say sounds as if anything bad or unexpected would be caused by wrong settings...

In this case, there is a drop shadow effect..
which works in the preview mode and doesn't in the print preview / output preview...

My problem is that I'd expect a drop shadow to work...

- - -

okay: you say that the output preview / print preview should be trusted, right?

if only I had a CMYK printer to test it

anyway, I'll take that view seriously...

thanks

[AdmFubar]

It seems to be based on what printer you have installed on your system. Since I have only a b&w printer it generates a greyscale image in the preview. Those are the colors that  your printer can handle. Do you have color management turned on in scribus? Have you turned off the color management in the prefs, and trye the print preview again?

[Nermander]

My guess is that it depends on the chosen PDF version, the drop shadow maybe uses transparency, which is not supported by the lower PDF versions.