Scrivener Export to Scribus Import?

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ehbowen

I'm working on a book formatting project for a client, using Scrivener 3. I've got the ePub looking just about right, when exported with Scrivener's "compile" function.

Now I'd like to take the same manuscript and import it into Scribus to format for hard copy/Print On Demand, with a minimum of monkey motion. I'm attaching a screenshot of the sample formatting, including the separator graphic I'm using between sections. Has anyone undertaken a similar project in the past, and if so what suggestions might you have for me?

Screenshot 2025-06-06 100616.png

a.l.e

epubs are a bit more than zipped html files.

this means that you can unzip your epub file, look for the html files and import them into scribus.

but you will probably lose at least part of the formatting.

if the separator graphics will be kept, probably depends on the way you have put them into your epub.

please give it a try and report the result : - )

ehbowen

#2
Unzipped, the body text is .xhtml files, which is "not an acceptable file format."

I tried going through PDF, but the PDF import is horribly messed up.

a.l.e

I think that it should not be too hard to go from the .xhtml to an .html that can be read by Scribus...

I gave the first entry in

https://idpf.github.io/epub3-samples/30/samples.html

a try and downloaded

https://github.com/IDPF/epub3-samples/blob/main/30/accessible_epub_3/EPUB/ch01.xhtml

renamed it to .html, and Scribus could happily load it into a text frame.

ehbowen

#4
I don't see how you're doing that, then, because this is what I get:

Screenshot 2025-06-11 134649.png

ehbowen

#5
All right, a little bit better this time, but I still lose every bit of the formatting, including the small caps at the start of each section, the separators, the indents, and more. Might as well just start from square one with a raw .txt file. I was hoping to not have to duplicate efforts.

Screenshot 2025-06-11 135501.png

ehbowen

A little bit better: Going by way of .docx. Still not getting the graphic separators; I can put them in by hand if I have to but I'd really like to find a way to automate that. Especially for my own books, I use a lot of "short cuts" when I write.

Screenshot 2025-06-11 143155.png

By The Way, what's this thing about Scribus putting auto-generated text frames all the way down at the bottom of the screen, not associated with any page?