Create a book with Scribus

[soso74]

Hello,

I am writing here for some help. I would like to create a book including text and pictures in A5 format.

I have several question about the creation of such a book for edition:
1) I used 40pt of marge, is it ok or is there some standard to respect? Is it dependent on the editor?
2) I export my pictures in tiff from photoshop, is it ok or should I use some other standard? Should I get somehow the profil color of my screen? Don't really know how that works.
3) To avoid the text to be too close from my pictures I used a second frame on top a little bit larger but is there a easiest way to do so? I saw that you can add border to the image but it did not seem to work (scribus 1.4) maybe I did something wrong. Also it's not possible to extend the border only on some parts of the image?:-(

Maybe you have also some tutorial about edition to advise to me?
Thanks for your help.

[a.l.e]

hallo soso74

some essentials:

1) most of the time, for a book, you will want a larger inner margin then the outer margin... you can get some inspiration from here http://www.thinkingwithtype.com/contents/grid/.
All in all the margins depend on the content and on the capabilities of your printer (1cm is a safe minimum).

2) tiff is good, for most cases jpg is also already ok. you should get the profiles if your monitor is profiled. depending on what your goals are (most of all for the pdf conversion) you may have to add some "standard" color profiles to get the conversion to work (but that won't improve the quality of your work! you need the profile for your monitor and the printer you will use to get a preview of the colors on your monitor)

3) you can edit the contour line: windows > properties palette > shape > (Edit) >

• Edit Contour Line
  
  a book about edition? personally i like "Editing by Design" by Jan V. White... but it's not cheap...
  
  just ask further questions if you need more help!

[soso74]

Thanks a lot for all your help!

And how do I get the profile of my monitor?

And about the Edit Contour Line.. should I modify the percentage? Because it does not seem to change anything?

Thanks

[soso74]

Also is there a way to set the path of images as relative: ..\myimages\image.tiff ?

And I guess I should keep my high quality images but then the pdf will be really big and my scribus work quite slow... but it's better to do like this no?

[utnik]

hi soso74

• a professional calibration of a monitor needs some knowhow and (net really cheap) hardware tools. but if your tasks are not really color critical, a printed test chart and the digital equivalent (provided by some printers) should do. (for the procedure google: monitor calibration & your operating system...)
• for editing the contour line you have to select 'use contour line' then you click 'edit' and check the box 'edit contour line' (with all this steps it should work...)
• if scribus will slow down by your high quality pictures, try with 'low resolution' . ('file' → 'document setup' → 'tools' → 'image frame propeties' → 'on screen preview') – if tihis does not help, you may work with a second set of images with the same name and pixel resolution, but compressed to a low file size (and quality). don't forget to replace the images folder before you generate the final print file!

utnik
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[soso74]

Thank you.
It's strange because when selecting 'use contour line" 'edit' and 'edit contour line' the text does not seem to move away from the image and if I come back on the properties 'edit' the option 'edit contour line' is unchecked again.. as if it was not saved...

[utnik]

hi soso74

• did you click the 'enlarge' button (the one with the arrows) after inserting the desired values?
• the 'edit contour line' box is always unchecked when you open the 'edit' dialog – this setting is for editing the shape of the frame itself.
  

utnik

[soso74]

Ah oki thank you. So I cannot choose to enlarge only the frame on left side of the frame for example? not in all directions..
Thanks again

[utnik]

...So I cannot choose to enlarge only the frame on left side...

of course you can – check 'edit contour line', then you choose the top left button ('move nodes'). then you select both left nodes and move them by the arrow keys or drag them where ever you like...

play a bit with the other buttons too – you'll learn a lot...

utnik