Positioning exact / without grid

[thommulder]

I am looking around everywhere - it seems no one has ever mentioned this problem:

How can I place an object exactly where I want it?

Sounds really stupid. But when I move objects around, they move in steps. It is like when snap-to-grid is active, except it is NOT active. Nevertheless I can not move and place objects exactly, they got always about a millimeter or a half millimeter off.

Any post I can find only mentiones grid and snap-to-grid settings. But like I said, this is not the problem, because my snap-to-grid is off already (and when I set it ON, steps get even worse). What else can be the problem here?

Thanks for any advice!

[GarryP]

The most precise way of positioning objects is to use the X,Y,Z tab of the Properties palette.

You can also move objects using the cursor keys, and using the SHIFT/CTRL/CMD/ALT keys at the same time will move by different amounts (and have other effects such as resizing) - I can't remember the actual combination effects but they're documented in the Manual or the Wiki somewhere and experimentation will show you what they do.

I'm not sure why you should be experiencing some kind of "snapping" when grid snapping is off. One way it could happen is if you've got loads of guides and guide snapping is on but that doesn't happen by accident.

Sometimes toggling snapping doesn't take effect immediately so you could try saving the document and then re-loading it - that works for me every now and again.

[thommulder]

Hi Garry
Thanks for your post. The title I chose for this thread may be misleading. "Positioning exact" does not mean a numeric position by coordinates like in the properties palette. I mean a visual-by-mouse positioning.

But your suggestion of reloading the document - even quit and restart Scribus - does not make any difference. When I move objects, they do not move on a screen-pixel-by-pixel basis, instead they move in steps of like 6 or 10 pixels.

Snap to grid is off.

Nevertheless I can not positioning objects exactly, by mouse dragging. Mostly those steps lead to the object placed .5mm or up to 1mm off the targeted position.

It drives me nuts!

[GarryP]

I can see how that would be very annoying but I've never seen it before. (I'm assuming that your other applications don't exhibit the same issue.)

I've tried various things to replicate the problem without success.

However, here are a couple of questions:

How are you setting the "snap to grid" to off? If you're setting it in "Preferences" then that's the wrong place. Those setting are for new documents and don't apply to the current one. You need to use "Document Settings" or the "Page" menu.

Have you tried to turn the grid on - without snapping - and looking to see whether the "jumps" coincide with the grid or not?

If none of this makes any difference then reporting your Scribus version number and OS version might give someone a clue.

[GarryP]

This popped into my head last night:

You're not using a retina display are you? It's just that I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Qt applications - such as Scribus - need to be changed to use a different API or something in order to use retina displays properly. It's to do with pixel density or something like that. (I could be wrong though.)

[winxi]

Hi, I can reproduce this with Scribus 1.4.3 on Windows 8.1 and on Windows 7. Using drag & drop, it is possible to position objects just in steps of 1pt in each direction, but not finer.
When using Shift + arrow keys for example, it is possible to position objects in steps of 0.1pt.

[thommulder]

Hi Garry
Thanks again for looking into this. About your questions:

– other apps like Indesign, Photoshop, FreeHand etc. do not show that behavior

– I have Snap-to-Grid off in the page menu, not in preferences.

– I don't use a Retina screen. But good you mention this, because I have a rather over standard display size of 30" with 2560x1600 screen resolution, but in usual 72dpi.

I will check your suggestion, looking at grid lines and their relation to the problem.

Also thanks, Winxi, for your post. Interesting you have this on Windows. I am using Scribus on Mac OS X 10.6.8.

Greetings
Thom