Scribus Forums

Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: Kleo on January 24, 2021, 11:44:27 PM

Title: Keeping images showing
Post by: Kleo on January 24, 2021, 11:44:27 PM
I am new to Scribus and using it to edit a magazine. I load up to Dropbox for others on the team to see. The document I am working with is about 120 MB. I am totally unable to keep images on the document. They do not stay there and so my colleagues cannot see them. On my computer it is fine so I don't see what they see (or can't see as the case may be).

I have tried putting the images on Clipboard and then saving but as Clipboard does not hold into JPEG images very few of my images ever get on there for anything but immediate pasting. It also onlyholds 25 images which is not nearly enough. It does not seem to help at all. I have tried File on Scribus and then Collect for Output but that makes no difference - the pictures still fall off. The last message on this website on the subject implied that by using collect for output I would save the whole thing as a directory - not so - it is just a file and it does not hang onto the images!

I can see the images on pdf but I need my colleagues to be able to see them on Scribus so that they can make changes. They cannot make changes on pdf with the result that everyone is seding huge and complicated emails to each other because they cannot do the minor changes themselves.

So, a simple question - how do you firmly attach images on the Scribus so that they stay there.

Thank you
Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: utnik on January 25, 2021, 05:56:46 AM
hi kleo

Quote from: Kleo on January 24, 2021, 11:44:27 PM
I am new to Scribus and using it to edit a magazine.

scribus needs some time to get used to. it is a big step, to edit a magazine to learn the basics.
here is a good manual (http://write.flossmanuals.net/scribus/introduction/).
QuoteI load up to Dropbox for others on the team to see. The document I am working with is about 120 MB. I am totally unable to keep images on the document. They do not stay there and so my colleagues cannot see them.

in a standard workflow the images are linked to the .sla file, not embedded.
if you share your project with contributors, you need to share the images too – and with the correct path. the best way to do it is via 'file' → 'collect for output'.
but if your .sla file is really as heavy as 120MB, some of the images might be embedded. in this case you may need lots of free memory to see them and to work on the file.

utnik
Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: Kleo on February 19, 2021, 12:21:47 PM
I would be most grateful if you didn't patronise. I may not know the terminology but I do know what I am doing and I have read everything available to me - even the website you suggested and there is NOTHING in there that I can find to help me with this particular problem. It doesn't even touch on the problem I am having.
We have produced our second edition and we still cannot get Scribus to show images at all when transferred from one member of the editing team to another via Dropbox. The document is in a folder with all the images (thus the pathway for Scribus to get the image is intact) but when one opens the document no images are visible. In order to do one's work one has to get up every image (40 of them) put them back in, do the work, upload to Dropbox again (with the images) and the next person has to repeat the self same job of getting the images again. Scribus just seems unable to hang onto images so that they can be seen. This is making our job of editing virtually impossible in the time we have available.
I need to know whether this is a complete failure of Scribus as a tool to edit a publication with more than one editor or if there is anything special we can do to encourage the programme to display images properly placed.
Pleased do not bother to reply if you are going to patronise.
Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: Nermander on February 19, 2021, 12:39:48 PM
Scribus is not designed for collaborative work. If you cannot get it to work the way you expect, you either have to find a workaround and use something else than Scribus.

There are others who manage to collaborate on documents, so it's not possible, but Scribus after all is Free Open Source Software.

Obviously for some reason the paths in the Scribus document do not look at they should. So finding out why the paths are wrong would be the first step. Did you really use Collect for output to create the folder you are transferring?

Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: dragonfly on February 19, 2021, 05:16:47 PM
I am not a veteran user of Scribus but I am interested in exploring collaborative workflows - with Scribus in the mix. 

@Nermander writes: Scribus is not designed for collaborative work.

If you accept that fact, then we might discuss some workarounds, taking different routes.

For example you might keep your raw assets (text and images) in a github account.
Text could be written in markdown and converted when needed.
My approach is to use Atom editor with markdown and markdown-preview-enhanced package in Atom.  Your team members can share these assets.  You can create private repositories. And you can maintain version control.

Some references here:

https://www.labnol.org/internet/free-file-hosting-github/29092/

https://github.com/labnol/files

Now we reach the point where Scribus (primarily a layout engine) has to be populated remotely with these team shared assets.

I would then send a slim outline Scribus template to team members.
Next I would read about Scribus > Scripter > ScribusGenerator.py (designed for mailmerge) but for your scenario you wish to populate remote textframes, imageframes with the raw assets.

For this you prepare and send a csv file for your team members to apply.

There are other methods I have tried I can expand on if there is interest, but this is just one way of approaching the workflow. This eliminates the need for posting large files.
Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: utnik on February 19, 2021, 06:52:37 PM
hi kleo

i did 'collaborative work', even with dropbox as the sharing platform – and scribus never failed. but we either sent all the used images into one single folder in our dropbox before we placed them in scribus or we used 'collect for output'.
...and yes, 'collect for output' really creates a folder with the images (and one with the fonts and another one with color profiles, if selected...) – and if you don't separate those folders from the .sla, scribus will find the images.

if this is patronising, i'm sorry! but i can't help without pointing at possible errors.

utnik
Title: Re: Keeping images showing
Post by: Nermander on February 21, 2021, 09:27:29 AM
Quote from: Nermander on February 19, 2021, 12:39:48 PM
There are others who manage to collaborate on documents, so it's not possible, but Scribus after all is Free Open Source Software.

I just noticed a bad typo, the above sentence should of course say so it's not impossible.