Scribus Forums

Scribus => Text and Typography => Topic started by: ellabella on October 14, 2013, 09:49:36 PM

Title: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 14, 2013, 09:49:36 PM
Hi! I'm new to Scribus and have run into something that seems very odd.

When I set a right-align tab stop, and press tab once in the middle of a line of text to make the second half right aligned, an arbitrary center of that portion becomes right aligned and the text compresses horizontally and spills back to half of the first half. Look at the attached picture for what I mean. Characters lose their spacing, overlap, and spill all over.

How do I prevent this from happening and get a well behaved right-tab stop? =D

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: utnik on October 15, 2013, 08:38:56 AM
hi ellabella

for problems like yours, we should always know the os and scribus version you're working with...
i can't reproduce the problem on my system (mac os 10.6.8 / scribus 1.4.3), it works as expected here.

if this happens in new files as well (not only in one specific file) you should file a bug report on bugs.scribus.net (http://bugs.scribus.net).

utnik
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 02:00:22 PM
Thanks for your reply!

I'm using Scribus 1.40 and Ubuntu Linux 13.04.

I created a new document and wasn't able to reproduce the problem. But if I cut and paste from the problem document, it reproduced itself just fine. So something about that text box, its text, or the document has an issue.

Thanks for the ideas in troubleshooting and resuming my document writing! I'll try to make new text boxes or cut and paste all but that one box into a new document and see how I fare.

I admit that the affected text is a cut and paste from a PDF document, the one I'm seeking to re-create, so that use of the clipboard between formats might have introduced something behind the scenes.
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 02:07:02 PM
Oh, here's more. The issue only happens when the font is Times New Roman bold. I got this font from installing the msttcorefonts package on Linux. Looks like it does weird things once used in Scribus.
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 02:14:58 PM
I've removed those fonts, and substituted Times New Roman for FreeSerif. But bolding FreeSerif reproduced the problem! NOOOOOO! *sobs*
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: GarryP on October 15, 2013, 02:18:34 PM
It can be useful to cut and paste via a plain text editor to get rid of any unseen control characters. I.e. Cut from the original, paste into the text editor and check for unusual stuff, then cut from that and paste into Scribus (or whatever else).

It's a little bit more work - a couple of extra mouse clicks or key presses - but at least you can be pretty sure that you're not copying over anything that could cause weird problems.

You never know what's being copied to the clipboard. Try copying some formatted text from, say, Firefox - for instance, this page - into, say, OpenOffice and you'll probably see that some formatting has been included. Applications try to be helpful but sometimes you just want them to be dumb.

P.S. The Firefox add-on "Copy Plain Text 2" is brilliant for this kind of thing. A real time saver. (I'm not sure how well it works copying from a PDF displayed in Firefox though. That'll need some experimenting.)
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 02:30:41 PM
I used a text editor to copy paste this time and the problem happened just the same.

I even tried just typing text, and the problem is reproducible.

Looks like I'll have to submit a bug.

Here's a sample document where I typed text and put a right align tab on the first line only. Highlight the first two lines of the text, bold them, and the problem appears on my end. The issue only happens when text is bolded, not regular. I'm using the FreeSerif font, so feel free to substitute that for Times New Roman or whatever.

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Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 02:41:30 PM
I upgraded to 1.4.3 and the issue persists.
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: utnik on October 15, 2013, 03:18:10 PM
hi ellabella

for a really useful look at your file i need the fontfile as well. ('file' → 'collect for output')

untik
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 03:18:24 PM
Turns out it's a known issue reported in Sep 2012 that hasn't been fixed yet:

http://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=11071
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 03:20:36 PM
I tried File -> Collect for output, and all it did was create a new folder and put the single .sla file into it. That's not any different than just having attached the original .sla is it?
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: utnik on October 15, 2013, 03:32:29 PM
hi ellabella

there's a box called 'include fonts' in the 'collect for output' dialog window – this makes the difference...

...but if it's a known bug, i may not be able to help – at least i can try to mark it as a bug (actually it is a feature request...)

utnik
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 05:28:42 PM
I was able to recreate the issue in the Windows version of Scribus.

Here's the collected packaged of this document.

Once you unzip this and open the doc, reproduce the issue simply by bolding the first line. Have fun. :)

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: utnik on October 15, 2013, 06:57:24 PM
ok. now i see the problem as well.
i mentioned to the devs that it should me marked as a bug, not as a feature request – that's all i can do (i'm not a programmer...)

utnik
Title: Re: Right aligned tab-stop jumbles text
Post by: ellabella on October 15, 2013, 07:16:09 PM
I'm glad you're able to reproduce the issue. Thanks so much for helping to get the bug reclassified. :) Once this is fixed I'll be able to finish my first migration project from Adobe InDesign. Fun!