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#1
Beginner Talk / Importing LO Writer text witho...
Last post by henrylaw - Today at 07:56:19 PM
I am managing production of a newsletter which has contributions from various sources. All the contributions come in as Microsoft Word documents, and use a standard template with named styles, which allow the writers to see what their text will look like before they send it.

My job is to assemble all the copy into a Scribus document for publication.  I have a set of agreed paragraph styles which currently have the same name as those in the Word template.

I can import the copy by saving it as LibreOffice writer and then importing the resulting file.  That works well, but is a maintenance nightmare.  If I change the definition of a style within Scribus, which I occasionally do, then when the contributors' text is imported Scribus promptly replaces any changes I've made with the original formatting from the Word styles.  Sending out a new template to the Word users is difficult: they don't necessarily have the skill to install it properly; and I don't have MS Word anyway so I'd be trusting that a converted LO template would work correctly.

My current plan is to change the names of my Scribus styles, and then when each contribution is imported, using the existing style names, I can do a bulk change from a Word style names to my new Scribus style names. 

Yes, I know I can import just as plain text and then apply my own styles; that's laborious.  And I know I can import so as to give the imported styles a prefix relating to the name of the text box: I'd need to change each text box separately, and in a 24-page document that's tedious and error-prone.

Is there any better way?
#2
I am new to Scribus and recently ran into some trouble when exporting a PDF. Members of this forum were kind enough to help me solve that problem, and now I feel it's my turn to give something back to the community.

Scribus has a built-in feature for drop caps, but if you want precision control over stuff like different fonts, placement of the drop cap and distances between the drop cap and different lines of the main text, the built-in feature will not do. The solution then is to work with layers and separate boxes.

Let's say I want my drop cap to extend a bit beyond the left border of the main text box -- an aesthetically pleasing feature often found in classic typography. Let's say I also want line one and line two of the main text to have different distances in relation to the drop cap. What I will do then is create a new layer containing two new boxes: one text box for the drop cap, and a rectangular shape to control the distance between the drop cap and the second line of the main text.

Create a new layer
Go to the layer window (Windows/Layers or F6) and click on the plus symbol to create a new one. Make sure that the new layer sits above the other one in the layer hierarchy and that you have checked "Make text in lower layers flow around objects".

Create the drop cap
With your new layer selected, create a text box for your drop cap with the desired font and size and place it where you want it to be on the page. I recommend using Ctrl+Shift+Arrows (Windows users) for precision placement. To make the first line of the main text "connect" properly with the drop cap, you can simply switch back to the original layer by clicking on it in the layer window, and then insert different distances and breaks (Insert/Distances & Breaks) at the beginning of the main text box to achieve the desired result.

Distance between drop cap and second line of main text
Create a rectangle like shown in the attached screenshot and place it where you want it to be. To make the text of the second line flow around it, go to the properties window (F2), click on Form and "Text flow around frame shape". Voilà, the text of the second line will now flow around your shape.

This might not be the most efficient way to go about it, but it will get the job done. Veteran forum members are no doubt already familiar with this type of work and might have even better solutions. Feel free to add to this thread if so. Cheers!
#3
Layout Issues / Re: Opening on 2nd PC failed
Last post by AdmFubar - Today at 04:56:49 AM
Have you tried the collect for output option to store a scribus file? you will be prompted for a directory to store them in. (create one for this specific project). everything will be in the directory. copy that dir to your target machine and open in scribus there.
#4
PDF Generation / Re: Fractional font sizes are ...
Last post by Andrew Leach - November 08, 2025, 07:07:01 PM
You'll see from those examples that with Remembrance Sunday being this weekend, time was rather of the essence today! Thanks for testing for a second opinion. It was a bit of a surprise and it's good that it's not a general thing. I'll try and prepare a minimal test case.
#5
PDF Generation / Re: Fractional font sizes are ...
Last post by a.l.e - November 08, 2025, 06:31:33 PM
Cannot reproduce.

I've created a text with 12 pt and, on the same line a text with 12.9 pt.
Then put a line aligned with the highest point of the 12.9 pt text.

The attached PDF seems to respect the fractional font size.

fractional-font-size.png

Do you have a sample .sla (with the font!) and .pdf that show the problem?
#6
PDF Generation / Fractional font sizes are redu...
Last post by Andrew Leach - November 08, 2025, 12:22:41 PM
Scribus 1.6.4 on Windows 11

When creating a PDF, it appears that styles which have fractional sizes (say 8.8pt) are reduced to an integer value (8pt). But line spacing and character spacing remains the same, meaning that characters appear to be spaced out. See images.

This happens with two different versions of gswin64c.exe, but it does not happen if I print using a PDF printer driver — even one using gswin64c.exe. I've just upgraded from 1.5.8 [so can't go back  :( ] but at least PDF "printing" works.

In the scanned images here, the one with closer tracking is correct. You can also see that the small acknowledgement text is unchanged: this has an integer size (6pt).

Given that everything was fine in v1.5.8 and is OK with PDF printer drivers, it looks like this is caused by something in v1.6.4. Is there anything I can do to get it right?
#7
General Discussion / Re: (Auto) Font-Size to match ...
Last post by prcek - November 07, 2025, 08:56:10 PM
I've seen a script doing it somewhere recently.
Basically it was increasing the font until text frame was overflowing and then decreased the font until it was not. I think a magic constant was there, for a corner case.

I agree with a.l.e it is not a greatest idea.
#8
Layout Issues / Re: Opening on 2nd PC failed
Last post by prcek - November 07, 2025, 08:52:26 PM
WRT images. Save project as uncompressed and you can open *.sla in a text editor - it is a XML data - and check how are paths to images stored. - search for "PFILE" text, at least in 1.6.4 it is name of attribute. I've hit this problem when on one of my computer the folder was a symlink.
#9
Layout Issues / Re: Opening on 2nd PC failed
Last post by juergo - November 07, 2025, 07:08:01 PM
i see alle the text "mit texteditor bearbeiten" but no text is visible in the textfield in scribus

the shapes are not visible on pc2 only the placeholders

i removed all pictures on pc1 and saved sla file again.
on pc2 when i load a picture in the empty imageframe the picture is not shown.
only when i add a new image frame and load a picture, the picture is shown
#10
Layout Issues / Re: Opening on 2nd PC failed
Last post by utnik - November 07, 2025, 06:14:23 PM
Quote from: Nermander on November 07, 2025, 04:29:43 PM...Scribus unfortunately uses absolute paths...
this is not my experience. (...and i just checked it with scribus 1.6.4 on mac os 26.0.1.) as long as the images are on the same volume as the .sla file i see relative paths.
under 'extras' → 'manage images' scribus shows the absolute path. but that's not what is stored in the file. take a look at the code an you will find a relative path.
if the folder '/fotos' is managed by the operating system, it might have another name or another path 'under the hood' than the one the user sees.
(on my computer there is a standard folder called 'bilder'. but in the console its path says '/users/my username/pictures'...)

but as long as the relative path is the same, scribus should find the images.

utnik