Recent posts

#91
Features / Re: Shortcuts for Styles and S...
Last post by joseb - January 05, 2026, 08:32:53 PM
Hello everyone,

First of all, congratulations to the Scribus team for Style Search (Shift+ESC) and Action Search (Ctrl+/). They are a great success and I think they can be easier to use than keyboard shortcuts (for most users).

IMPROVEMENTS PROPOSED IN THE SCRIBUS FORUM
I've been reading messages about:
- Speed in workflow.
- Quick application of styles (or other actions).
- Keyboard shortcuts for paragraph or character styles.
- Contextual toolbars
- Quick Access bar.


REFERENCES FOR INSPIRATION
In this message, I would like to open a discussion on how to improve workflow speed, but imagining that Scribus takes inspiration from programs that are not Desktop Publishing (DTP).

It would be possible to imagine that the style finder or action finder could end up being something like:
- Popup palette in KRITA.
- Mouse Gestures in ARES COMMANDER.
- Pie menus in BLENDER.






SOME PROPOSALS
I really like Style Search (Shift-ESC), but for inexperienced users it can be difficult to remember the paragraph styles they have created.

Could Style Search (Shift+ESC) display a list of paragraph styles (a few at a time, with scrolling if there are many)?


Could it become a floating window similar to the BLENDER Pie Menu and display several lists? It could even be expanded over time to display more things: a list of paragraph styles, another list of character styles, the clear style formatting icon, the special characters icon, and another list of Scribus special characters (page number, total number of pages, etc.).


These proposals are not demands... Sometimes I get the impression that people always try to imitate other DTP programs. Perhaps it would be easier to reimagine the tools from other programs, but adapted to Scribus.
#92
Raster and Vector Graphics / Re: How to convert RGB to CMYK...
Last post by utnik - January 04, 2026, 10:19:15 PM
hi cathyzora

Quote from: CathyZora on January 04, 2026, 07:42:45 PM...I exported the document as pdf/x-4 (as requested by the publisher). But I could of course try and see what effect saving as pdf/x-1a will have.
if a printshop requests .pdf/x-4, they should accept content in different color spaces as it is one of the primary ideas of ...x-4 to convert the colors later in the process. (but unfortunately a couple of printshops request .pdf/x-4 and can't handle them by the official specifications...)

i would ask if they accept .pdf/x-1a.

utnik
#93
Raster and Vector Graphics / Re: How to convert RGB to CMYK...
Last post by Aleks100 - January 04, 2026, 08:57:48 PM
Check File-Output Preview-PDF
Select CMYK, then select everything but black (K) - all text should disappear. This means that all text is just black and that overprint is set properly
#94
Raster and Vector Graphics / Re: How to convert RGB to CMYK...
Last post by CathyZora - January 04, 2026, 07:42:45 PM
@utnik
I exported the document as pdf/x-4 (as requested by the publisher). But I could of course try and see what effect saving as pdf/x-1a will have. I've just read (https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Color_Management_setup) the difference between them.

I'll have a go at clipping the image-parts.

@Aleks100
I don't know about Inkscape, but have a look at Krita. But for Krita, I seem to need the specific CMYK setup from the printer used by the publisher?
I'm familiar with most of the commands :)

#95
Raster and Vector Graphics / Re: How to convert RGB to CMYK...
Last post by Aleks100 - January 04, 2026, 04:12:15 PM
Inkscape always exports in RGB so you gotta replace RGB colors with CMYK if you import Inkscape SVG. Same with the text. Images you can convert to CMYK in Krita.

Useful commands:
Edit-Colors and Fills
Edit-Replace Colors
Overprint black
Convert text to outlines
PDF Export to printer (not Screen/Web)
Output preview

Always keep saved version with live text - not converted to outlines
#96
Raster and Vector Graphics / Re: How to convert RGB to CMYK...
Last post by utnik - January 04, 2026, 03:47:31 PM
hi cathyzora

wat are your export settings?
when i export normal black text to a cmyk file, my text is in 100% black and if i export it as a .pdf/x-1a, the images are converted to cmyk.
for the file size you may play with the resolution and compression settings – and clip the images if you only need a part of them. (scribus keeps the full image in the file even if the bigger part of it is outside of the frame...)
but scribus is known to generate rather big files.

untik
#97
Raster and Vector Graphics / How to convert RGB to CMYK ima...
Last post by CathyZora - January 04, 2026, 12:04:45 PM
Hello,

I've been using / trying to use Scribus for two months now. I'm trying to make a 'newspaper' for our village; it's a printed paper of about 36-40 pages, with lots of images.
I've been mailing back and forth with our publisher, but there are some things I can't fix.
1) The publisher tells me to convert all text to 'black' color, so that it's not printed in 4 colors but as only 'black'. I managed to change the text to 'black' color, but had to do this manually for all text-blocks.
-> Is there a quicker way to do this?

2) The publisher tells me to convert all images to CMYK. I have been searching how to do this, but I didn't succeed in changing the images to CMYK while uploaded in Scribus. (I get around 80 images in different formats; JPEG, JPG, PNG, ...)
-> Do I have to (manually?!) convert all images to CMYK before uploading them into Scribus? I've tried some online tools, but the image size increases. Or is there a possibility to convert RMBto CMYK in Scribus.

3) The publisher says that the document sent to him in PDF is way too big; it should be around 30MB for 36 pages, whilst my test-version of 8 pages is already 44MB. I already limited the images to 300dpi, but what else can I do?
-> How to create a PDF which isn't this big?
#98
Installation and Setup / Re: Corrupted Copy
Last post by Sheba2 - January 02, 2026, 07:09:27 PM
Thank you. I will try it next week when I get back into learning it.
#99
PDF Generation / PDF Tools Bar and clickable fo...
Last post by dragonfly - January 02, 2026, 06:35:23 PM
I have not played with Scribus for a very long time.  My interest in returning is to build clickable form elements. But I can't seem to find a newbie interactive PDF tutorial for Scribus 1.6.8 on Ubuntu 22.04. Moreover they must be custom forms and I know how to use Scribus Generator to customise. Under Windows, PDF Tools is enabled. But where is the "PDF Toolbar" explained in tutorials?
I am considering doing this in two stages if I can't figure it out. First stage customised but static Scribus PDF. Pass to MasterPDFEditor or perhaps Adobe to overlay clickable elements. Is that the way to proceed?
#100
General Discussion / Re: A discussion about the typ...
Last post by a.l.e - January 02, 2026, 09:35:34 AM
Nitramr, very interesting summary.

If I understand the text correctly, there are a few things that are already in the pipeline (customizable toolbar, epub export), others that indeed are low hanging fruits (icons, dark mode, UI snapshots), and some that seem wrong to me (the story editor is not put forward by Scribus nor opens on double click, welding has little to do with vector editing, drag and drop does work, one can create snippets that can be reused).

But there is one thing that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable: the reports suggest that Scribus should make big improvements for both professionals and for novices.
My fear, is that following this advice will result in new cool features being added to Scribus without really making the users happier.
Personally, I'd prefer a slightly a different approach that has -- in my eyes -- more chances to make Scribus make noticeable progress for its users:
defining target usages that we want to support and make us the best software in the field.

From what I read from the different Scribus forums, here are some of the common usages of Scribus where we have a chance to be very good:

  • Creation of song books (mostly for churches).
  • Support of RTL languages for individuals and businesses with limited budget.
  • Layout of comics books.
  • Creation of calendars.

Of course, my goal is not to transform Scribus to a software that only targets one or more of these specific fields.
I'd rather like to use our limited resources to make some of our users really happy, while improving the software for everybody.
And once we've made Scribus good for some users, we can look for further goals.