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Scribus => Beginner Talk => Topic started by: Jensus on April 24, 2025, 06:02:14 PM

Title: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on April 24, 2025, 06:02:14 PM
I'm a new Scribus user, I had high hopes and I use other open source software that works well. But I wonder about Scribus. Is it full of bugs or am I just misunderstanding or not getting the documentation? I am working on a test document after watching some tutorials and trying to check the somewhat lacking manual. Does it work with Zorin OS?

I am considering giving up and instead useg Atticus or possibly InDesign. But if anyone can shed some light on the problems I have had, and it can be solved then maybe I can stay with Scribus.  :-\  Some problems are:

1) Why can I not unlink text boxes? The link tool works, the unlink tool just is unclickable. I have to delete a box.
2) Why can I not import images? I can only import vector graphics. It worked once, I managed to import a photo in the test document initially, but now it does not work. The get image option is blank.


Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: goldenbrown on April 24, 2025, 06:56:19 PM
Hey there,

I actually use Scribus with Zorin OS and it works pretty ok.

Scribus indeed has some bugs, but generally works ok. There's for sure room for improvement (like it urgently needs a find and replace with character style function. I need this so bad! ><) But about your problems:

It's hard to know exactly was going wrong without details but,

1. I'm guessing that what's confusing you is that when you click the unlink tool, your mouse cursor won't change. But the tool is active. What you should do is the following: select the last text frame BEFORE the frame you want to unlink. Select the unlink text frame tool, then click on the text frame you want to unlink.

2. About the images, I'm not sure what could be going wrong. Can you provide a little more detail of how you're trying to import them?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on April 24, 2025, 07:12:42 PM
Thanks a lot for your quick reply!
I look forward to start formatting my book, so I am eager to get going. It is already half done in LibreOffice. I am glad to hear it should work with Zorin, which is a superb OS.

1) I tried your method, but it does not work. You're right, the cursor does not change. But I can not unlink, even doing what you said.
2) The import image thing, I create an image box. Right click on it, but the Get Image option is blank (not clickable). It is the same in the File menu, Import Image does not work, I can only Import vector graphics (the Import Image option is visible but light grey/not clickable).
(I am using Swedish language Scribus so I have to translate the names of the options)
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: goldenbrown on April 24, 2025, 07:48:39 PM
Hmmm, that's peculiar. I never experienced this type of problem before.

Do you have the option "show text chain" active? (you can find it in view> text frames> show text chain) this shows how the text frames are linked. If you have it active, does anything happen to it when you try to unlink?

About the images, it really beats me. Did you try double-clicking over the image frame? That also works to import images.

Maybe a possible workaround could be to use the script "direct image import" and then change the frame dimensions using the properties tab. :/ (not ideal, but it can work if you don't find the cause of the problem)

Are you using Scribus 1.7? Is it an appimage? I had some bugs when using the appimage, but the flatpak worked way better.

P.s. yes! Zorin is amazing!

Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on April 24, 2025, 08:24:09 PM
Thanks again. I am amazed at how friendly forums usually are on open source communities. Like on the /e/OS mobile phone community (for the mobile I am using).

Yes I have the show text chain active. I see the chains. Maybe I can live without unlinking, I could delete a box and create a new, I guess this does not delete the text anyway.

The image import, I feel a little stupid because double clicking works, I can then import! But I am not 100% stupid because the Get Image and Import still does not work. But we have probably found a workaround (I hope it will continue to work).

May I ask something else? To work with chapters, I mean sections of text, which then can be rearranged. I have not found documentation about that. Can perhaps someone point me in a direction or say something about that? I have a long document with different chapters which I have not decided the order of yet. In a program like Atticus this can be done easily, you see the chapters/sections in a menu to the left so you can just drag and drop, but I have not seen something like this in Scribus.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on April 24, 2025, 11:15:15 PM
If you have issues with working with linking the frames, I would suggest you to first activate "View > Text Frames > Show Text Chain".
Then, it's a bit easier to follow what happens.

I'm attaching a screencast showing how you can achieve what you're aiming at...

get-image-link-unlink.gif

P.S.: as far as I can tell, what you are describing are not Scribus bugs... but, at least for the linking and unlinking, the way Scribus is doing it, can for sure be improved!
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on April 25, 2025, 12:26:55 AM
Thanks!
I am doing that, what you show, but I can not unlink textboxes. The tool just does not work! But I can work around it, by deleting them and adding new.
Then, I can not Get Image, the option is blank. But I can work around it by double clicking on the image box.

It worries me however that there are things that cause trouble like this, to me it seems like bugs. If already I am encountering odd problems like this, I suspect there is more to come, that is why I wonder about these smaller but annoying things..
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on April 25, 2025, 12:40:11 AM
Scribus for long documents?
Maybe I should create another thread for this, but I see that some do not recommend Scribus for longer documents/books, is this still true or is it for older versions?
What I want to work on will be approx 300 pages and quite image heavy. It will probably be quite a massive document. I would prefer not to split it into several sections, if possible, but have it all in one document and be able to rearrange chapters.
Would you say this is possible in Scribus?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: goldenbrown on April 25, 2025, 01:08:31 AM
Quote from: Jensus on April 24, 2025, 08:24:09 PMMay I ask something else? To work with chapters, I mean sections of text, which then can be rearranged. I have not found documentation about that. Can perhaps someone point me in a direction or say something about that? I have a long document with different chapters which I have not decided the order of yet. In a program like Atticus this can be done easily, you see the chapters/sections in a menu to the left so you can just drag and drop, but I have not seen something like this in Scribus.

Hey Jensus, answering your question: I tend to work with chapters. I keep each chapter as a separated group of linked frames (all chapters in the same document, and in the order they should be printed), not sure if there's any documentation about it, but it works for me.

You can create sections in Scribus, but you can't rearrange them as easily as drag and drop.

I usually think (and this goes for Scribus, InDesign, Affinity Publisher, etc)that's a better idea to have your content already edited and organized, and use the publisher software only to creating the layout. It seems that Atticus is a program to create epubs, which very different from Scribus (which the focus is mostly print material or PDFs). When working with a classical publishing software, rearranging chapters like that will mess up your layout.   

About you document being image heavy... I'm not sure how well scribus would take it. My documents don't tend to had a lot of images, mostly text.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: AdmFubar on April 25, 2025, 03:31:41 AM
Can Zorin use flatpacks, snaps, or appimages? If so, try one of those and see if the issue is present. That will determine whether it is scribus or a zorin issue.

ANs what version of Zorin and scribus are you using?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on April 25, 2025, 07:14:29 AM
@Jensus , I cannot exclude that you're experience some bugs, but from my experience it seems rather unlikely.

The only bug I can think of, is the one where a document "steals" the context from another document, so before going further in checking what can be wrong, you should make sure that you have only one single Scribus document open.

And I don't think that a Linux distribution can mess up Scribus so badly that such things do not work, so it's also really unlikely that Zorin is at fault (whatever Zorin is...)
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: RodneyLee on April 25, 2025, 04:31:46 PM
you can also Drag and drop images into Scribus
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 03, 2025, 01:07:24 PM
Thank you for all your answers.
I am using Zorin OS 16.3. Scribus is 1.6.4.

It seems I can work around these problems, if I am going to use Scribus.

Like Goldenbrown said: "You can create sections in Scribus, but you can't rearrange them as easily as drag and drop." This is something that would be so great to have, to be able to rearrange chapters.
In my case I need to do some writing and editing in Scribus, because of the nature of the book (lots of images and diagrams, it is about electronics).

I actually bought Atticus, because I was giving up on Scribus. But now that I am trying out Atticus, I feel it is very unintuitive and I don't like it at all. While Scribus is more complicated and I had some problems, it is more logically laid out. Not sure what to do now..
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: AdmFubar on May 03, 2025, 04:19:50 PM
Quote from: Jensus on May 03, 2025, 01:07:24 PMI actually bought Atticus, because I was giving up on Scribus. But now that I am trying out Atticus, I feel it is very unintuitive and I don't like it at all. While Scribus is more complicated and I had some problems, it is more logically laid out. Not sure what to do now..
Atticus is geared towards ebooks, is that type of platform you are producing for?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 03, 2025, 08:15:47 PM
I am writing for mainly print, but also an ebook version.

I will probably give up on Atticus and demand money back (30-day trial). It seems it does not have options for the book sizes I want, which is A4 or slightly smaller. And I don't see that Atticus does anything more than a simple word processor really.
I have tried LibreOffice (totally awful), Abiword (crashed instantly), Calligra Word (totally unusable), Reedsy (too simple). I am at a loss.. Only Scribus remain.
Or I am actually considering getting an old MS Word, anno 2016 or older..

How would you do it in Scribus? - I have a 100 page docx document, pure text divided in 10 chapters. I need to get it into Scribus, from there add maybe 100 images and do some text editing. What would be an experienced Scribus users process?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 03, 2025, 09:48:36 PM
Mixing text and images - and locking the images to the text

I'll reframe my question. Say that you want to create a cookbook, a mix of text and photos.
How would you go about it in Scribus?

I am trying to put together a chapter of my book (which isn't a cookbook, but you can thing of it like that, text and images 50/50). The image part is very important. I just can't figure out how Scribus handles images in text. Say that I want to insert a photo in the text and have the photo move with the text if I edit the text above it somewhere. The image needs to be "locked" in position within the text so to say. With a text box this does not work, when I alter the text the image stays in the same position on the page so that now the photo and the text are out of position.
I tried to copy-paste the photo (actually a whole box) into text, then it works - the photo is locked in position. But I can't select the photo, change it's size or do anything. How does this work?

I found two mentions of this in other threads:
Linking images to text: https://forums.scribus.net/index.php?topic=991.0
Make image flow with associated text: https://forums.scribus.net/index.php?topic=811.0

In the last thread someone says: "Scribus does not yet have a good way to anchor an image to a location in the text. "
If that is still true, I am amazed, because that to me is such a basic and totally necessary thing so I can't believe how others can do without it. Is it really true? If so, Scribus can be used to make like magazine pages, like creating something like a flyer with one or a few pages, fixing the design and then it's done, not creating a longer document with both text and images, because it would be insane if I made a 100 page book with 50 images in, then having to add a section of text in one text frame and it is all out of position. Or if you change the font size and image positions and text wouldn't match and you would have to edit the whole document.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on May 03, 2025, 11:08:19 PM
I would dare to say that LibreOffice should be usable for this task. But you would need to use it in the "right" way... and it might be not obvious to do that.

Scribus can probably do it too.
But you'd better to first create the content, with "minimal" formatting in something like LibreOffice and then import it into Scribus for the final layout.

I would suggest you to work on a few (10 - 20) demo pages to check if and how you can achieve your goal.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 03, 2025, 11:50:18 PM
Thanks ale,
I did try, but no success. What I can't understand is how to lock an image into the text so that if I add or remove text before it the image moves with the new position of the text within the frame. I think this may be something Scribus can not do, there was a bug report about this: https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=4831

I would think this is something very much necessary for many.
LibreOffice can do it in theory, but in practice it does not work and many have gone insane about LibreOffice inability to keep images where they should be. I have completely given up on LibreOffice and I think it is a piece of crap.

I did create text content with minimal formatting (I already have it), imported it into Scribus, where the plan was to add images. I could only do it, as I mentioned, by copy-paste an image frame with image in it into the text. But then it seems this image can not be edited in any way and I can not add a text caption. It could work, but it is cumbersome and a bit silly, it means for every image I want to include I must first create an image frame with the image, copy-cut it and paste in into the text. I suspect also there may be problems with this down the line, it doesn't seem the right way to go about it (possible wrapping or positioning problems, not that I encountered them but I wouldn't be surprised if it happened later..). But maybe I am doing it wrong, and maybe Scribus can somehow keep images in a text and make them stay in the right position no matter if the text in some other place in the frame is altered?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on May 04, 2025, 11:47:55 AM
On the one side (the one on topic is here), Scribus is not made for getting the image to flow with the text.
To some extent, you can achieve that (inline images) but I would not do it for bigger images and also not for a longer text.
Scribus has been created to let you define how the layout physically will look like, not to define logical rules for it.

So, yes, Scribus will keep "your images in the right position": by not moving them by one single millimeter!
Or you can put them inline and they will follow the text. Step by step.
But this is probably not what you mean when you say "where they should be".

I really have no idea, how you plan to design your pages and it is very hard to give your specific hints on the choices you should take.

Personally, with Scribus I tend to work on rather small documents, where it's mostly fine to manually adjust the position of the images.
If you want them to "logically" follow the text, I don't know what can be called a good choice.
The last larger work that might be similar to your task, was completed with \Latex.
And, I guess, Latex is the only (free; or cheap) system that allows to get things to mostly be correctly positioned, to be "where they should be" (and even Latex does not manage it in every cases).
Probably, Indesign is also able to at least do an okayish job.

Somehow, I have the feeling that you still need to learn a bit more about the technologies you plan to use.
Starting with such a big and complex project is also probably not the optimal way to get into the topic... but since it's your motivator, it's hard to change that : - )

On the other side (the one about LibreOffice): personally I mostly go for images placed as a character or at a fixed place relative to the page.
If you want them to be at the top or bottom of the page, relative to a reference in the text, you're indeed a bit in troubled waters.
But do you really need that?
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 04, 2025, 03:48:33 PM
Thanks again for your advice. Yes, this is my motivator, to get this project done! I am passionate about it.
I think Scribus is not the right option, it is probably not optimal for such a long document with image heavy content. I guess it is more suited to text only or mostly, or one or a couple of pages with complex layouts mixing text and images.

It has been very difficult to find something suitable. I have tried Atticus (got my money back today, nice customer support), Calibre, Manuskript, Reedsy, Abiword, Calligra Words and researched Affinity Publisher, Papyrus, Scrivener (could maybe do the job, but complex), Poe-writer, Writing Master, Narrative Writer, Focus Writer, Ulysses (mac only), Dabble, Novlr, Etherpad, Ywriter (win), Quoll Writer and Blurb BookWright.
Scribus is very feature rich, much more than most of the above. However image handling is a problem, which was a bit surprising, for both Scribus and almost all of the above. Maybe such works are completed mostly in InDesign.

I just found and installed WPS Writer for Linux :)  Haven't done any deeper work with it yet, but so far it looks good, I managed to create a page with an image that stays in place even if I modify text before it on the page. It seems to be a free software and I will check it out some more.

LibreOffice and its horrid image handling is not an option, I need to have the images flow in the text, "where they should be". This is a book about analog electronics with lots of instructions in photos and images like schematics, it is important that they stay in place and I prefer to have them in the text rather than always on the bottom e t c.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on May 04, 2025, 06:05:56 PM
I somehow don't understand what you mean by

Quoteit is important that they stay in place and I prefer to have them in the text rather than always on the bottom e t c.

You keep on saying "where they should be", without really defining what exactly means.

Anyway, my stance:


Of course:


At the end, but -- I repeat and formulate it a bit differently -- creating about 20 pages of your documentation with one of the tools, might be more helpful for you to understand what are your real needs. Probably better than evaluating in a superficial way a dozen of very different software.

You're going to learn a new craft: it will take some time and dedication.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: AdmFubar on May 04, 2025, 11:24:57 PM
What you prolly need to use is TeX. It is designed with technical documents in mind.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 04, 2025, 11:28:24 PM
I will try to explain "where they should be" regarding images.
I am writing a technical book. This is a section from it:
Spectrally measured signal to noise ratio versus power supply induced noise
-image of oscilloscope screen-
Visible peaks at 50Hz, 100Hz, 150Hz, 200Hz and 300Hz.


In the text above the image must be locked there inbetween those lines, not locked in position on the page, no matter if I rewrite something above it and the text section moves to the next page, the image must move with it.

I will use the software not only to format but do some writing. For example I may want to add some text above. The image must move with it. I have not managed to get this to work in Scribus, the image is locked on a position on the page, not locked in relationship to the text. In Word you anchor an image to text, and it moves if you write, add, delete e t c. But not in Scribus, from what I have found. Not if you use an image frame in any case.

(Or maybe I have misunderstood this image positioning thing and overlooked some basic trick..)

You're right, I am not sure why Scribus is unsuitable for a longer technical book with many images. Trying to find out. My book is massively image oriented, I'd say it is 40% images.
I did try to create some documents. Did not manage to make it work very well. I understand this is a new craft, and it will take time to learn. I am not a complete beginner though, I wrote my graduation thesis in university in Word, but that was 20 years ago. It was both text and images.

AdmFubar, thanks for the advice, yes I have heard about LaTex, is that what you are referring to? I haven't checked that one out yet.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: a.l.e on May 05, 2025, 08:32:40 PM
Let make one thing clear:

If you are going to create a longer document and really want the images to follow the text ("inline" or at the top / bottom of the page), then Scribus is currently NOT part of the solution.

You might be able to do it with LibreOffice, but it probably requires lot of discipline to get it to work right.
An alternative would be some sort of Latex (Context?) or even Typst (but it does not seem to have a mature HTML output for Epub).
But I'm not sure you will be comfortable with them.

And, then, there are lot of proprietary tools you can use...
But that's not among the topics of this forum.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: AdmFubar on May 06, 2025, 02:45:52 AM
LayTeX is a front for TeX, so yes that may work for you.
Title: Re: Beginner consider giving up - does it work with Zorin? Bugs?
Post by: Jensus on May 07, 2025, 04:33:44 AM
I found WPS Writer, which seems to work like MS Word (which I haven't used for very long). It is easier to use for this purpose than LibreOffice, image handling is much smoother. For what I see now, WPS Writer is the solution for this kind of document.

If that would not work, Affinity may be an option. It's a professional book editing software that seems to be able to do what I want.

I will keep Scribus, because I have another book project, which is more text and less images, for which Scribus will probably be very useful.

Thanks all for your help.