Somebody asked on Reddit (https://old.reddit.com/r/scribus/comments/1vi529z/crosswords/) if they can create a Swedish style crossword (that's the name Wikipedia gives to it...) with Scribus.
I gave it a try and in about half an hour I could get this result:
crossword-preview.png
Here is a peek behind the scenes:
crossword.png
I only gave it a "fast and furious" try and achieved something Okeish in about half an hour. So, my conclusion is: yes, it's doable with Scribus.
I'm attaching my draft .sla file and here are some more hints I gave to the user:
- I've found https://dtinth.github.io/comic-mono-font/ but it does not contain any special signs for languages that are not English: you will need to search a bit further or add yourself the missing diacritics.
- Play with the size of the boxes to match the spacing and size of the font: I've first drawn the boxes, then typed the text, but it's probably wiser to do it the other way round.
- Typing the solution in a single text frame, and using a mono space font to get the spacing even seems work well (you will need to play a bit with the fixed line spacing, the size of the font, the kerning and the letters width) seems to be a good workflow.
- You will probably need 1.7 for the spacing above the paragraphs and the vertical aligning for the cues. The rest should be OK also with 1.6 (you can get a good result there, but some steps will be a bit more cumbersome)
- Working with Beziers is still not as comfortable as it should be. You will be missing the snapping for the nodes and, generally, a way to align them. But it's doable.
- There is no real control on the size of the arrow heads.
- Since you will have multiple items on top of each other, it's not always trivial to select the right element. Working with layers might make it a bit easier.
Has anybody else already tried something like this?
Any further hints?