HOW-TOS Scribus software

Scribus: Leading, Kerning, and Tracking Text

Bruce Byfield — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:46:25 +0000

In "Tweaking Text in Scribus," I briefly described the tools available for manipulating text in Scribus. Now, it's time to really get your typographic geek on, and look in greater detail at how to adjust the spacing of text in Scribus: how to adjust the space between lines of text (leading), between characters (kerning), and upon a line (tracking).

In a word processor, adjustments of leading, kerning, and tracking are handled automatically. Generally, the results are good enough for most people and most purposes. However, the whole point of using a layout application like Scribus is to get things exactly to your likely. That means, at least some of the time, taking full control of the layout and making adjustments line by line, or even character by character.

The tools you need for each of these tasks are available by right-clicking a text frame and selecting from the context menu Properties -> Text. There, you will find a series of fields for adjusting different aspects of the text in the frame.

Leading

Leading is so-called because, in the days of hand presses, printers once used pieces of lead to separate lines of text (in fact, I am told, they often used anything at hand, including folded wedges of paper).

Digital fonts include a suggested leading. For a 1-12 point font, this is usually 2-3 points larger than the font size. A 12 point font, for example, usually has a leading of 14 points. These defaults are intended to make the font readable, but in some cases, decreasing or increasing the leading may improve readability, especially if the font in smaller than 10 points. Should the leading be the same size as the font, then the text is said to be "set solid."

To set the leading in Scribus, go the linespacing field, which is fourth from the top of the Text tab. Set the field to Fixed Linespacing, and use the field to the right to set the leading by points. You will work most efficiently by increasing or decreasing the line spacing one point at a time, and pausing to evaluate the result before trying again.

Kerning

Just as fonts include suggested leadings, they also include suggested kerning. This suggestion is generally adequate, but some letter combinations throw off the character spacing unless you are using a monospaced font.

The combination "Va," for example, leaves a gaping hole between the two characters. Other combinations that may be less than ideal include ff, fi, and fl.

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Printing in Scribus

Bruce Byfield — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:37:04 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Scribus is designed for quality printing. Unlike a word processor, its output is not meant simply to be good enough for practical use, but to be fine-tuned until it is as close as possible to what you want. For this reason, printing is considerably more complicated in Scribus than in the office applications with which you may be familiar.

Fortunately, Scribus usually chooses defaults that fit most cases. It also provides rollover help that advises you on whether you need a setting -- although, depending on your version of Scribus, some settings may not be included in this help.

Still, once you know the work-flow, printing in Scribus is relatively straight-forward. Many of the options are either specifically for professional-quality printing, or for fixing specific problems. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with the options, gives you the chance to come closer to the perfectionism that is impossible in office applications.

Preparing to Print

Before you print, take a moment to run Windows -> Pre-Flight Verifier. Opening whenever you print, preview, or export, this handy tool identifies problems that might interfere with printing, such as low resolution graphics, or text frames that are too small to display their full contents. You could manually spot these problems in Print Preview, but why not automate it? Correct any problems, then run the Verifier again, repeating until no problems display (or at least ones that you can't live with).

Next, display the document using File -> Print Preview. While the Pre-Flight Verifier will correct any problems with the document, the Print Preview will help you catch any problems with the layout. For many documents, Print Preview works well enough without special settings, but in other cases, you may want to adjust the display settings to the right of the preview.

For example, you might enable anti-aliasing to display fonts closer to how they would print, or simulate a view using CMYK color model used for printing, instead of the RGB model used on the screen. Similarly, you might want to preview the document in Greyscale (B&W). Alternatively, if you have already set the document to the printer you plan to use, then Clip to Printer Margin can allow you to catch the problem of contents that can't be properly printed. Each option has rollover help, some of which will advise you about when you might need it.

Using the Previewer may make you decide to make corrections in the document. If so, run both the Pre-Flight Verifier and the Print Preview before actually printing. That way, you'll probably only need a single test to your printer, instead of half a dozen or more.

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Using Styles in Scribus

Bruce Byfield — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:26:31 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

If you don't include master pages (which are really styles under another name), then Scribus supports three types of hierarchial styles: lines, character, and paragraph. As in any other self-respecting word processor or layout application, these styles allow you to apply detailed sets of formatting options quickly, without having to change each instance of a formatting option individually. However, styles are implemented idiosyncratically in Scribus, so they can take time to learn, even if you are familiar with the basic concept from other applications.

One of the conceptual problems you may have is that styles are defined and applied in different places in the editing window. To define and manage styles, you open the Style Manager, by selecting Edit -> Styles or pressing the F3 key. However, to apply styles, you either select Properties from the right-click menu of a selected object or press the F2 key. For paragraph styles, you also have the option of selecting Edit Text from the right-click menu of a selected text frame, or selecting Ctrl+T to open the Story Editor.

Which brings up another peculiarity: the relationship between paragraph and character styles. Not too long ago, Scribus did not support character styles. In fact, the Story Editor still doesn't, although it has a pane for paragraph styles. Not only that, but formatting done on individual characters rather than whole paragraphs -- whether manually or via styles -- doesn't display in the Story Editor, either. To apply character styles, you need to select the characters to format within a text frame in the main windows, and open the Properties window to select a style from the Text pane.

To say the least, this inconsistency is annoying. Editing and formatting text in a text frame is so awkward that generally I recommend that users avoid doing so. However, if you want to use character styles, you have little choice.

At any rate, once you understand this inconsistency, you can focus on the more important job of learning how the choices available for each type of style.

Line Styles

Line styles can be applied via the Properties window to any shape, polygon, line, bezier curve, or freehand line that you add to a document from the Insert menu.

Compared to paragraph and character styles, line styles have a limited set of options. The most common line formatting options are the type of line -- for instance, solid or dotted -- and the line width and color.

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Adding Master Pages to Scribus

Bruce Byfield — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:00:00 +0000

by Bruce Byfield

Like most word processors and layout applications, Scribus has a variety of tools that allow you to design once and use repeatedly. For pages, the tool is Master Pages. Master Pages are styles or templates in which you can position repeated elements like headers and footers or logos. Their initial creation can take time, but, once you have made them, Master Pages can be stored and applied with a few clicks.

If you have used Master Pages in other applications, then you should have few difficulties using them in Scribus. However, you should know that Scribus Master Pages function differently from similarly named concepts in other applications.

For one thing, the contents of any frames on Master Pages are editable only on the Master Page itself. Instead, objects on Master Pages are always on the bottom of any stack of objects on a document page. Nor can you create an empty frame on a Master Page that produces a separate editable frame on each page to which it is applied, the way you can in OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice.

In addition, Scribus in general makes less use of dynamic fields or building blocks to help with layout. You can set page markers that will automatically update according to the page they are on (see below), but that's about it. You cannot, for example, create running headers that automatically insert the text of the nearest Heading1 paragraph style into a footer or header. Instead, you have to create separate Master Pages for each section of a document that vary only in the content of the footer or header.

These limitations make Scribus Master Pages less useful than some of their equivalents in similar applications. However, Master Pages are still worth learning, because they remain a way to reduce your workload.

Editing Master Pages

You have two ways to create a Master Page: from an existing page layout, and from scratch.

The easiest way to create a Master Page is to select Page -> Convert to Master Page from the menu. This selection opens the Convert Page to Master Page dialog window, from which you can name the new Master Page (checking the combo box to make sure you don't duplicate names, and, if you choose, to copy any objects from the Master Page that the current page uses. Should you not select this second option, than only objects on the current page become part of the new Master Page.

To create a Master Page or edit an existing one, select Edit -> Master Pages to open the Edit Master Pages dialog window. While this dialog is open, any changes you make are to a Master Page.

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