Writings: Scribus
May. 29th, 2009 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzPretty soon I'll have to stop procrastinating (i.e. playing with Scribus) and start writing again. So far I've figured out it's much, much faster to edit your text in the text editor (ctrl-y) than on the screen (e). Scrolling actually works then. Scribus isn't nearly as neat-looking on the screen or as fast as Quark XPress, but the printings look very good, and the style is very similar to what I made before.
I'm still fighting with the program about templates and master pages though, which irks me. If I make a template with several master pages for several different parts of a chapter (start of chapter left & right, regular page left & right), and I apply a master to a new page, I can't change any of the inserted text area's. This makes it very hard to change the chapter title I want to have above each page except at the start of chapters.
Quark also had a lovely template to create a book. It would make an overview directory, where you could add chapters (from your template) and the file would automatically keep track of page numbers. This is important when you're writing a book. So far, I think Scribus will allow me to do the layout of a book only if I add all the chapters to one single file. Considering the fact that it's slow as it is, with twenty-page chapters, I don't want to try how it will be if I'm editing more than a hundred pages at the same time.
Scribus is great with keeping track of your page numbers too. Each page is page one. *sigh* I still need to figure out how to fix that as well.
For now, I'm doing the layout of each chapter in a separate file, printing them, and editing the spelling errors and awkward sentences with pen, before changing the Scribus .sla file as well as the .txt file I will import to the book if I finally find a book template or figure out how to make one. Needless to say, this costs tremendous amounts of paper, but I can recycle those as our printer cannot print double-sided. *rolls eyes*
Needful to mention is that I'm still finding can'ts and won'ts where Sir Jean is concerned. He does not use language like that, as he is a stuck-up half-celestial paladin. He uses can not and will not, dammit!
Ahem.
And the 10th chapter is called "A Reason To Live".
So this was me geeking you out. I think tomorrow is another holiday, so there will be plenty of time to write and enjoy the sunshine.
ETA: found this page which describes exactly what you can and can't do with Master Pages. After reading it, I tried a few tricks and found out it worked like a charm.
I guess that means I'll need to design a new template!
I'm still fighting with the program about templates and master pages though, which irks me. If I make a template with several master pages for several different parts of a chapter (start of chapter left & right, regular page left & right), and I apply a master to a new page, I can't change any of the inserted text area's. This makes it very hard to change the chapter title I want to have above each page except at the start of chapters.
Quark also had a lovely template to create a book. It would make an overview directory, where you could add chapters (from your template) and the file would automatically keep track of page numbers. This is important when you're writing a book. So far, I think Scribus will allow me to do the layout of a book only if I add all the chapters to one single file. Considering the fact that it's slow as it is, with twenty-page chapters, I don't want to try how it will be if I'm editing more than a hundred pages at the same time.
Scribus is great with keeping track of your page numbers too. Each page is page one. *sigh* I still need to figure out how to fix that as well.
For now, I'm doing the layout of each chapter in a separate file, printing them, and editing the spelling errors and awkward sentences with pen, before changing the Scribus .sla file as well as the .txt file I will import to the book if I finally find a book template or figure out how to make one. Needless to say, this costs tremendous amounts of paper, but I can recycle those as our printer cannot print double-sided. *rolls eyes*
Needful to mention is that I'm still finding can'ts and won'ts where Sir Jean is concerned. He does not use language like that, as he is a stuck-up half-celestial paladin. He uses can not and will not, dammit!
Ahem.
And the 10th chapter is called "A Reason To Live".
So this was me geeking you out. I think tomorrow is another holiday, so there will be plenty of time to write and enjoy the sunshine.
ETA: found this page which describes exactly what you can and can't do with Master Pages. After reading it, I tried a few tricks and found out it worked like a charm.
I guess that means I'll need to design a new template!
