[Scribus] changing page layout and other comments and questions

[Peter Linnell]

On Thu, 2003-10-16 at 03:31, Jeremy C. Reed wrote:
> I am using Scribus 1.1.1 under NetBSD. I have pkgsrc for scribus-1.1.1
> if anyone is interested. (I was using 1.0.1 yesterday.)
> 
> I have a few comments and questions ...
> 
> 1) Where can I change current page layout (from landscape to portrait or
> page size)? It is not under "Document Setup..."

You can only change page size or layout when creating a new page at the
moment.
> 
> 2) Maybe not be related to Scribus, but how do I get postscript generated
> from File->Print to print in landscape mode?

If the page is in landscape mode it should print that way. It is really
helpful to have CUPS and cups devel files, as Scribus can take advantage
of the feature of CUPS: n-up printing, etc. Is CUPS recognized when you
run configure ?
> 
> Although the eps views locally with gv as landscape, it then prints as
> portrait also,
> 
> The .ps (from print feature) is displayed with gv as portrait.
> 
> I am able to make it work, by generating a PDF, then using xpdf to create
> the postscript file. Then it prints in landscape as I expect.
> 
> 3) Also I saw some announcements saying it supports "kerning", but I
> couldn't find it for a while in the menus.
> 
> Now I found it in 1.1.1 under Tools->Show Properties. That is more
> clear. I didn't think to look at older "Show Measurements". But I do see
> that right click doesn't give "Modify" any more.
> 
> It would be useful to have right click on text have sub-option for
> kerning, et cetera.
> 
> 4) When I have a image that is png or tiff it will print fine (other than
> it may be pixelated).
> 
> But when I use a pdf or postscript image, gv will display the document and
> then it will show my image on top of the document (and not in correct
> place), then it flashes and the gv document viewer is blank.
> 
> If I print same document, I get blank pages.
> 
> Any ideas why that is happening?

Which version of Ghostscript do you have installed? The newer the
better. As for non-Adobe PDF viewers, in my experience the most useful
in order:

GsView - Don't know if this is available for BSD. This needs the
libgs.so shared object of Ghostscript not the gs executable.

Xpdf - with a local ~/.xpdfrc file with correct freetype settings -
otherwise the fonts look horrible on screen.


> (I can prove example files.)
> 
> 5) With 1.1.1, I can move the image around in the image box. This is good!
> 
> But I don't have right-click "Modify" to change the size. I had to choose
> Tools -> Show Properties and then select "Image". Please consider adding
> to the right-click menu for the image properties.
> 
> I do like how it dynamically scales the actual image as I change it using
> the up/down arrows. :)
> 
> 6) With 1.0.1, I could see the actual typefaces in the Style->Font->Other
> ... selection box. That was useful. Can that be brought back?

See:
http://nashi.altmuehlnet.de/pipermail/scribus/2003-October/002564.html
> 
> Also, my freefonts, like Becker, were detected missing at startup. And I
> was asked to do a font substitution. I worked-around this by using xset to
> reload a new font directory and restarting scribus.
> 
> Thank you to the developers of Scribus. Scribus is getting a lot faster
> and more useful. I am glad to do better desktop publishing under NetBSD.
> 
> My experience is a couple years of Quark Express under MacOS for
> magazine, newsletter, and newspaper layout. I also have a experience with
> Microsoft Publisher, PageMaker, and a few years experience with Serif
> PagePlus.
> 
>    Jeremy C. Reed
>    http://bsd.reedmedia.net/

If you are packaging Scribus for BSD is there a repository we can link
on the Scribus doc pages ? 

Hope that helps,
Peter