[Scribus] business cards

[ephemeron]

At Mon, 15 Sep 2003 07:21:56 -0700,
Scott Chapman wrote:
> 
> On Sunday 14 September 2003 23:17, Linus Gasser wrote:
> > On Friday 12 September 2003 09:25, ephemeron wrote:

> > > The main application of this feature is the production of
> > > labels and as a side benefit, business cards.  To produce a
> > > printout of, say, twenty business cards all you need is to
> > > lay out one card.  At print time you can then specify that
> > > you want to print out two sheets (2 sheets x 10 cards per
> > > page).
> > >
> > > Would it be possible to have a similar feature in Scribus?
> >
> > Yes, please, include this into scribus. This is something I
> > tried to describe half a year ago and nobody understood me :(
> > So now perhaps it's more clear...
> 
> I like the way PageMaker allows me to do copy and multiple
> paste.  I used that constantly in production to make it so I
> lay up one business card, then copy and paste at X copies at Y
> distance down and then copy those and paste it in as X copies
> at Y distance over.  Very effective for labels and lots of
> other stuff also.

I used to do that for the longest time.  Scribus in its "default"
state can do that too (and when scripted can do much more).  So
no problem there.

However, the most effective solution I've seen is the solution
offered by the label printing tools I've mentioned (trimmed out
of the quoted post: GLabels and KBarcode).  I first encountered
this feature in CorelDraw 7.

The main problem with the copy and paste approach is that you
have to repeat the process each time you make a change to the
"master" card:

(1) Delete the nine other cards on the page.

(2) Change the layout of your "master" card.

(3) Copy and paste the "master" card.  (Without scripting, this
    is a two-step process.  Clone the "master" card 4 times
    vertically and then clone the master and copies once
    horizontally, that is, 5 rows X 2 columns)

(4) Print.

If the ability to print multiple copies per page becomes a print
option feature, steps (1) and (3) are eliminated.