[Scribus] Resolution of PDF image

[Carol Kankelborg]

At 21:09 +0200 5/25/04, Craig Bradney wrote:
>On Tue, 2004-05-25 at 20:51, Carol Kankelborg wrote:
>> I am converting my audio tape collection to CD. iTunes allows you to print out
>> a CD case insert for the front, but not for the part that fits under the plastic on the back
>> and side of a standard jewel case.  I am working on a template in Scribus for the part.
>> I am using iTunes to generate a PDF of the "CD jewel case insert: Text only (black and white)".
>> This PDF prints out just fine and is a sharp black and white image.   In the template, I
>> make an image box and put the iTunes-generated PDF into it.  I don't scale it since the song listing
>> is the right size in the original, I just shift the position so the song listing is centered in the back panel
>> of the CD case insert.  But, when I print or generate a PDF from scribus, the song listing is fuzzy. 
>> It looks like it has been turned into gray-scale.  I've compared the iTunes PDF and the Scribus PDF
>> at 800% and the difference is quite clear.
>>
>> Am I doing something wrong in this process?  What is causing the PDF to lose quality?
>> (I am on Mac OS 10.2.8, Apple X11b3, and Scribus 1.1.6.)
>
>What resolution is the PDF you are including, what resolution are you
>exporting at and what version of ghostscript is installed?
>

Craig,

I don't know the resolution of the PDF that iTunes creates.  Is there any way to find out?
For scribus, I was creating the PDF with 300 dpi resolution.  ghostscript is 8.00 (via fink).

Your questions triggered a thought, and I tried generating the PDF from scribus with 600 dpi.
The results were much better, but not quite as crisp as printing the iTunes PDF.  I showed the
Scribus PDF printout to my husband who said, "It looks like an image."  By pulling a PDF file
into an image box in Scribus, does it turn the contents into an image?  Does it matter if you
have the whole PDF visible or if you effectively crop it (like I am doing) by having the image
box size smaller than the PDF?  Is there any way around this?  Or am I just stuck with this
problem because Scribus is doing what it is supposed to do -- treat the imported PDF as an image?

Now for the oddities I discovered in this process.
I printed out the file directly from Scribus.  Under "Options..." the resolution was 600 dpi.
The iTunes PDF part of the printout was grayscaled and fuzzy, about the same as the PDF
generated by Scribus at 300 dpi.  I also generated a PDF from Scribus with a resolution of 600 dpi.
This took quite a while to generate.  I then printed out that PDF.  This printout differed from printing
directly from Scribus in two ways.  First, the iTunes PDF part was much crisper -- not quite as crisp as
printing the iTunes PDF directly but close.  Shouldn't the two outputs be the same?

Second, the portion of some lines which extend into the
margins in the Scribus file were printed.  I specified not to print stuff that was outside the margins, but
the generated PDF ignored that directive.  Printing directly from Scribus obeyed it.  Is this a known bug
or something I should report?

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Carol
-- 
======================================================================
Carol Kankelborg                           | There are 10 kinds of people: those who
cckborg1 at alumni.lehigh.edu         |  understand binary and those who do not.