[Scribus] Using text frames from templates

[Carol Kankelborg]

Alexander Roberts wrote:

> I'm probably/hopefully missing something extremely obvious here:
> I'm making a ~160 page yearbook for our school, so ~100 pages are all 
> identical in layout, e.g. text box with 2 colums and a second text box 
> for the title.
> So, i've set up a template for this, on the basis that i'll be able to 
> add 100 pages to the document based on this template, then just get-text 
> for each page.
> The problem is I can't seem to select the text box that is part of the 
> template.
> 
> Is this because i'm doing something wrong, or you can't do that in scribus
> 
> Thanks,
> Alex

Unfortunately, templates are not editable. You might have better luck
with a scriptable "template" as I think has been recently discussed. (I
didn't follow the thread too closely, but I think it is the same concept
as I used to implement repetitive design elements.) My project was a
booklet highlighting each missionary our church supports. Each page
was the same layout.

First, I designed the page in scribus -- text box sizes, paragraph styles,
how the information would be laid out. There were some design elements
that would not be edited -- a shaded gradient at the top of the page, some
lines -- which I put in true template. For the other elements -- text 
boxes --
I created a script to recreate them.

I created enough pages for the booklet and assigned the true templae.
Then I ran the script.
The script went to each page, created 5 text boxes, created columns
as needed, and linked the text boxes. Each box was given a unique name.
My scribus version is 1.2 from fink (on Mac OS 10.2.8) so I didn't have
access to scripter commands to assign paragraph styles to text boxes.

After creating the "templates," I went to each page, did "Get Text" from
the top text box, went into the Story Editor, manually assigned paragraph
styles (which I set up beforehand), and voila. The text for each 
missionary
was in a separate text file almost like a simple database -- each line 
was for
a specific piece of data (address, e-mail, country of ministry, etc.) 
If a piece
of data wasn't available, the line was blank. This allowed the text 
boxes to
be linked and let the text flow through them. If I were more savvy in 
Python,
I might have been able to read the directory of missionary files and 
do "Get
Text" from the script as well, but I decided to do it manually instead.

I tend to find overly complicated ways of doing things, so there might 
be a
better way to have done this. It worked for me and saved me a lot of time.

I've attached the script as an example. It assumes a page size
of 7" wide x 8.5" high (half a sheet of legal paper).

-- 
Carol Kankelborg 
cckborg1 at kankelborg.net
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