[Scribus] Arranging Complex EPS files into a larger document?

[PLinnell]

On Friday 03 June 2005 07:17, Greg Novak wrote:
> I deperately want to use Scribus.
>
> I am making a scientific poster, which in practice means collecting
> a bunch of plot and images I've made over the past few months and
> putting them together with a little text and perhaps a few line
> drawings into a nice looking 3ft x 4ft document that I
> will print on a large format printer.  These plots and images tend
> to be EPS files but they can be rather diverse.
>

Avoid images in EPS files. Export hi-res tiff if possible.

> Scribus chokes on the more complex EPS files I feed it.  It takes a
> long time to convert it and there are problems with the images. 
> Even the simpler ones seem to make the text look funny in the
> conversion.
>
Scribus EPS import into native vectors does not handle bitmap images 
yet. Sometimes it may be font related.


> I would in fact be just as happy if Scribus _didn't_ convert the
> EPS files to its native format.  I'm eventually going to export the
> whole thing to Postscript (or at least I have in the past) anyway,
> so if I can just place boxes where I want the plots and then have
> them show up in the Postscript output, that'd be great.
>
> As it stands, the only program I can find that seems to do what I
> want is... Xfig.
>
> So I guess I'm asking asking:
> 0) Am I crazy for trying to do what I'm trying to do?  Ie, is there
> a much better approach that I'm not seeing?

No.

> 1) General tips for dealing with importing EPS files and arranging
>    them into larger documents?  Should I convert them to something
>    else first?  I'd like to avoid rasterizing them.

See below.
> 2) Any links to battle-hardened tools for converting between vector
>    file formats?
>
Converting is the difficult part, especially for more complex PS 
files.

> Thanks for any guidance,
> Greg

The first step is to ensure you have the latest GS 8.51. Depending on 
your distro, you might want to do a parallel install. Hints here:

http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&sm=dtptoolbox&page=toolbox7

There are sometimes dramatic differences in the EPS import quality 
with GS 8.x vs 7.x

Peter

Peter