[Scribus] N00b Stupid Table Question

[Paraplegic Racehorse]

Christoph Sch?fer wrote:

>
> Paraplegic Racehorse schrieb:
>
>>
>> It takes a bit of work, but you can build satisfactory and sophisticated
>> tables with the tools already available in Scribus. And don't let these
>> other guys tell you otherwise.
>
>
> Being one of the "other guys", I can tell that I didn't want to
> diminish Scribus' capabilities with respect to tables. But as you
> mentioned, "it takes a bit of work".


I fully understood what you were trying convey. Mostly I made the post
because the dialog contained a lot "cannot" and "does not [yet]" without
mention of how to do things in spite of limitations. That's the kind of
talk that tends keep people away from products, sometimes only
temporarily, but often more or less permanently.

I am not a developer or a professional publisher and I use Scribus for a
bewildering array of personal and company projects; partly because it's
the best thing available within my budgetary constraints. As a user I
want to see things improve, which means building a user-base large
enough to keep the developers interested in adding functionality. That
is difficult to achieve when it seems most of the responses surrounding
"How do I ..." questions get answered with "That hasn't been
implemented, yet" but there exists a way to do it, even if labor-intensive.

> As I understood, John is using InDesign, and compared to ID, Scribus
> is waaay behind with its table features.


Scribus is relatively closely matched with ID or Quark table features,
as I understand the relation between the three (my knowledge level,
here, is admittedly limited.) It is way behind in the automation of
those features, which is entirely different. (Okay, so I like to pick nits.)

> In many production environments, time consuming workarounds aren't
> acceptable, and the bugs of Scribus tables can cause serious problems.


Certainly, they are extremely important in periodical production or
other environments with tight time constraints. However, I've read
several posts from people who are working on personal, vanity, or
in-house-use-only documents where these constraints are much less
critical. For many, an additional few hours or days of work has a
negligible impact.

> Yes, one can already do a lot of things with tables, and I really love
> to work with Scribus. It's a great software, but tables definitely
> need some rework to be able to compete with InDesign.


Agreed, but less in "features" because there is only so much that can be
done with a table. Most of the work is necessarily going to be confined
to automation and time-saver work flows.

> No offence meant :)

No offense taken. :) I guess I'm just getting tired of seeing
less-than-useful answers given on software mailing lists. Rest assured
that if I know how to do a thing in Scribus and I see less-than-useful
responses - especially "can't" or "not yet" - I will post something to
at least get the questioner pointed in the right direction. I probably
will follow-up with an addition to the Wiki, as well.

You "other guys" keep responding to the pros. I'll fill in the gaps and
try to translate jargon for the amateurs.

~ Charles