[Scribus] Setting a thesis in Scribus (ver. 1.3.3.2 dev)?

[Rob Kemp]

On Wednesday 12 July 2006 01:17, scribus-request at nashi.altmuehlnet.de wrote:

> I will be writing a thesis this year

Is it a masters thesis? So not too long?

> and I would like to receive some ? 
> advice as to how to do it in Scribus. I am used to Corel DRAW! and word ?
> processors (MS Word and OOo Writer).

My advice (having completed a 90,000 word thesis about two years ago) would be 
to avoid anything that formats the text for you while you write. It will most 
likely involve lots of fiddling around at the end.

You probably need a fairly conservative, dull, repetitive layout to comply 
with your institution's regulations and if so I can't see the purpose in 
using a program like Scribus. Despite the initially unfamiliar working 
environment you would probably find Latex a lot easier to get consistent 
results with. If you have a good editor (possibly - dare I say it? Emacs with 
AucTex) you can automate a good deal of the tagging needed.

Once you have got to grips with a few conventions (a couple of days playing 
around would probably do it) you will be able to work much quicker and, 
critically, pay attention to what you're writing rather than to what it looks 
like. I would recommend getting a Latex book for reference though.

This advice is valid for a long thesis like mine. But it probably doesn't 
apply so much to a 10,000-word MA thesis.

Rob

-- 
Rob Kemp
rpkemp at ntlworld.com