[Scribus] Some basics?

[Jennifer Baughman]

Matt,

I'm fairly new to Scribus myself, so I can't answer all your questions
-- I'd like to see the answers to your questions about sections myself.

I've found that for text editing, saving in plain text is best. For
formatting, what I do is create the styles I want in Scribus, then
create a text filter as per the instructions here:

http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Laying_out_articles

Then, I designate every paragraph based on the style I want in the text
file. Import as per above, and voila! Almost-instant formatting. It
really doesn't take that long once the initial text filters are set up.

Jennifer

Matt Savigear wrote:
> Hello Scribus users,
> 
> I have just installed Scribus (on Linux) and have some pretty basic
> questions which don't seem to be answered in the docs - they're more
> along the lines of recommendations anyway.
> 
> I want to create a relatively long manual, of perhaps 200 pages all
> told. Now, I know I need to create the text separately (probably by
> chapter) and create tables and picture elements separately, and then
> tie them all together in the scribus frames. No problem.
> 
> There are still a few things I'm unsure of:
> 
> (a) Having made my last efforts using LaTeX I love the document
> structuring features but I was unable to fully get the layout I wanted.
> LaTeX does have some neat features such as automatic section numbering.
> You can generate a section layout such as:
>   2
>    2.1
>      2.1.1
>      2.1.2
>    2.2
>    2.3
>    2.3.1
>   3
> ...and so on, and if you insert a new \section header in the text
> between, say, 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 it will automatically renumber the old
> one at 2.1.3 and keep document integrity. Can this be done in scribus? 
> 
> (b) What do people use for their text editing needs? It seems that the
> cleanest way of doing this is to write in absolutely plain text however
> that makes it difficult to denote chapter and section headings, as well
> as numbered and bulleted lists. Is HTML a good medium? This would allow
> lists and headings without trying to export style information I would
> rather leave to scribus.
> 
> I guess what I am really asking is what is the cost/benefit of using
> scribus? How much more manual layout needs to be done over direct
> content creation in a word processor or markup language?
> Benefit: Vastly better control over document layout.
> Cost:    Loss of a lot of neat automated functionality.
> 
> Of course, what I'd _really_ like to be able to do is import LaTeX
> documents into scribus for layout. That would be very neat indeed!
> 
> Many thanks for any responses!
>