[Scribus] Vertical alignment of text in frame

[Louis Desjardins]

2007/6/30, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>:
>
> I'm just starting with Scribus, version 1.3.3.8 on Ubuntu Feisty amd64.
>
> For my first serious project I am doing a book cover. I need to place a
> text frame, rotated, in the spine area. The page width is 12 inches and
> the spine will be 1/2 inch, so I set guides at 5.75 inches and 6.25
> inches. I created a frame, typed the title into the frame, then rotated
> it 270 degrees. I dragged it in between the guides, then used the mouse
> to drag the width (originally height) of the frame so it is now 1/2
> inch, fitting neatly between the guides.
>
> So far, so good. But I need the text centered vertically in the frame.
> I could kludge it by setting the inside margins for the frame,
> experimenting until I got it close enough. But it sure would be a lot
> faster, simpler, and more accurate if I could just set the properties
> for the frame to "vertically centered text." I poked all over Scribus
> and I looked through the wiki, but I can't find this feature. Does it
> exist? If so, where'd y'all hide it?


Hi John,

While I agree 100% we need such a settings to allow fast vertical centering
of text I think it's advisable to note that automatic accuracy is not the
point in the case of a spine. I don't think such a settings would be as
helpful as you might think in the case of a book spine for at least two good
reasons: 1) the font used (and flavor of this font, including point size and
caps use?all caps? caps and lowercase?, etc.) and 2) how this vertical
center option would act on this specific font. The mathematics behind the
scene will in some cases give excellent results, in others, no. This feature
has proven its utility in other apps but at the same time it has weaknesses
only a human eye can correct.

One way to get around this with Scribus (and any other DTP app) is to put a
guide in the center of the spine and then position precisely the text frame
using the arrows or the mouse wheel in order to get the visual center of the
type onto that centering guide. It will take seconds to achieve. Then, I
would suggest you hard proof this and get the real feel of that spine by
folding the proof on the folding marks.

In some cases the text frames are really the boundaries of the text and in
others such as in this case they are only a text holder we can freely
adjust. There is no problem to have a text frame for a spine being larger
than the spine itself or going off the spine margins. It's the text we are
caring about, not the text frame.

HTH

Louis

PS, the barcode generator is very handy!
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