[Scribus] Scribus and Trapping?

[Louis Desjardins]

Stewart Noy a ?crit :

> Does Scribus currently have any tools/methods for handling trapping? This is
> a fairly new (yet another) concept for me. When does trapping become an
> issue.
> For instance I have many many drawings including round Bezier Curves
> (smaller ones about 5mm x 4mm) within my doc that have a light brown (R231,
> G230, B113) colour and a black line (0.6pt).
> Would I require trapping here? Would changing the border to say a dark brown
> (R17, G78, B7) instead of black solve this, or am I understanding this all
> wrong?

Hi Stewart,

Scribus currently does not handle trapping [chokes and spreads]. This 
feature is not in the roadmap for the current development series but it 
is included in the desideratas as "roadmap suggestions". Please refer to 
the wiki for more details. At the same time please note that version 
1.3.4 has a nice addition in the color tab for overprint and knockout 
which is an essential part of the trapping feature.

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

While the issue has a fair potential for discussion, and while the big 
DTP players of this world do have trapping options built-in, trapping is 
generally handled at pre-press level. Many printers prefer to handle 
trapping at RIP level and will use in-rip trapping. Begin parenthesis: 
It might be advisable to implement such a feature further downstream, 
once the PDF is created, and not in the editing process, at the Scribus 
level. But again, this paves the way to a nice discussion! End parenthesis.

The reason for this is trapping is a specialized task for prepress techs 
and unaware users can just do worse while being full of good will.

A few things to consider in the case you are submitting :
1. Is your job going to be printed on a digital press (where trapping is 
a minor (or not an) issue) or on an offset sheetfed press? or even worse 
wrt trapping on a web press?
2. Is your job going to be printed in CMYK or as spot colors?
3. How small are the objects you wish to trap?
etc.

In any event, it would be a good idea to discuss the case with your 
printer. For this, a color proof will be enough to help spot the 
eventual problems.

Hope that helps (HTH)

Louis


> 
> Stewart


-- 
Louis Desjardins
Mardigrafe inc.
Graphisme et impression ?cologique
T 514 934 1353
F 514 934 3698
www.mardigrafe.com