[Scribus] Problems loading text into Scribus

[Craig Bradney]

On Sunday 09 September 2007 10:34:18 Craig Ringer wrote:
> David Bodwell wrote:
> > I'm very much of a newbie at this DTP stuff, but I'm pretty darn computer
> > literate.  I have to admit that Scribus has absolutely stumped me.
> >
> > All the documentation says that you can import OpenOffice.org text
> > documents (.odt) directly into Scribus.  My problem is this:  I open a
> > new Scribus document, insert a text box, them import my text file?so far,
> > it works?but then when I go to that text box I find that ALL the text
> > file is in the first page text box, all 40 pages of it!  No matter what I
> > do, I can't seem to get this file onto multiple pages in Scribus, the way
> > it is in the word processor.  HELP!
>
> Scribus cannot import ODT documents as layouts. It can only import the
> text from them. The documentation probably needs to be clearer about
> this for new users.
>
> You need to create multiple pages, create text boxes on the pages, and
> flow the text to them by linking the text boxes. It's a layout app; it's
> presumed that you won't want to just dump the text anywhere on the page,
> but will have a specific idea of how you wish to place it.
>
> Alternately, if you enable automatic text frames at document creation
> time (it can not be done later) and import the text into the frame
> that's created for you when the document is created, pages should be
> created as required to contain the text.
>
> It'd be helpful if you could describe your goal as well as your
> immediate issues, since then perhaps better informed and more useful
> suggestions could be offered.
>
> > The second problem is that even if I COULD get it into multiple pages,
> > Scribus strips ALL of the footnotes.  This is one I must be able to
> > overcome to be able to use Scribus, as the text file I'm working with has
> > numerous footnotes.
>
> The missing footnotes are an issue with the Scribus importer. In many
> ways Scribus really isn't ideal for long document work yet. I do not
> know how to work around this if it can be practically worked around.

AFAIK, footnotes are now imported (at the end of the text) with 1.3.3.10svn 
and 1.3.5svn.

In 1.3.4+, the Insert Frame dialog would allow multiple linked frame creation 
without using automatic text frames from the start.

Craig