[Scribus] Header lines

[Dr. Werner Popken]

>> Did I understand ocrrectly: Master pages cannot contain elements with
>> different content on different pages except page numbers?

> No you didn't understand correctly. A master page can contain the same
> elements as a normal page. The difference is you can't edit items on master 
> page once you applied the master page to a normal page.

Ok, that's what I meant. How would I get different content on a page
using elements of a master page without editing the elements
introduced by that one after it has been applied? No way!

>> If so, how can I apply a "master layout" to include ever the same text
>> frames (left/right) on a page? Do I miss something here? To rest
>> assured, I spent an hour or so skimming through the documents,
>> experimenting, trying to find out, Googling, ... As far as I can see,
>> you can only place text frames automatically when creating a new
>> document. Is this correct?

> Yes and no. If you're working with 1.3.4  (which I wouldn't recommend), you 
> may want to explore the possibilities of "Insert > Frame".

What do you mean? 0h, I see, didn't notice that before. Looks great,
seems to be exactly what I was looking for! I'll try that!

> Why would you want to change each page of a chapter? One left and one right
> page for each chapter, including page numbers, are sufficient.

Well, this may be a question of taste, but if you look at the art of
bookmaking, you will find lots of interesting things. Imagine a book
with 500 pages all looking alike except for the page numbers. The book
certainly has some kind of structure, and you would like to know where
you are with respect to this structure. You would have to look up the
table of contents and compare the page numbers with the page number
you are on to find out -- hopefully your book has a table of contents
;-)

So it is a question of comfort if you know that the left page will
give you the chapter you're in and the right page will give you the
section. You will feel much more comfortably reading the book. You
will know where you are in this structure without having to tediously
find out yourself every time you want to know.

Then there are footnotes which can be handled differently, on a per
page basis, per section basis, per chapter basis or per book basis.
Footnotes traditionally will be placed below the text on the page, if
you use this approach. Recently I saw a solution where the footnote
has been placed in the outer margin, which allowed for placing the
footnote right next to the text where it stemmed from. Very nice!

The outer margin is traditionally used to give an excerpt to the
paragraphs on this page, sometimes only a couple of words, to make it
easier to find something you read earlier and remember only faintly
for an exact quotation.

LaTeX not only cares for a bibliography and an index, but also for a
list of pictures and a list of equations. This doesn't really relate
very much to layout questions, but rather to the structure; in this
sense, the table of contents-mechanism of Scribus definitely
transcends the layout approach. I don't want to push Scribus into
directions it isn't intended for, I just wanted to know if there is an
easy approach to get what I want.

Interestingly, the layout of books in certain parts of the market has
changed significantly during the last 10 years, definitely due to the
availability of powerful software tools. Personally, I'm not very fond
of this development, especially when the design of books approaches
the design of magazines which in turn tends to borrow heavily from the
design of flyers. It ends up having lots of nonrelated elements on a
page, pictures, boxes, symbols, shades, graphic elements, and some
text as well trying to make its way through this maze ;-)

At least the use of background images has diminished; background
images were sometimes used to a degree that you could hardly read the
text. It would be easy to implement something like that with Master
pages ;-)

>> Or is the scrapbook the tool to perform these repeating actions like
>> placing text frames and placing a text frame and an image frame
>> within? If so, is there a trick to place them exactly instead of
>> pushing them around or correcting data via keybord in the properties
>> page?

> No, master pages ;)

Well, as said above, I cannot edit any elements placed on master
pages. I will try the Insert->Frame-method which will allow me to
place a frame and an image frame on every single page, which I can
manipulate later at will. At least I will have to change the image,
and if I don't need an image on the page at all, it would be easy to
get rid of it.

Thanks a lot!

Werner