[scribus] Long book project in Scribus on 64 Studio

[Daniel James]

Hi all,

I've long been a Scribus fan, using the program for short documents, of 
only a few pages. Many years ago I used to lay out books using Quark.

Now I'm attempting to lay out a 300 page plus A5 book, all text and no 
pictures. I'm using Scribus 1.3.3.12svn in our 64 Studio 2.1 distro 
(Debian Etch based). I believe our 2.1 release was slightly before the 
final Scribus 1.3.3.12 release, hence the package version number.

At the moment I'm up to about 90 pages, and navigation through the 
document is already quite slow, for example after clicking in a text 
frame. The page up and page down keys aren't always responsive either. 
I'm running the software on a dual Opteron 240 with 1GB RAM, so the 
hardware isn't particularly slow. Also, opening the document is very 
slow, taking a minute or two.

I've already disabled all the fonts in Preferences -> Fonts except the 
ones I'm using. Are there any other speed-up tips I could try? I notice 
that each text frame is treated as a separate layer, even though they 
don't overlap - perhaps that doesn't help.

I'd be very happy to document the process, to help other people working 
on long book projects. I already have one tip...

When setting up page numbering in Edit > Master Pages, the Scribus 
documentation 
(http://documentation.scribus.net/index.php/Page_Numbering) suggests 
using two hash characters for double-digit page numbers, and three 
hashes for triple-digit page numbers. This would imply using different 
master pages, depending on the page number in the project, which could 
get complicated if you moved pages around the document. In fact, you can 
use three hashes on all master pages, and Scribus will ignore the 
redundant digits on pages 1 to 99.
Note that typing a ordinary hash character into the box on the master 
page does not work; you need to use Insert > Character > Page Number, or 
the appropriate keyboard shortcut for your installation.

I can add this tip to the Scribus wiki if people think it's useful.

Cheers!

Daniel