[scribus] 2 questions: master pages & text flow odd/even pages

[John Culleton]

On Friday 07 August 2009 08:59:33 am John Beardmore wrote:
> Ciro Soto wrote:
> > Good information, thanks.
> > My comments are:
> >
> > 1) I am using only one layer (background) in the document, but
> > still can't edit the text frame I
> > created in the master page editor when I am outside the master
> > page editor.
>
> That sounds right.
>
> > From what Greg said,
> > I can't edit any frame created in the master page editor, so I
> > will have to create and edit text frame
> > for each page I add to the document.
>
> That sounds right.
>
> > Does it mean I have to use a
> > template for the page plus the
> > template for the master page? I am confused.
>
> Me too. Personally I'd just edit by hand without any template.
>
> It may be worth seeing if you can set up the sort of text frame
> you need, and copy and paste it onto subsequent pages. That might
> save you some time setting us each page ?
>
> It might also be worth seeing if you can use a script to set up
> all the pages and text boxes ?  Do you know any python ?
>
> > 2) How people have claimed books of 400+ pages using scribus
> > then?
>
> Broken them up into smaller chunks then concatenated multiple
> PDFs externally to make a single one for printing.
>
> > 3) I could split the book in files with one chapter each with
> > few pages each. My question is then,
> > when I combine the pdf files (say I have 5 chapters, so there
> > will be 5 pdf files) (I would combine them
> > using pdftk, for instance)  would each pdf file have the fonts
> > loaded? Would I have 5 times the font information in the final
> > pdf file?
>
> Don't know. I hope not !
>
> > 4) When I said 300+ pages was as an example, my book is really
> > about 100 pages, but my questions
> > still apply.
>
> You might even get away with doing 100 pages in one go, though
> don't depend on it and others may advise you otherwise.
>
> > I appreciate the multiple responses to my questions. thank you.
> >
> :)   No problem -  I'm sure others know more than I do !
>
> Cheers, J/.

If you have pages side by side, and e.g., the left page is in Latin 
and the right page is in English (think old style Catholic Missals) 
then the text on one side should be a direct translation of the 
text on the other.  So linking and flowing the text of both sides 
is not a solution. Very quickly the two text flows would get out of 
sync.   The best you could do is take the more verbose language and
flow it into a series of pages. Then break up the text from the 
other language into matching page size segments and insert each 
segment into the blank page opposite its mate in terms of meaning. 

For  50 pages I would just flow the English text into 25 pages. Then 
I would insert additional pages, one opposite each English page, 
one at a time, and put the pertinent translation on it. 

Scribus is not the DTP tool for all uses. The page length limitation 
is only part of it. There are the questions of footnotes, of 
indexes  (sometimes multiple in the same document), of multiple 
TOCs in the same document, of oversize pdf files and so on. For 
those needs TeX is the instrument of choice at least for me. But I 
love Scribus for book covers, newsletters and the like. 


-- 
John Culleton
Create Book Covers with Scribus/e-book $5.95
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html