[scribus] noob text format question

[John Culleton]

On Tuesday 13 April 2010 19:01:24 Alison Saylor wrote:
> hmm, sounds like good information but i'm afraid i don't know what a
> pdflatex file is nor a .tex file.
>

TeX (note spelling) is the oldest Desk Top Publishing program still in use. 
It has several variations, all included in the TeX package. One popular one 
today is pdflatex. If you have Open Office installed and TeX installed then 
you can export a document from OO Writer in a format suitable for pdflatex. 
The extension on the the file will be ".tex".

The command to convert this file (for example foo.tex) to a pdf document 
will be 
pdflatex foo.tex.

All the formatting will be preserved.  I just created a "Hello  World" 5.5 
x 8.5 in document in OO Writer, exported it as a LaTeX2e document 
"testtest.tex" and then ran:
pdflatex testtest.tex
Then I inspected the document in Acrobat Reader. The entire process took 
only a minute or two.  That's the quickest way home if you are totally 
satisfied with the structure of your original document. 

If you want to play with it however you can export it  odt form, then 
import the .odt file  into Scribus. Scribus is easier to learn than the 
LaTeX variety of TeX by a considerable amount. 

In summary
OO Writer > foo.tex
pdflatex foo.tex > foo.pdf
or 
OO Writer > foo.odt
Scribus (import foo.odt) >foo.pdf

Your choice. 
-- 
John Culleton
"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
Printable E-book 38 pages $5.95
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24676863/
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html