[scribus] Help - need a tutorial for "dummies" - ie: newbies

[John Culleton]

On Friday 10 December 2010 16:12:27 randy.pare at rogers.com wrote:
> Hi, really sorry to bug you guys. My name is r. j.
> paré and I have been putting out an art - lit e-zine {RKYV ONLINE}
> for years using MS Word for all my layouts.
> I know, I know it is a word processing program
> with limitations in regards to page layout.

There is an old but excellent tutorial on the website. Did you try 
this?
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Get_Started_with_Scribus
It deals with a newsletter or magazine project.

There are also animated video tutorials. 

Finally, the manual, though expensive is invaluable. I also sell an e-
book in pdf form covering questions of cover design:
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html 

The basic unit in scribus is the page. The first screen you get allows 
you to define the dimensions etc. of a typical page in your document. 
If you are working on an existing Scribus document you can just close 
this screen and bring in the existing sla document via the File menu. 

A document contains pages, a page has one or more layers, and layers 
have frames drawn on them. Frames contain images or text.
 
Each page is by default one layer thick but often it is convenient or 
necessary to add layers. The default layer is white in color but added 
layers start out as transparencies.  

On each layer you can add text frames and image frames. After you 
select the appropriate icon and draw the frame you deal with its 
dimensions, location, background color etc. by right clicking on the 
frame and selecting "Preferences" at the foot of the menu that 
appears. 

You can import images two different ways. In most cases you draw an 
image frame, right click on it, and select "get image". You can then 
adjust the frame to the image dimensions or adjust the image dimension 
to the frame. 

 The other way is through the file menu. You select
File->Import->Get Image 
or File->Import-> Get Vector file. 

Vector files include things like eps, pdf and svg suffixed files.  
Imported images create their own image frame. If you have one of these 
use the file menu and not the image frame method.

When you right click on a text frame you can then select "Edit text". 
This puts you into a special window called the "story editor." You can 
type text, use the enter key to end paragraphs, change the type font 
and size and do many other wonderful things. 

Those are a few of the basic concepts of Scribus. It is page oriented, 
layered and uses frames for entering text and placing images. It is 
more like Quark Xpress, Photoshop or InDesign than it is like word 
processors like MSWord.

I suggest you go to the wiki first and browse around. Come back here 
with specific  questions. We were all beginners once! (Some of us still 
are.)
 
John Culleton, 
 typesetting and indexing http://wexfordpress.com
book sales http://wexfordpress.net
Free  barcode: http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/

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