[scribus] Can scribus page/canvas default resolution be lowered?

[Ian "Witty" Whitfield]

randy pare wrote..
> Once again, forgive my intrusion - this stuff is hard to learn.
> Okay, the document I am attempting to create, using scribus, is NOT intended for printing. It will be a PDF shared over the web [an e-zine]. Until now I have always done my layouts using MS Word and am trying to learn DTP software so I can get more creative with my layouts.
> All that being said, I must also add that the graphics I use for my zine are all simple web friendly jpegs. When loading them into scribus, unlike MS Word, they are reduced to illegible, blurry thumbnails. I can only assume this is because the default setting of the page/or canvas [to use an art program term] is very high. For example, the exact same simple jpegs, when added to an MS Word doc - appear larger, are not blurry and can be converted to a PDF for web quite simply. Because MS Word doesn't expect the images to be hi rez.
> What I would like to know - is it possible for the page resolution - the working area itself - to be lowered to web specs? Or should I be searching for other software? I have read instructions about scaling images for export etc etc... none of this is helpful if the environ they are layed out in is too high a rez to begin with.
> Thank you for your time

Scribus' PDF is optimized for print shops and it takes pains to ensure 
that the printed output will look identical on different printing 
presses. The price for this consistency is a _file size_ several times 
larger than straight-forward PDF would be. This tip shows a way to 
reduce the file size so you can put the PDF file on the Web or even 
distribute it by eMail.

I edit and lay out a Journal that, being mostly distributed via eMail 
and on the Web, *must*be as compact as possible. Since the Scribus 
options for minimizing the size, (subsetting fonts and downsampling 
images), do not meet that requirement, I looked for a route to go 
through PostScript and back to PDF that would give better compression, 
and the following, from the Scribus Wiki does a surprisingly good job:

   1.

      Export from Scribus as PDF (1.3 or 1.4), embedding all fonts, no
      font subsetting, no image subsampling → PDF File [6 MB]

   2.

      Convert to PS using `pdftops -level3' → PDF File.ps [huge – over
      50Mb]
      [cd to directory

      pdftops -level3 PDF File.pdf File.ps]

   3.

      Convert back to PDF with 'ps2pdf13 ' and 'Ghostscript' (subsetting
      fonts, subsampling images) → PDF File_compact.pdf [1.5MB].
      [ps2pdf13 File.ps PDF File.pdf]

Hope this helps for you as well as it does for me.

Ian Whitfield