[scribus] Aligning text to baseline, or to other objects

[Gregory Pittman]

On 08/18/2012 06:14 AM, Jason Heeris wrote:
> I've been using Scribus for a while now, after having used Inkscape for a
> long time before that. I alternate between 1.4.1 and 1.5.0.svn depending on
> the features I need (both from the listed PPAs, under Ubuntu 11.10). I have
> a couple of questions about text handling.
>
> 1. Scribus always aligns text boxes by the box boundaries, not by the text
> within it. I see how this makes sense, but is there any way to align the
> *contents* of the text box, rather than the box itself? For example, if I
> want to perfectly centre text inside a rectangle (horizontally and
> vertically)... well, I don't know how to do that. If I try to resize the
> text box to be as close as possible to the edges of the text, usually the
> text will disappear before the box is small enough.
You might do better to use Text Distances, in a sub-tab under Properties 
 > Text, and adjust Top, Left, and Right distances.

I wrote a script that automatically centers text vertically by adjusting 
the Top distance. It will only work with fixed linespacing, though a 
workaround would be to use automatic linespacing, then match the setting 
of fixed spacing, then run the script.

http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Centering_text_vertically_in_a_frame

> 2. Inkscape allows you to align multiple text elements to their common
> baseline or leading edge. The only thing I can find like that in Scribus is
> the baseline grid, but that's common to all text, you can't use it for
> different sizes of text, and doesn't work on text running at 90°. Are there
> other methods or tricks I can use to align specific text elements to a
> common baseline? What about leading edge?

This is trickier. I checked to see if locking a frame would lock the 
linespacing, but it doesn't. It would be nice if a given baseline grid 
could be layer-specific, but there's no such thing.
I think you're stuck with manual methods, such as using guides, where 
you might visually line up lines with a guide, or if you use the frame, 
align that to the guide. Check out Windows > Align and Distribute.

Greg