[scribus] issue with Scribus' justification (WAS: move pages to new doc)

[john Culleton]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:13:36 +0200
Jean Mielot <j.mielot at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 20/01/2012 09:42, ale rimoldi wrote:
> > hi hean
> >
> >> Still have a big issue with Scribus' justification - which is make
> >> or break for me - but next week I'll experiment and see if I can
> >> get it where I like it.
> > what's the issue? i don't recall hearing you talking about it... :-)
> >
> > ciao
> > a.l.e
> 
> Hi a.l.e
> 
> This is a BIG issue for me.
> I'm just on deadline today for the mag (ironically called The Big
> Issue) After today I will get back to you with some screenshot
> examples of where the justification issue lies - it really is a
> problem for me. My editor wants me to go back to Indesign for this
> reason - and I really don't want to :-(
> 
> Anyways...will be an interesting discussion for sure.

InDesign uses the TeX pragraph-at-a-time algorithms for
justification. Unless and until Scribus adopts a similar approach
then it will not have justification  equivalent to what TeX etc.
has. There is a "Render" thingamabob in Scribus that allows
access to TeX, specifically (and IMO unnecessarily) the LaTeX
version thereof. But since the objective of the Scribus designers was to 
use the TeX mathematical layout capability the other good things
like wide font selection were left out. 

I would be possible to lay out a paragraph or a page in TeX (e.g.
luatex for greater font selection) and import the pdf to a
Scribus page. But that means giving up on the other Scribus
goodies like different colors for the outline and the fill,
stretching or compressing the font and so on. And it means using
two independent DTP programs to produce one product. 

I would suggest that if the InDesign programmers were able to
work paragraph-at-a-time  justification into their product the
Scribus mavens could do likewise. But it would be a significant
effort. But without that capability, and microtypography etc. 
Scribus won't be a strong competitor for book work when compared
to InDesign and TeX. 

Another area that has to be cleaned up before I would lay out a
big book in Scribus, the sluggish response when the page count 
is large. And I lay out lots of books. 

 
-- 
John Culleton
Free list of books for self-publishers:
http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html

"Create Book Covers with Scribus"
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