[scribus] a new ebook

[Jan Schrewe]

On 11 June 2012 15:03, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:

> On 06/11/2012 08:25 AM, Peter Nermander wrote:
> >> It's called single source methodology :) Typeset once, read everywhere.
> >
> > Isn't that what DocBook and SGML would do 5-10 years ago?
> >
> > Since Scribus is a page layout software I can not see why Scribus
> > would be the right tool to adopt the layout for different forms of
> > media...
> >
>
> I think an argument for this could go something like this...
>
> Since Scribus requires the most precise positioning, sizing, and so on
> of an arrangement of text, images, and graphics, it would make some
> sense to start with Scribus, then, depending on other sorts of output,
> there would be some rules for loosening up the precise placement of
> objects, based on the type of format or device that the end product is
> intended for.
>
> For example, there is no sense in trying to very carefully arrange the
> elements for an ebook, since you can't predict the various settings that
> the reader will have on his device.
>
> If you started with an ebook, then wanted to convert to a nice layout
> such as Scribus can create, there are so many parameters to consider
> that this could not be some kind of automated process.
>

Somehow I get the feeling that scribus shouldn't be the starting point for
some kind of content workflow (which creating ebooks is part of), but the
endpoint. Meaning it is certainly a good idea to connect scribus to some
kind of content repository and if ebooks can be produced from that
repository that would be great too.

The problem with ebooks is that – as far as I can tell from looking at my
kindle – there is virtually no design involved. What you can do is set the
image size, but that is also problematic because you don't really know
anything about the device the ebook is displayed on. So what producing an
ebook boils down to is writing syntactically and semantically html/xml and
finding sensible defaults for the embedding of images and other media.

Personally I believe that the publishing experience and creativity of the
scribus community would be better focused on thinking about the
infrastructure around scribus and not trying to use scribus as the central
piece of infrastructure.


>
> Greg
>
>
Jan
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