[scribus-dev] cover.py script for perfect bound book cover design is ready.

[John Culleton]

On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 17:11:39 -0500
Louis Desjardins <louis.desjardins at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi John,
> 
> I am very pleased to see that this awesome idea
> made it into a usable script! It’s great.
> 
> I haven’t had the time to test the script but
> by your notes, a question came across my mind:
> Does (or can) the script create a small text
> frame to show the data used to create the pages
> in human reading? In other words, to make the
> communication complete between the actors of
> the graphic chain, a summary of those values,
> including the resulting value for the spine,
> printed just below the horizontal crop marks?
> This could include a few other values from
> fields like Name of job, number of pages, date
> of creation, the mention "Made with Scribus &
> the Script cover.py", etc.
> 
> This would allow quality control on any value
> and if there are any changes, it’s easy to tell
> if a value is still valid or not and if the
> proof we have in hand still corresponds to the
> reality of the job.
> 
> Subsidiary question:
> While I am happy to see the PPI there, some
> printers will simply give the spine value and
> thus could the user be given the choice of
> entering either values (mutually exclusive) to
> obtain the desired result?
> 
> Are there plans to add an option of the flaps?
> 
> I like the security margins. Does the user get
> an electrical shock when text is placed too
> close to the edge? :-D
> 
> Many thanks for this work and to all who gave a
> hand!
> 
> Louis
> 
> 2014-12-18 15:18 GMT-05:00 John Culleton
> <John at wexfordpress.com>:
> >
> >
> > With the very welcome advice of JLuc and
> > Gregory Pittman and the availability of the
> > spine.py script as a model I have a production
> > version of the script cover.py.
> >
> > In gross this script terms does what what the
> > Perfect Bound Cover extension does for
> > Inkscape users and what my previous
> > template.html did in more limited fashion for
> > Scribus users.
> >
> > The data fields are:
> > 1. Number of pages
> > 2. Pages per inch (PPI) of the interior pages.
> > 3. Finished book width.
> > 4. Finished book height
> > 5. Allowance for the thickness of the cover
> > stock plus some additional distance for the
> > fold. A recommended value is 0.017 inch.
> >
> > The one improvement that I see as useful
> > would be to combine all the data entry fields
> > into one window instead of producing a
> > separate window sequentially for each data
> > field. I don't know how to do this.
> >
> > When the fields are filled out a base document
> > correctly sized becomes the current document
> > for Sribus.
> >
> > FEATURES
> > There are two vertical guides marking off
> > the edges of the spine. There are also
> > vertical guides bisecting  the back cover, the
> > spine and the front cover.
> >
> > There are solid blue margins spaced 0.375 inch
> > from each edge. These margin guides are
> > designed to prevent text and similar entities
> > from approaching too close to the finished
> > edges. The distance consists of the bleed of
> > 0.125 inch plus a safety margin of 0.250 inch.
> >
> > I tested it with Scribus 1.4.5, 1.5.0.
> > Now who wants a copy of the script to bash it
> > around before I submit it for inclusion with
> > the two releases? I'll post it at
> > http://wexfordpress.net
> > Your comments are most welcome.
> >
> > BTW my draft update of the e-book mentioned
> > below suddenly go a lot simpler.
> >
> >
> > John Culleton
> > Wexford Press
> > Free list of books for self-publishers:
> > http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html
> > Updated PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with
> > Scribus 1.4.5" coming soon at
> > http://www.booklocker.com/!
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > scribus-dev mailing list
> > scribus-dev at lists.scribus.net
> > http://lists.scribus.net/mailman/listinfo/scribus-dev
> >

Flaps come in two flavors, what we call French
flaps on a perfect bound cover and the dust
jacket with flaps on a hard case book. In either
case to avoid an overly complex and error prone
script I would prefer to offer a separate script
for each case.

After our annual Christmas Party on Sunday I will
cogitate on each. For the data table I will
investigate tkinter.

-- 
John Culleton
Wexford Press
Free list of books for self-publishers:
http://wexfordpress.net/shortlist.html
Updated PDF e-book: "Create Book Covers with
Scribus 1.4.5" coming soon at
http://www.booklocker.com/!