[Scribus] presentations

[Gregory Pittman]

I have now done a couple of presentations creating PDF files with
Scribus. While the end results are excellent, the process needs
automation, or at least semi-automation beyond the features from within
Scribus.

Thomas Zastrow's suggestions are useful, yet still lead to crafting each
slide individually. Presentations, in contrast to many other uses of
Scribus, end up with a number of pages with relatively little text in
any frame. The idea of generating numerous little text files is very
cumbersome, so it more or less requires inserting and editing (or
copying and editing) text in Scribus, which itself is cumbersome and
frustrating at times.

I am in the process of writing a Perl program to auto-generate .sla
files which then can be further edited by Scribus. The main features I
am interested in are pretty straightforward in the files. There are many 
variables that are a mystery, though.*

The starting point will be a standard page size (600pt by 450pt), a
selected list of fonts on my system with at least a default size
suitable for projection. Background color(s) and absence/presence of a
gradient will be selectable. I want to start with a background
slide-size box free of text as suggested by Thomas, then (at first) only
one superimposed box.

Since Scribus can auto-align side margins that aspect will be easy, but
I would also like to have automatic vertical centering within the text
box -- this may require selecting or autoadjustment of text size as well.

It should also be easy to generate a temporary file to be able to view 
an individual slide in the making using scribus. At first I just want to
generate text frames, but adding other objects will eventually be
feasible. I'll share this when I have a program that actually
accomplishes something. So far I can generate a single slide/page file 
that Scribus can display.

Gregory Pittman

* Is there anywhere to find out what all the various elements are in an
.sla file?