[Scribus] Linespacing issues

[Branko Vukelic]

On Wednesday 13. December 2006. 22:36, Clayborne Arevalo wrote:
> I think the way Scribus handles linespacing isn't optimal for
> multi-column layouts.
>
> For example, let's say I create a line with 12pt text at 36pt
> linespacing. If the line is the first line in the text box,
> Scribus will ignore the huge linespacing I specified for the
> text (36pt) and instead use the height of the text as linespacing
> (12pt). Scribus will only honor the linespacing if it's not on
> the first line of the text box.
>
> This makes it difficult to align multi-column layouts.
>
> Imagine the following scenario: I have a "Section Head" style
> with 14pt text at 24pt linespacing. For my "Normal Text" style I
> have 10pt text at 12pt linespacing. If Scribus honors my 24pt and
> 12pt linespacing everywhere it occurs, then I will have not much
> trouble aligning my text, since obviously:
>
> 12pt x 2 = 24pt.
>
> However, with Scribus's current behavior of ignoring linespacing at
> the top, I have to manually reposition the text box if I want my
> columns to finish evenly at the bottom since the first line will
> have a linespacing of 14pt rather than 12pt.

If I understand you correctly, Scribus doesn't offer any way of specifying the 
offset of first line from the top of the box?

I find this to be slightly inconvenient, too. For example, InDesign, that I 
use at work, offers the following choices:

1. Cap Height (this is what I usually work with): height of letter T (or H), 
for example.
2. Leading (line height)
3. x height
4. ascender...

Maybe there is something else, but the above is what I use, depending on the 
particular problem. This is much faster to work with than repositioning 
boxes.

Also, a nice feature is to be able to specify different baseline grids for 
different boxes.

Now, I did read the part about Scribus not being a clone of DTP app XYZ, but I 
think these are more generic features that could be included in future 
releases.

Just my 2 cents.