[Scribus] Q; Why does import from Inkscape/SVG look so different in Scribus?

[avox]

Hello Doc!

Thanks for giving Scribus a try. I'll try to address some of your problems
inline.


D. R. Evans-3 wrote:
> 
> Sorry about the tedious length of this posting. Those who are particularly
> bored can either skip to the PPS or ignore me all together.
> 
> Gregory Pittman said the following at 06/12/2006 02:13 PM :
> 
>> Importing SVGs remains a bit of a work-in-progress, with various 
>> features not or poorly implemented. What Scribus version are you using?
> 
> 1.2.1 (the version that comes with Official Mandriva 2006.0)
> 

You should use recent 1.3.3.2. The development branch has a lot of
improvements
which make it much more pleasant to work with. The latest stable version is
1.2.4
(1.2.5 coming soon) which has a LOT of bug fixes compared to 1.2.1.
Unfortunately
distributions don't release as often as Scribus. :-)

The development branch is very stable (i.e. no crashes) compared to other
applications. 
We put some effort in keeping the develepment versions in a state where you 
can use them for work.



>>> So I have a very simple question: when I "Import" this into a 6" x 9"
>>> Scribus document, it looks completely different than the way it looks
>>> when
>>> I view it in Inkscape:
>>>
>>> 1. I can't see the text or the pistol on the screen, just what appear to
>>> be
>>> bounding boxes for the text.
>>>   
>> I saved then imported your svg to Scribus 1.3.3.2, and saw the pistol 
>> and printed it OK, but it was displaced all the way to the right. 
>> Perhaps yours is completely outside the bounding box for the SVG, or 
>> hiding behind one of the other frames.
> 
> Dunno; it looks fine when I open the file in Inkscape, so doesn't that
> sort-of mean that everything is OK? It seems to me like if I were to
> change/move anything, it would no longer be right in Inkscape -- not that
> that matters, except that I was using Inkscape to generate the page.
> 

For import Scribus has to translate SVG to Scribus's internal data
structures.
This process was improved in 1.3.x but still isn't perfect (I think others
have 
listed some of its limitations, f.ex. text).



> Maybe I'm bringing the file into Scribus in the wrong way? I'm simply
> doing
> an "Import SVG".
> 

Sometimes importing EPS gives better results, at least in 1.3.3.2. Current
limitations in EPS import are gradients, some bitmap images, bitmap and
type3 
fonts and large bodies of text.



> I really want to use Scribus to build the cover (something that was
> recommended here a couple of weeks ago when I first asked about using
> Scribus to build the entire book -- the basic recommendation seemed to be
> "don't use it for the book, but use it for the cover"), but if it's this
> tricky even to do a simple SVG with just one figure and one kind of text,
> I'm beginning to think that I should be using something like the Gimp
> instead (although the thought of building an entire cover with the Gimp
> doesn't fill me with delight).
> 
>> The text cannot be seen because it's too big for the size of its frame. 
> 
> Right, RESET... I'm going to try to go through this step by step. So...
> 
> I'm being terribly dense, I'm afraid. What do you mean? Drat! Scribus just
> crashed. Hang on...
> 
> OK... so I just created a new 6" x 9" document. The SVG file on the web
> fits comfortably in a 6" x 9" page (I created in a 6" x 9" Inkscape page).
> So I just imported it and dragged it on to the blank page, and when I
> released the mouse button, I get the blank bounding boxes. Which frame is
> too small? And what in the above process did I do that resulted in a frame
> that's too small?
> 

I'd have to guess here. a) Scribus probably uses margins which reduce the 
area of 6" x 9". From what you say your graphics should be considerably
smaller 
than 6" x 9", so I guess it'S rather: b) Scribus get's font import wrong
which 
causes text to need more space than in the original SVG. 



>> Enlarging each frame will allow them to appear. If you can, it's 
> 
> Which frames exactly? There's a big frame that has a red border, whose
> size
> I can adjust (slightly) before it goes off the page, but that doesn't seem
> to make any difference. I don't seem to be able to select the various
> bounding boxes individually, so I don't think you mean those.
> 
>> recommended that you insert text features in Scribus, rather than 
>> putting them in the SVG -- you will get better results anyway. 
> 
> I tried that -- in fact, I initially didn't intend to use Inkscape at all,
> but I found Scribus to be impossibly terse: the very first thing I did was
> to open Scribus and imported the pistol directly from the open clipart
> library at openclipart.org. Then I needed to reflect and rotate the
> pistol,
> but spent 15 minutes trying to find a command or any documentation that
> would tell me how to do that in Scribus -- and failed :-( That's when I
> decided to add the Inkscape step.
> 

You might have more success in Scribus 1.3.3.2.



> Maybe it's just that there's a heap of Scribus documentation somewhere,
> and
> I have yet to find it??
> 

Scribus comes with the same documentation which is available at 
http://docs.scribus.net . There are additional tips & tricks and howtos
on http://wiki.scribus.net .
Some distributions separate Scribus from its documentatio because of
licence issues. In that case there should be an additional package
"scribus-doc".



> So instead of trying to fix the import from Inkscape, let me back up and
> ask a simpler question: where is there Scribus documentation that actually
> describes how to use it *in gory, gruesome detail*?
> 

Unfortunately that part of Scribus isn't documented yet. Most functions are
available via the Properties Palette. For your problem I'd advice to flip &
rotate
the pistol in Inkscape, save as "simple SVG" and import to Scribus. 
Positioning and scaling should be easy enough in Scribus.

Generally:
* Design vector graphics in Inkscape or a similar program, export as SVG or
EPS.
* Design images in Gimp or similar program, export as TIF, JPEG (for photos)
or 
  PNG (mainly for screenshots and graphics which don't need exact colors).
* Use layers in Scribus.
* Import, place and scale in Scribus.
* Create text in Scribus's story editor or import with Get Text.
* Preview, Preflight, then print to file (PS) or export to PDF.

HTH and don't give up on Scribus yet!

/Andreas
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