[scribus] Confused on how to insert/delete pages

[John Beardmore]

Gregory Pittman wrote:
> John Beardmore wrote:

>> I share your problem in that I use Scribus to put technical reports 
>> together, and sometimes, (probably usually !), things get inserted at 
>> a late stage as things evolve.
>>
>> This seems to offend the layout purists who feel that Scribus should 
>> ONLY be used for layout once all the elements that will be in the 
>> final draft of a document are available, and further, seem to feel 
>> that Scribus should make little if any compromise to any other way of 
>> working.
 >
> This is not a matter of any "layout purists" dictating anything.

Well -  there have been some rather disparaging comments about the way I 
work, mostly from those in production environments where editing and 
layout are clearly separable. There seems to be an embedded assumption 
that is you don't work their way you are in some sense doing it the 
wrong way.

And there have for example been views expressed that Scribus shouldn't 
have a spelling checker because it just encourages the malpractice of 
editing in the layout tool.  If these people had their way, that would 
certainly have an impact on my way of working. You can call that 
"dictating" or not at your discretion.

I may be a bit touchy about this, but it frustrates me that some people 
seem so keen to tell me that there is 'something wrong with my work flow 
or practices' as opposed to acknowledging that 'the tools I can source 
are not [yet quite] optimal for my way of working'.  When stable Scribus 
has the spelling checker, they will be pretty nearly optimal however !


> When 
> you paint yourself into a corner, it doesn't do any good to blame the 
> paint, the brush, or the room.

I'm not painting myself into a corner. Rather I'm working in the way I 
find most effective and comfortable. That needn't preclude things 
getting better though, either by me improving, or the tools used.

In the way I work, layout and text frequently co-evolve, and 
intermediate drafts with the 'layout so far' can be discussed with 
clients etc.  Works for me.


> And what answer do you expect from 
> another painter?

Cubism ?  Who knows ?  Artists are not always polite about each others 
styles or genres !

:)   I don't expect such passionate objection to things like spelling 
checkers though.  I know that this opposition hasn't come from the 
developers, but none the less, the view has been expressed.

There is no 'one true way to enlightenment' when it comes to document
preparation, and there are those of us that don't come from a
conventional press work flow environment, who see DTP as 'document
preparation without the many defects of word processors', as opposed
to a discrete step in a process that must necessarily involve as many
tools as job descriptions.


> Perhaps it's better not to initially create left and right pages, but 
> just individual ones, until you get the content set, then make your left 
> and right page layout afterward.

Yes -  that may be a sensible approach if the intermediate documents 
aren't going to be bound, and in some some of my early documents where I 
was trying to check that Scribus was up to the job, my rush to confirm 
that left and right master pages worked as expected may not have helped.

However, this is not so handy for documents that get updated 
periodically.  In this situation I would have thought moving page object 
to follow the revised guides when master pages are reapplied would be a 
handy option, though the lack of it isn't show stopping.


> Maybe you can divide the work into 
> sections and add blank pages as needed.

Not sure what you mean by sections ?  The stuff I work on is in logical 
sections, but I've never had performance issues that would drive me to 
split into multiple SLA files, so to date I've always worked in a single 
SLA, and just insert pages as needed.

I do sometimes add pages in pairs to reduce the amount of manual 
reformatting required, but it does mean that some intermediate drafts 
that get printed off have blank pages.


> As with many other things, there 
> are many ways to use Scribus.

Agreed !


Cheers, J/.
-- 
John Beardmore, MSc EDM (Open), B.A. Chem (Oxon), CMIOSH, AIEMA, MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
Consultancy and Installation, Carbon Trust Standard Registered Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332   Mobile: 07785 563116   Skype: t4sustainability