[scribus] adding imposition tool to Scribus

[Robert Marma]

Hi everyone, 
 
   For whatever it's worth, I would like to insert my "two cents" regarding the 
discussion of the value--or validity--of adding an imposition utility to 
Scribus.  Although still a "newbie" I have laid out pages for several issues of 
a newsletter for a ministry which, unfortunately, is still waiting to get off 
the ground.  The newsletter issues that I expect to produce might range anywhere 
from 4-8 pages, up to perhaps 16-24 pages, laid out two pages per side, printed 
on both sides of "legal-size" sheets, and center bound vertically.  Because I 
was not able to find a free or low-cost imposition utility online I had to 
develop something in BASIC that would graphically work, allowing me to view the 
page orientation necessary to properly assemble each project.  My little 
"utility" appears to work well and can be used on documents of anywhere from 4 
up to 996 pages, the actual page limit being determined only by the limit I've 
arbitrarily imposed upon the page identifier data fields.

   From my very limited perspective, I support including an imposition tool with 
a future Scribus release for two reasons:

 1. Especially for someone like me as an inexperienced Scribus user, it would be 
tremendously helpful to be able to move right into imposition after completing 
my layout, instead of having to launch another application, such as my BASIC 
utility [as simple as it is] OR to begin learning code that would accomplish the 
task in some typography application.  I'm still struggling with familiarizing 
myself with Linux commands, and am not particularly anxious to try learning any 
other types of code at the moment.

 2. Regardless of one's actual level of expertise with Scribus, I would think 
that an imposition tool would be invaluable to those--again, like myself--who 
expect to handle duplication without outsourcing to a print shop, who, I assume, 
would perform the imposition before binding.  I guess I can envision pre-imposed 
work being a problem for the photography involved, but in my case I plan to 
print out "master" sheets of each issue, from which the copies for distribution 
will be run off on a photocopier [Kinkos, Staples, etc.], and then 
hand-collated, hand-assembled, manually bound and finally mailed.  Initially, I 
realize that it will be a crude operation, somewhat labor-intensive, and of only 
marginal quality at best, but the circulation will be low and the mailings will 
be local.  As the ministry grows, both in size and in capital worth, we can 
consider outsourcing.  E-mailing the issues in .PDF format is not out of the 
realm of possibility, as well, especially since I would have to do all of this 
only once every two months.

   So, yes, the idea definitely has my vote.  Those who still would prefer to 
use other methods can continue to do so, but for the rest of us, I believe this 
addition--or at least, a plugin option--would be most welcome. :))  
Unfortunately, I lack the coding skills to implement this change, otherwise I 
would have been happy to give it a try myself.

Bob Marma