[scribus] advice on adding "alt" text

Wayne DePrince Jr. waynedpj at in-giro.org
Thu Apr 24 22:58:26 UTC 2014


On gio, 2014-04-24 at 18:15 -0400, Wayne DePrince Jr. wrote: 

> On gio, 2014-04-24 at 18:02 -0400, Wayne DePrince Jr. wrote: 
> 
> > On gio, 2014-04-17 at 21:28 -0400, Gregory Pittman wrote: 
> > 
> > > On 04/17/2014 07:58 PM, Wayne DePrince Jr. wrote:
> > > >
> > > >   thanks again.  so if i follow correctly, the separate text frames 
> > > > are the only way to do this, as there is no "alternate text" option 
> > > > for vector graphics/etc. in Scribus and PDFs?
> > > >
> > > This is something that would need some expansion of current capabilities.
> > > 
> > > Conceivably, one could now make some annotation frames containing the 
> > > text. This would be searchable in a PDF, but a side effect is the 
> > > appearance of the icon in the document indicating there is a note. 
> > 
> > 
> >     this was my initial idea, but as you say this results in icons
> > throughout the document.
> > 
> > 
> > > Hovering over the note shows you the text, and you can use Edit > Search 
> > > in Adobe Reader to search for some text in a comment. AFAIK, these icons 
> > > never print when you print the PDF. You can hide the comments in the 
> > > PDF, but then they are no longer searchable, so you might need to switch 
> > > back and forth from showing/hiding. By definition, annotation frame text 
> > > doesn't show, so its color in Scribus doesn't matter.
> > > 
> > > Perhaps another but undeveloped option would be to add to the 
> > > capabilities of object attributes, which are currently very limited. 
> > > There still would be only a certain amount of text one could add, and I 
> > > don't know that these attributes end up anywhere in the PDF.
> > 
> > 
> >     thanks for this idea.  i did try adding text via attributes, but it
> > does not seem to show up in the PDF, at least as searchable text.  this
> > would be very useful and a much simpler way to give non-text elements
> > (i.e. polylines, images, etc.) some searchable text metadata.  should i
> > make a feature request?
> > 
> > 
> > > 
> > > And it's worth mentioning that using your method, you can also assign 
> > > text in a frame a color of None.
> > 
> > 
> >     i tried this as well, and while indeed the text is not visible, it
> > is also not searchable when color is set to None.  so far using color
> > Black (or any color besides None) and 0% transparency is the only way i
> > have found to have the text frames hidden while still searchable.
> 
> 
>     after sending this email, on a whim i tried setting the text frame's
> "Saturation of color of text fill" property (found under
> Properties/Text/Color & Effects for a text frame) to 0% while leaving
> the color Black and the frame transparency at 100%.  fortunately this
> works as intended: in the resulting PDF the text frame's text is
> invisible (under its associated vector graphic in my case) but still
> searchable.  this method benefits from the fact that a text frame's
> "Saturation of color of text fill" property can be set as a character
> style, allowing all hidden text to set/updated to an "invisible but
> searchable" style.


    OK, forgive my haste: the "set 'Saturation of color of text fill'
property to 0%" method i described above DOES NOT WORK as intended,
since the text can still be visible on a non-white background or if the
text frame is moved above some graphic, etc..

    thus, it looks like the 0% transparency method is still the leading
candidate for invisible but searchable text.

peace, w


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