[scribus] Styles, grid and baseline

[Rolf-Werner Eilert]

Am 15.01.2014 21:53, schrieb JLuc:
> Hello,
>
> I allways define and use styles for all element types,
> and the simplest possible designs... when possible.
> Generaly the basis of the design is : chapter title, subtitle,
> introduction and text on 1 or 2 columns,
> with inter paragraph titles of 2 levels
> and images or other elements not important here.
>
> In my last books, i tried to use the baselines
> to align the last line of each pages
> and to align the last line of each 2 columns too.
>
> Having the "align to baselin" scribu's option was of great help
> but it was not enough...
> or it was very difficult to have the result globaly right.
>
> Most of the issues arose from titles between paragraphs :
> Chapter's titles, subtitles and inter-paragraphs titles of level 1, 2 and 3
> all have various line-height, various vertical space after and before
> paragraph.
> Sometime also, the introduction might have a different font size or line
> heigth...
> and space after.
>
> All these various vertical spaces and heights added together one after one
> make it generally very difficult to fit any predefined baseline
> and at the end of the page, it seems to me that generaly :
> - either the baseline heigth is about one normal line height
> and there is some parasite vertical blank space somewhere
> in the page where the align to baseline jumps to next baseline
> because of -say - a previous title.
> - either the baseline is about half or a third of a normal line height,
> and at the end of the column or of the page, the current baseline is
> not aligned with other on other pages or columns.
>
> As a consequence i have to tweak locally :
> artificialy add some space before a paragraph, for example,
> or add a blank line somewhere,
> introducing some oddity to avoid an oddity.
>
> So my questions is :
> is there a general good practice or way of setting the parameters
> to avoid these issues and define the perfect set of :
> - general grid (position and size of frames)
> - styles (line height, space before, space after)
> - baseline height and offset
> ... (i think that's all ?)
>
> Maybe a precise way, maybe even an algorythm ?
> Or an heuristic and know-how on how to achieve a working set ?
>
> Thanks in advance for your hints
> JLuc
>

As far as I know (and it's been long ago I was told), the only way to 
keep track with line spacing is to compute all sizes for font height, 
line height, spaces etc. so that they are a multiple of the basic text 
values.

At least this was true in the days before the baseline grid, but I think 
it's still applicable. I have the same problem, and the problem even 
grows when you have several text columns within one frame.

But I saw this in several professional magazines, they have the same 
issues. Generally: they don't care as long as it's not too ugly.

In practice, I tend to keep the standard text on the baseline. If a 
third-level heading has the same size, I'll keep it there, too. For a 
header, you need at least some space above (in most cases). That will 
result in a single line then and looks ok.

All others are set with automatic or fixed line spacing according to 
their font. But it does look odd sometimes, as you described, and I 
haven't found a better way than trying to keep all measures so they sum 
up in base-text lines. That makes them fit better at least. I must 
admit, however, it doesn't always look like I want it to, so I deviate 
from this rule rather than sticking to it.

Rolf