[scribus] Was: The program gimp is missing! Now: Image file not being opened for editing

[Michael Hendry]

> On 1 Jun 2015, at 17:08, John Culleton <John at wexfordpress.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
> 
>> Instead GIMP started OK, but no image was
>> loaded. As I’m working on a file that wasn’t
>> created by me, I don’t have the original image
>> file, so I apparently can’t edit the image
>> within Scribus.
>> 
>> Michael
> 
> What is the suffix to the original file that you
> received? Chances are you can import it into
> either Scribus or Gimp. You will probably have to
> edit it as an image, but you can overlay the
> parts you want to change via a second layer. Both
> Scribus (of course) and Gimp can export pdf files
> and Gimp gives you the option of converting as
> much as possible of this output file into vector
> format.

First off, I must tell you that I’ve only just installed Scribus, and have little experience with desktop publishing, essentially involving production of a club newsletter by editing the previous edition in Microsoft Publisher.

The job of producing it is being transferred to another club member who is a Mac user (I use a Mac, but have Windows and Ubuntu virtual machines for legacy software and archive data), so I wanted to find a multi-platform Open-Source product to smooth the transition.

I found I was unable to import my existing PUB files (this is the subject of a separate thread), but I found I could import a PDF version of this file, and was playing with the user interface as a way of familiarising myself with Scribus.

As an exercise, I tried right-clicking on an image (originally a JPG file) in this imported PDF, and was offered the option of editing it. Once I’d changed the path to GIMP in preferences, I was able to start GIMP using this option, but I had expected the image to be opened too.

In this instance, I don’t have the original JPG, and when creating a new bulletin I would generally be able to edit a JPG directly before inserting it into the bulletin. But what if I wanted to edit an image which was part of the original template of the bulletin, and which I can’t access?

> 
> on my curent poject my worflow is:
> pdffile-->pdftkburst-->
> pagefile.pdf-->
> gimp-->revised.pagefile.pdf-->
> scribus1.5.0-->finalpagefile.pdf-->
> insert in book file.
> 
> As it happens my current book file is a mixture of
> typeset pages and pages imported from the above
> process but that is not pertinent to your
> application. The key is that the file begins life
> as a pdf file and the intermediate files are also
> pdf files. 
> 
> I don't expect either Scribus or Gimp to
> transfer an image to another program. That is the
> MSWindows (and KDE for that matter) philosophy
> that every program can pass data to every other
> program behind the scenes. My philosophy, based
> on 47 years of using computers is that you have
> files in  one of several standard formats, such
> as plain text, pdf, jpg, png, svg, sql etc. that
> at least one program in my possession can import,
> alter, and then export that file into the same or
> another standard format. 

I take your poiint, but Scribus does seem to be offering the option of passing a temporary copy of an image file to GIMP, and assimilating the edited file when I’ve made the changes and closed GIMP.

I’ve been playing with computers since 1979, and have suffered from proprietary file formats repeatedly over the years.

Thanks,

Michael

> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> John Culleton
> Wexford Press
> Book layout, typesetting and Indexing
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