Get Started With Scribus: A Beginner's Tutorial On Publication Design
Get Started With Scribus: A Beginner's Tutorial On Publication Design
Get Started With Scribus: A Beginner's Tutorial On Publication Design
Software: Scribus
Platforms: GnuLinux, Windows, Macintosh
Category: DTP, Typography & Design
Version: 1.16 or higher (preferably built from CVS)
Website: www.scribus.net
Level: Beginner
Do read the requirements page on the site. This because Scribus needs
some rather important files installed on your system. For GnuLinux
users, I specially recommend just installing the latest release of your
favourite distribution. As an example, I spent nearly three weeks trying to
install Scribus 1.1.6 under RedHat8. Each time I added a required file,
another dependency would crop up. Finally, I just installed the latest
Fedora in a separate partition, and Scribus installed within 20 minutes
without a murmur.
[Get Acrobat Reader, even for GnuLinux] Scribus is a great tool for
creating PDFs. Yet not all PDF viewers are created equal. Especially
under GnuLinux. So, head to adobe.com and download and install the
latest, native version of Acrobat Reader for your platform, even for
GnuLinux. Should you find a newer release of Acrobat Reader for
Windows, say Version 6 for Windows, while you have Version 5 for
GnuLinux, download the Version 6 for Windows, under GnuLinux. The
developers of Scribus recommend you run this version using a
Windows-emulator software under GnuLinux, such as WINE or
CrossOver, to run this native Windows application under GnuLinux.
However, this is not mandatory. You could still work with the older
version, or view your files under Windows if dual-booting, or on another
machine.
[Match Colors That Print] Finally, if you wish to design publications, you
need to ensure colors you see on screen match colors that print. For
this, you need to install a special and separate piece of software, called
a Color Management System, or CMS. Windows and Macintosh come
with a CMS built-in, called ICM and ColorSync, respectively. Under
GnuLinux, you need to install a free CMS, called LittleCMS. Download
and follow the instructions at littlecms.com. You can also install versions
of this under Windows and Macintosh. For this tutorial, LittleCMS is not
necessary, though quite helpful.
[New Emptiness] The New command displays this dialog box. Click on
the 'Default Unit' drop-down box, and choose 'Millimetres (mm)' rather
than the default 'Points'. Click on the drop-down menu of 'Size' and
choose 'Custom' for the page-size of our magazine. Enter the above
dimensions for width and height. Note the level of precision beyond the
Cover Page
If you see too many gridlines on your blank page, goto View>Hide
Grid. You will see blue-colored lines marking the outer margins of
your page. The concept of Scribus is quite simple: To place a photo
on the page, first you must create a photo-frame and then import
the photo into this frame. Similarly, to place text on the page, you
must create a text-frame first, and then insert, or type, text into this
frame. You'll soon discover that this approach has some great
advantages.
[Nudge Picture to Left] Note the sculpture in the image is too much to
the right. We must drag the picture inside the picture frame to the left, so
that the sculpture is positioned in the centre of the picture frame. Extra
parts of the picture will get automatically cropped out of view beyond the
boundaries of the picture frame. So, to move the picture, make sure the
picture frame is selected, go back to the Properties dialog box, and click
on the top-right tab titled 'Image'. In the field marked X-Pos, just type in
the value “-90mm” to move the image 90 mm to the left. Note how the
image is shifted inside the picture frame.
The actual install of LittleCMS and how to use it under Scribus is actually
quite simple, but beyond the scope of this tutorial. But here are some
good tips:
1) Download a set of free profiles from the adobe site, so you can send
images between Mac, Windows, and GnuLinux. 2) Create a custom
color profile of your own monitor and use that instead of any other.
[Save] You may want to save your file before proceeding. So head over
to File>Save and type the name 'Fyug.sla' for your file. Save it in the
FYug folder. You can also just click on the floppy icon in the taskbar,
right underneath the menus, to save your file.
Click the fourth tool in the Tools palette. Should you hover your mouse
over this, the roll-over text would display “Draw Various Shapes” or
something similar. Select the rectangle shape from the drop-down menu.
Click anywhere near the top-centre of the page and draw a rectangle.
Make sure the rectangle is selected, and immediately go to the
Properties palette, click on the 'X,Y,Z' tab, and enter the following
values: X-Pos: 30mm. Y-Pos: 0mm. Width: 150mm. Height: 33mm. Give
it a name, such as 'MastheadBand' in the Names field.
Then click on the 'Colors' tab in Properties. Click the Pencil tool to select
the stroke or outline border. Click on 'None' in the colors list. Then, click
the bucket icon to select the fill color. Click on 'Black' from the list of
colors, and in the opacity field, enter 69%. You will see the band has
turned semi-transparant, and partly shows the image through itself, in
darkened colors. Experiment with Opacity and other colors to your taste.
[Add More Bands] Draw another rectangle towards the centre of the
image. In the Properties, give X-Pos: 93mm. Y-Pos: 160mm. Width:
115.35mm. Height: 13.75mm. Again in 'Colors', set the stroke to None,
and the fill with Black at an opacity of 69%. Call this the 'HeadlineBand'.
A third rectangle, named 'SubHeadBand' can be drawn slightly
underneath this, at X-Pos: 100mm. y-Pos: 180mm. Width: 109.7mm.
Height: 18.35mm. The fourth and final rectangle, this time a little square
box, will have the following Properties: X-Pos: 20.5mm. Y-Pos: 245mm.
Width and Height will both be 9mm.
Similarly, lock the CoverPicture Frame as well, and the green square,
using this padlock. Also, uncheck 'Text flows around frame' for each of
these rectangles. This keeps text that will overlap the rectangles, from
jumping away from it.
[Why We Need Layers] We are going to format the text for the
magazine's masthead, the headline, and the subhead. Imagine if this
magazine is published in several languages. One way to then produce
this magazine would be to recreate the magazine layout for each
language. The other way, is to have the text for each language on
another layer. Think of layers like transparant sheets that overlap one
another. You could hide or view layers, for example: hide the English
text layer, and show the Hindi text layer.
[Make Text Look Beautiful] 'FreedomYug' will look attractive if the gaps
between the letters are reduced, and if the text fits into the
MastHeadBand. The overall gap between letters is called 'Tracking.' To
reduce this tracking, right-click on the text frame, and from the pop-up
menu, choose 'Show Properties'. In 'X,Y,Z' uncheck 'Text flows around
frame'. On the buttons at the top of this dialog box, click on 'Text'.
[Kern] Stop reading the headline text. Look at it. You will find a larger
gap between the 'm' and 'Y' of 'FreedomYug'. You will also find
seemingly irregular gaps between other letters, such as between 'd' 'o'
'm', and 'Y' 'u', and even between 'u' and 'g'. This is because the shape of
the Y curves in, creating an optical illusion of a bigger gap. The 'o'
curves in from all sides, again creating the illusion of a bigger gap. Use
the 'Edit Frame Content' icon, the one that looks like a hand next to a
cursor. Click directly at the text, specifically between 'm' and 'Y'. In the
Properties palette, enter '-11 pts' in the 'kerning' field. The gap shortens
even more. Similarly, tighten the spaces between all the other letters
individually, until the text 'FreedomYug' looks tightly kerned and tracked.
Finally, drage the corner red sqaures of the text frame to the
MastHeadBand, and click the padlock icon to lock its position.
Use the same technique, put the text 'The new era of computing' under
[Many Unique Page Designs] This mag's pages are 210mm x 280 mm.
However, not all pages will have the same look. I need three pages with
a layout meant for a Features article, with perhaps two columns, and a
generous white space on the outer left or outer right edge of the page.
Another page could look like a feedback form, which could have only
rows and tables. Still another page could be the Contents page.
[Page-Numbers] Add the Red band on top, place a text frame with that
loose-tracked text 'Khajuraho' at the top. Follow the steps you learnt in
the previous section. Similarly, add a text frame at the bottom for the
magazine name, issue detail, and page number. Except you don't type a
static page number. Just press the control key + # combination. To
counter-check your command, go to Edit>Preferences>General. Click on
the button 'Keyboard Shortcuts...'. Scroll the list to find your shortcut.
Please define paragraph styles for all possible styles: headline, sub-
head, caption, box story, or whatever. The best way to do this is to
create some sample text for each type, and once satisfied, jot down all
its typesetting features, and manually create a paragraph style for each.
[Flow Your Text] Right-click the first text frame, on page two. From the
pop-up menu, choose 'Get Text...' and hop over to the Text folder in
FYug. Select the khajuraho.txt file, and press 'Open'. You will see the
text flow into two columns on this page. At the bottom-right of the text
frame you'll see a 'X' mark in a box, which means there's more text than
can fit in this text frame. Click the first frame to select it, go to the Tools
palette, and click on the second-last button with a tool-tip that displays
“Link Text Frame.” Click on the text frame on the next page. Voila! Text
flows from the text frame on page two, to the text frame on page three.
Similarly, add links between frames for each additional page.
Click the text frame on page two, and in Properties, in 'XYZ' key-in X-
Pos: 65mm, Y-Pos: 201.5, and Height: 48.5mm. The text frame shrinks
to the bottom of the page. Note how the text automatically flows to the
next page. Link the text frame on page three, to the subsequent text
frame on page four, so text flows from page to page.
[Insert Picture] Select the picture frame icon from Tools, just like you
did for the cover page. This time, draw a random picture frame on the
top of page two. In Properties, give it X-Pos: 20mm, Y-Pos: 35 mm, W:
135mm, H: 100mm. Right-click this picture frame. From the pop-up
menu, choose 'Get Picture...'. Go to the images folder inside the FYug
folder, select the file 'EnterTitle.jpg' and click 'Open.'
[Resize Picture] In the Properties palette, click on the 'Image' tab, check
'Free Scaling' and then key-in X:0mm, Y:-30mm, X-Scale and Y-Scale at
32% each. This will shift the photograph 30 mm to the left, inside the
frame, and then scale it down to 32% for that perfect crop.
Important: For each text frame or other element that is placed on this
page, please uncheck 'Text flows around frame' so you dont' have text
jumping to another position suddenly.
[Shapes for Text] Drawing the shapes is easy. Click and hold on the
square icon in Tools, and discover more than 16 shapes you can freely
drag and draw in Scribus. Click on the 'Polygon' tool and you can even
draw stars with as many corners as you wish and other options. For each
shape, choose Fill 'None' and Stroke 'Black'. The thickness and style of
the line is in the 'Line' tab of Properties, where i chose a 1 point thick
solid line. Discover more styles and options for yourself here. The design
looks good because all shapes are aligned to any two random vertical
guides. In effect, that makes the width of each shape a multiple of
11mm, since the guides are all 11mm apart.
Right-click each shape, and choose 'Convert To > Text Frame'. Then,
enter the text using the story editor, or type it in directly, and apply a
special '7steps body text' paragraph style, defined earlier.
[Colorize] Select both the frame and the orange box, go to Item>Group.
Then copy and paste it right underneath the first one. In the Properties
palette, type '+5mm' at the end of the Y position, to automatically move
it down by 5 mm. Thus, copy and paste until you have five copies of the
graphic on the page, with a 5mm gap between each one vertically.
Select each graphic, ungroup it, select the background color, and
change the color of each in the Properties palette.
[Dragged Guides] From the horizontal rulers just below the taskbar and
above the page, click and drag a horizontal guide to the bottom of each
box. Toggle 'View Guides' so in the View menu, so you can see the
guide. Finally, draw text frames to the height of each graphic in the
column on the right, and type in the text. Define a Paragraph style that
has a drop-cap of two lines, and apply that style to each text frame.
GET STARTED WIT H S CRIBUS • By Niya m Bhushan for Sarai.net • Apr 2004 • 22
[Choose Your Flavour] In the dialog-box, start by clicking
on the 'General' tab, and selecting PDF/X-3 from the
drop-down menu for 'Compatibility.' It's a good idea to
Downsample images to 300 dpi, at the bottom left here.
For special accents, diacritical marks, and special glyphs, edit text in a
text frame, and click on Insert Special under the Extras menu. The
complete collection of characters of a chosen font are displayed, so you
can just point and click. Try it.