Although OpenOffice.org Writer offers many tools that allow you to create rather sophisticated layouts, you might want to use a dedicated DTP application to layout a brochure or a book. Scribus is an open source DTP software that allows you to do just that. Better yet, the latest versions of the application can import .odt documents, which makes Writer and Scribus a perfect combo for DTP work. The following article provides a brief overview of Scribus’ essential tools and features, from Writer users’ point of view.

While Scribus usually does a good job of importing Writer files, you should keep in mind that Scribus does not import the embedded images and it’s not very good at importing tables and footnotes. This means that you must prepare your Writer document before you import them.

• Make sure you have all the images used in Writer as separate graphics files in a format supported by Scribus. If you don’t have the images, you can extract them from the document using a simple trick. Make a copy of your Writer file, change its extension to .zip, and unzip the resulting archive. The unzipped folder contains the Pictures folder with all the pictures from the document in the PNG format.
• To prevent Scribus from messing up the tables during the import, you might want to convert them into text. To do this, select the table and use the Table → Convert → Table to Text command to convert the selection into text.
• If the Writer document contains footnotes, you can use a workaround to preserve them during the import. In Writer, save the document as HTML and then import it into Scribus. The imported text will most probably need manual tweaking, though.
• Scribus doesn’t support character styles, which you should also take into account when importing Writer documents. Since all the character-based formatting will be lost during the import, you might want to go through your document in Writer and replace character styles with manual formatting.
• Scribus replaces spaces in the styles’ names with _20_, and you might want to edit the styles’ names before import to avoid confusion.

To import the prepared Writer file into a Scribus document, insert a new text frame (Insert → Text Frame), and choose File → Import → Get Text. Select the Writer file you want to import and press OK. In the OpenDocument Importer Options windows, you can specify how Scribus manages styles during the import:

• Update Paragraph Styles This option changes the formatting of any created styles in your Scribus document to follow those in the Writer document.
• Merge Paragraph Styles This option looks at the actual attributes (fonts, size) of the Writer document and merges styles which have common attributes. This can help to eliminate differently named, but similar styles.
• Use Document Name as a prefix for paragraph styles This option can be useful for sorting styles when importing from several documents.

Figure 1: Scribus Story Editor

Scribus doesn’t re-flow the inserted text automatically. This means that if you have imported a multi-page document into a one-page frame, you must 1) insert additional pages, 2) add frames to each page, 3) link the frames together. To insert a new page, choose Page → Insert, select at End from the drop-down list, and press OK. Insert a text frame into the new page using the Insert → Text Frame command. To link two frames together, select the frame containing text, press the Link Text Frames, and click on the new empty frame. If the frames are successfully linked together, you will see a connection arrow between them, and the text will automatically spill over the new frame. Repeat this procedure until the entire text is displayed properly.

Although Scribus is not on a par with Writer when it comes to editing text (it is a DTP application, after all), it does offer some powerful editing tools. Like Writer, Scribus supports paragraph styles, and if you are familiar with the styles feature in Writer, you won’t have any troubles with paragraph styles in Scribus. To add a new style in Scribus, choose Edit → Paragraph Styles and press the New button. The Edit Style dialog window provides access to all style settings, but there are fewer options compared to Writer. For example, you can’t link styles, you can’t apply borders, and you can’t specify language.

Figure 2: Scribus Story Editor

Scribus allows you to edit text directly in the text frame, but it also includes a so-called Story Editor, which is sort of an bare-bones word processor. It is, indeed, bare-bones: there is no WYSIWYG text editing, no spell checker of any kind, no other tools that Writer users take for granted. This leads to an obvious conclusion - do all the heavy-weight editing in Writer before you import the document into Scribus. Using Story Editor shouldn’t cause any problems, even for users not familiar with Scribus. To evoke Story Editor, click in the text you want to edit and press Ctrl+Y.

Inserting images into a Scribus document is easy: insert a new image frame (Insert → Image Frame), right-click on the frame and choose Get Image, then select the image you want. (Keep in mind that, unlike Writer, Scribus doesn’t insert images but links to them). To resize the inserted image, right-click on the image frame, select Properties, click on the Shape tab, select the Scale to Frame Size option, and tick the Proportional check box. Right-click on the image frame and select Adjust Frame to Image. Now you can resize the image by dragging one of the frame’s corner handles. The next step is to make the surrounding text flow around the image. To do this, right-click on the image frame, select Properties, and click on the Shape tab. Tick the Text Flows Around Frame and Use Contour line check boxes. Press the Edit Shape button, tick the Edit Contour Line check box. Now, use the blue round handles to adjust the contour line as you see it fit. You can also add captions to the images using the legende.py script. Simply select the image you want, choose Scripts → Execute Script and select the legende.py script (on Linux, the path to it may be usr/share/scribus/samples/legende.py). The script inserts a new text frame containing the name of the image.

As any DTP application worth its salt, Scribus uses Master pages, which are roughly similar to page styles in Writer. Master pages can be immediately useful for a number of things, for example, adding automatic page numbering and running footers. Here is how to add page numbers to your Scribus document. Choose Edit → Master Pages. In the master page insert a text frame where you want to display the page numbers, click in the frame and press Shift+Ctrl+Alt+P. This inserts the # symbol, which signifies the page numbers. If the Shift+Ctrl+Alt+P shortcut doesn’t do the trick, go to Edit → Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts, and check the Page Number shortcut. Now, close the Edit Master pages window, and you should see the page numbers. If, for some reason, you don’t see the page numbers, make sure that the master page is applied to the current pages: Choose Page → Apply Master Page, then select and apply the appropriate master page.

By default, Scribus uses Arabic numbers, but you can quickly switch to Roman numbers, if necessary. To do this, choose File → Document Setup → Sections and select the numbering style you want from the Style drop-down list. Keep in mind that in order to display multiple-digit page numbers, you have to insert the corresponding number of the # signs. For example, for numbers equal or bigger than III, you must add three # signs, so the code looks like this: Page ###.

Naturally, Scribus supports multiple paginations and different numbering styles. Let’s say you want to create two separate paginations: one with the Roman numbering style for use with the book’s preface and another with the Arabic numbering for use with the rest of the book. Choose File → Document Setup → Sections and define two sections with the Roman and the Arabic numbering styles. Use the From and To fields to specify the pagination ranges and the Start field to specify the page offset. If you hover the mouse over a field, you can read a more detailed description of each field in a tool tip.

In a similar way, you can add running headers and footers. However, unlike Writer, Scribus doesn’t allow you to add dynamic fields with chapter names. This means that you have to create a separate master page for each chapter and “hard code” chapter names in the master page.

Scribus may feel like uncharted territory for many Writer users, but it’s pretty easy to get to grips with, and many of Writer’s skills can be translated into Scribus. Of course, both applications have their own strengths and weak spots, but combined they provide an end-to-end powerful publishing solution.

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