Version 1.3.4+ - Text Editing

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[edit] Text Styles

Prior to 1.3.4, under the menu item Edit, we could find Paragraph Styles (for dealing with text features) and Line Styles (for dealing with drawn lines).

In 1.3.4, there is now a global Edit > Styles, bringing up this requester:

Edit Styles Requester v1.3.4
Edit Styles Requester v1.3.4
Clicking on New in this requestor then shows a drop-down list to choose a new Character, Line, or Paragraph Style, after which the whole Styles Manager window opens up:
Add New Character Style v1.3.4
Add New Character Style v1.3.4
Here is the one for Paragraph Styles:
Add New Paragraph Style v1.3.4
Add New Paragraph Style v1.3.4
What you see with Paragraph Style editing, is that a Paragraph Style includes editing the Character Style features. In other words, Character Styles are a subset of Paragraph Styles.

[edit] Inserting Glyphs

The window for inserting Glyphs is now called Character Palette, which in addition to the familiar display showing various available glyphs for your font, has a scrapbook-like feature, where a custom collection of glyphs can be accumulated, saved to file, and reloaded in the future.

Shown here is the minimized version of Character Palette obtained by checking the Hide Enhanced box. Obviously, its size allows it to remain on screen as you enter text. The easiest way to add to your custom list is drag-and-drop from the main character set window. You can then save to a file, then load later. Also note that Scribus will save this as a default list, available the next time you start Scribus. Clear to start a new list (right-most icon under the Search button).

Experimentation will show that attempting to save glyphs from different font types seems to be possible, but can produce unexpected results -- you may need to edit this in the final layout.

You can also Search by Unicode, where you will see an extremely extensive listing of characters by Unicode. But, keep in mind that a given font is unlikely to have most of the Unicode characters you may see. Also keep in mind that the final result in the document may not be the same as in Story Editor.

Image:Characterpalette v134.png
Result of clicking Search in Character Palette to the left - you see noinformation about whether your font will have these selections.Chances are, your font includes no Ethiopian glyphs.
Result of clicking Search in Character Palette to the left - you see no
information about whether your font will have these selections.
Chances are, your font includes no Ethiopian glyphs.

[edit] Optical Margins

A quick look at the Properties Palette shows numerous extensions compared to earlier versions. One of the most impressive enhancements in 1.3.4 is the introduction of optical margins. Many characters, like hyphens or punctuation marks, use significantly less space than normal characters, but they are often treated like real letters. This results in the impression that there are small holes at the ends of lines. Likewise some letters like "T" give a similar impression at the beginning of a line. By introducing so-called "optical margins", Scribus moves those characters slightly outside the margins, thus filling the "holes". The result is a much cleaner text layout, giving the reader the impression of evenly aligned text.


Image:Optical-margins-1.png
A text in a frame without and with applied optical margins.
A text in a frame without and with applied optical margins.

[edit] Word Tracking and Glyph Extension

Two other notable enhancements are word tracking and the glyph extension. Until now, Scribus could only adjust the distance between single glyphs. Since version 1.3.4 it's possible to optimise the distance between whole words. An even more sophisticated enhancement is the glyph extension, which means that instead of stretching or shrinking the space between letters or words, Scribus stretches the glyphs themselves. If applied within a range of 98–102%, even the trained eye won't notice the change to single glyphs, but the text as a whole will look much smoother.


Image:Pp-wt-ge.png

In the text blocks below, we see no word tracking in the left column, and then applied in the right. Notice in particular lines 2, 4, and 10 (begins with the word "four") in the left column. There clearly is excessive white space between words which is visually and aesthetically distracting. On the right, there is a much more compact placement of characters on every line. In the end, this ends up being a personal decision about whether this tracking is desirable, and to what degree. One can certainly envision excessive compaction leading to problems with legibility. Another potential use would be squeezing just a bit more text into a frame with strict size limitations.

Word tracking and glyph extension are applied to the text in the right column.
Word tracking and glyph extension are applied to the text in the right column.

[edit] Text on Path

The Text on Path feature has seen some interesting enhancements. It's now possible to apply effects like Skew or Stair Step to text aligned to a path. Flipping text, using the path as an axis, has also been added as a feature.

Image:Text-on-path.png

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