Centering text vertically in a frame

This article is part of the Scripts series.

This script is an attempt at solving the problem of centering text vertically in a frame. It does it by getting the linespacing, the number of lines of text, then calculating the vertical space the text takes up. This is then subtracted from the frame height, and the Top distance of the frame is set at half that value.

The Scripter command getLineSpacing will always return the setting for fixed linespacing. If you are using automatic linespacing, you could set fixed linespacing to that same value for the script to work.

centervert.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8  -*-

# ****************************************************************************
#  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify 
#  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.
#
#  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
#  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
#  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
#  GNU General Public License for more details.
#
#  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
#  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
#  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
# 
# ****************************************************************************


"""

© 2012 by Gregory Pittman

centervert.py

Centers text vertically in a text frame. Uses the fixed linespacing setting, even
if you're actually using automatic linespacing.

USAGE

Select a text frame, run script.

"""

try:
    import scribus
except ImportError:
    print "Unable to import the 'scribus' module. This script will only run within"
    print "the Python interpreter embedded in Scribus. Try Script->Execute Script."
    sys.exit(1)

if not scribus.haveDoc():
    scribus.messageBox('Scribus - Script Error', "No document open", scribus.ICON_WARNING, scribus.BUTTON_OK)
    sys.exit(1)

if scribus.selectionCount() == 0:
    scribus.messageBox('Scribus - Script Error',
            "There is no object selected.\nPlease select a text frame and try again.",
            scribus.ICON_WARNING, scribus.BUTTON_OK)
    sys.exit(2)
if scribus.selectionCount() > 1:
    scribus.messageBox('Scribus - Script Error',
            "You have more than one object selected.\nPlease select one text frame and try again.",
            scribus.ICON_WARNING, scribus.BUTTON_OK)
    sys.exit(2)
textbox = scribus.getSelectedObject()
pageitems = scribus.getPageItems()
scribus.setRedraw(False)

for item in pageitems:
    if (item[0] == textbox):
        if (item[1] != 4):
            scribus.messageBox('Scribus - Script Error', 
                          "This is not a textframe. Try again.", scribus.ICON_WARNING, scribus.BUTTON_OK)
            sys.exit(2)
            
        lines = scribus.getTextLines(textbox)
        distances = scribus.getTextDistances(textbox)
        linespace = scribus.getLineSpacing(textbox)
        dimensions = scribus.getSize(textbox) # (width, height)
        if (scribus.textOverflows(textbox, 1) > 0):
            scribus.messageBox('User Error', "This frame is already overflowing", scribus.ICON_WARNING, scribus.BUTTON_OK)
            sys.exit(2)
        newtopdist = (dimensions[1] - linespace * lines)/2
        scribus.setTextDistances(distances[0],distances[1],newtopdist,distances[3],textbox)

scribus.setRedraw(True)