Get Started With Scribus:4

Cover Page
If you see too many gridlines on your blank page, unselect View > Show 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 an image 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.

Insert Picture
A toolbar contains all the Tools that Scribus offers. You can use this link to get your bearings, but remember that gliding your mouse over each icon will display a tool tip with the name of each tool. Click on the third one (Insert Image Frame)[keyboard: I]. This allows you to insert an image frame in the page. That's what you want for placing the cover picture. Drag your mouse from the top-left of the Scribus page, to the bottom-right, or any corner to its opposite. Don't worry if you don't get it exactly right. You'll find an image frame drawn on your page, in the shape of a large rectangle, with black-colored diagonal lines forming a large 'X' through it. This is a traditional printing industry custom, to distinguish image frames from text frames. That 'X' won't ever print, so don't worry.

Soul of Scribus
From the menus, go to Tools > Properties (in 1.3.x Windows > Properties). Along comes a dialog box that is the heart and soul of Scribus. All objects you add to the page, from image frames, text frames, or even actual photos, text, or lines, are all controlled from this central dialog box. Make sure the image frame you just created is highlighted, selected. Usually red-colored or other colored square dots will mark all the four corners as a visual cue. If not, in the Tools palette, click on the first icon (Select Item), and just click on the image frame. The Properties Tool will instantly show all its details. An object must be selected to be modified or deleted.

Give a human-readable label to this image frame, such as 'CoverPhotoFrame' in the 'Name' field of Properties. In case you do not see the 'Name' field, just click once on the top tab, that says 'X,Y,Z'. Next, precisely place the top-left of your picture frame on the top-left edge of your page. In the X-Pos and Y-Pos fields, type in the values of 0mm, each. Pos is obviously a short-form of Position. Type in the Width and Height at 210 mm and 280 mm respectively. Your frame is precisely placed on the page. While you can resize and reposition with the mouse, typing in values is much faster for a task like this.

Get Picture After you make sure your image frame is selected, then right-click anywhere inside this image frame. You will see a Context Menu pop-up right under the mouse cursor. Select Get Picture from this menu. A file dialog box opens up for you to navigate into your FYug folder, and then into the images folder, so you can select the 'TitleFX.jpg' sample image. Click on the OK button. The image frame on your Scribus page is immediately filled with the TitleFX.jpg image.

Nudge Picture to Left
Note the sculpture in the image is too much to the right. We must drag the picture inside the image frame to the left, so that the sculpture is positioned in the centre of the image frame. Extra parts of the picture will get automatically cropped out of view beyond the boundaries of the image frame. So, to move the picture, make sure the image frame is selected, go back to the Properties Tool, 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 image frame.

Color Karma
At the bottom of the Properties dialog box, you may have noticed a section called 'Input Profiles.' This will only show if the LittleCMS on your PC is correctly installed and configured. The color of your images may look markedly different on your screen, and even more when you print them. This little area minimizes such color mismatch. From the pop-up for 'Input Profile', choose a color profile that closely matches your monitor. Scribus immediately re-renders the image on the screen to display colors according to that profile.

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.

[Masthead Band] The cover page of any magazine has its name emblazoned across the top. This is called the Masthead. Ours is titled, “FreedomYug.” We'll start by creating a semi-transparant band for the Masthead. Go to Edit>Preferences>General. Click on Display, and make sure this checked: “Use PDF1.4 Transparancy Features.” Click OK. Your document now supports transparant objects.

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.

[Create Colors] Hold on! Don't fill this with the same 69% Black. Let's give it a fresh lime green color. Go to Edit>Colors... in the menus. A dialog box listing existing colors displays on your screen. Click on 'New' and give your new color swatch a name, 'Lime Green'. In the second dialog-box that opens up, choose 'CMYK' as the Color Model. This closely follows the inks of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, used in your desktop printer and in printing plants, that mix inks to create new colors. With the sliders at the bottom, give C:69%, M: 10%, Y:100%, and K: 0%.

[Locked Bands] Click OK in this dialog box, and then click OK again in the Colors dialog box, where you'll notice your new color added. Go back to your page, click on the small square you just created, and in the 'Colors' tab of Properties palette, give it a stroke of None, and a fill of LimeGreen, at 100% opacity. You cover should look like the screenshot here, with all the bands for text.

One last thing. Select each semi-transparant band individually, and in the Properties palette, in the 'X,Y,Z' tab, click on the icon of the padlock at the bottom. This ensures you accidentally do not move or resize each locked object.

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.