Scribus Video Tutorials

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This article is part of the HOWTOs series.
Installation • Usage • PDF issues • Imposition • Other

Introduction

These are links to several tutorials for Scribus. Skill Levels range from beginner to more advanced uses of Scribus. They are distributed in Theora format. Please see Wikipedia:Media help (Ogg) about how to play theora videos on your system.

Video Tutorials

Getting Started with Scribus

Getting Started with Scribus is a series of video tutorials in the English Language describing Scribus by way of creating a library newsletter from scratch. They cover how to use text and image areas, as well as stylesheets, and the powerful story editor. Other topics include the using the preflight verifier, and a demo of how to create PDF documents.

Main Site

Mirror Site

Frequently Asked Questions

These are a new series of tutorials for various common tasks in Scribus. Please note these were created using Scribus 1.3.3.9cvs or later.

Three ways to apply styles

All's Well That Ends Well

  1. Edit Contents of Frame and the Properties palette
  2. Story Editor
  3. Get Text... Filters

Synopsis of what you will see (action is fast):

Action begins with a page showing three adjacent frames in a three-column layout with some arbitrary text (the long-cherished lorem ipsum) in the left-most and middle. Three styles are applied to the text, using three different methods.

  • The left frame is selected with a double-click over the first line (note the cursor in the first line), thus activating Edit Contents of Frame mode (highlighted icon in toolbar), then the Properties window is brought up.
  • In Properties, the Text tab is selected, then down in Style the style Header is selected. In rapid fashion, the cursor is moved to the body text, and the style Body selected, then to the subheader and the style Subheader selected. Finally, the last paragraph's style changed to Body. Note that these styles are not present in Scribus by default, and have been created prior to the session you see in this video. The page is scrolled to show the entire left frame text.
  • At 0:30 we move on to Part 2 -- the middle frame is selected, and Story Editor is brought up. Left-clicking in the Style column brings up a list of the styles to choose from, and going down the paragraphs one by one the appropriate style is selected. In Story Editor the appearance of the text remains constant, and you only see the result after the frame is exited. It is possible to size and place the Story Editor window, use the Update Frame without exiting button (second from the right, keyboard: Ctrl+U) to see the appearance without leaving Story Editor.
  • At 1:03, Part 3 begins with an empty text frame. Right-clicking on the frame brings up the Context menu and Get Text is selected. What follows is mainly a demonstration of some pre-preparation of a text file. Our text file of interest, lorem.txt, is shown with vim, a plain text editor, so that you can see how the text paragraphs are each preceded by codes, "\h", "\b", and "\sh", for header, body, and subheader respectively. After vim is closed, these codes are then used by Scribus as a filter to select our styles. In the File Dialog, Text Filters is selected, bringing up another window in which our text codes are used to select the appropriate style. As you can see, these have already been determined, and the mouse clicks show how the settings correspond with each other. Click OK, and we see that by our third method we obtain the same result.

Creating bullet lists

(while waiting for the proper implementation)

Synopsis:

A bulleted list is created, then styles applied. In the finale, some flowers make a guest appearance, substituting for the overworked and perhaps aging bullet.

  • Beginning with a text frame, a bullet character is inserted. To speed the subsequent editing, this bullet character is copied (Ctrl+C). Tabs separate the bullet from the following text, then Ctrl+V inserts the next bullet. The inserted text gives away our intentions.
  • After our text is entered, we go to Edit Styles to create the spacing and layout for our bulleted list, and as promised two level Styles are created. Subsequently, the styles are applied.
  • Now we zoom in on the page for the surprising Act Two (2:25). A small image frame is created and a flower image imported. It is sized to the frame, then the frame size reduced to 4mm x 4mm.
  • Our flower frame now shows her versatility by being copied and inserted (Ctrl+V) for the bullet, just like a character. Bravo!

Additional space between an image frame and the text

How can one have some additional space between an image frame and the text flowing around it.

Synopsis:

A text frame is created, on top of which an image frame is placed. Adjustments are made for flowing text around the frame with white space around the image.

  • After the image frame is added, in Properties the Shape tab is selected, where we can check the boxes for Text Flows Around Frame, and for Use Contour Line.
  • Next, Edit Shape button is selected, bringing up the Edit Shape window. Check Edit Contour Line.
  • Adjust the size, in this case incrementing by a absolute measurement.

Drop caps, baseline, text frame columns

Creating and customizing a drop cap. Also introduces baseline and text frame columns.

Object frame border

Creating and customizing a border for an object frame.

Text frames, polygons, linking text frames and polygons, text overflow

Creating text frames, polygons (with a star shape) linking text from a text frame to polygons (converting polygons to text frames). Text overflow.

Creating a three fold document using Manage Guides dialog

Page numbers, sections

Adding page numbers to a document and customizing sections using Document Setup>Sections

Converting text to outlines and to image frames

Converting text to outlines and then to image frames and creating a cool effect using content>paste absolute.

Basic text effects

Basic text effects using Properties palette's Text page

Text on path

Attaching text to a path and customizing the path and fine tuning the text after it has been attached.

Creating a table of content

Creating your own video tutorials

There are several tools available to use to create screencasts. Presentations on this page were created with the tools called recordmydesktop and Wink.

recordmydesktop on Linux

Most of the screencasts on this page were created using the recordmydesktop and its gtk-recordmydesktop frontend. The first thing to do is to install the screencast recorder. For my Opensuse setup it was available at guru's repository. Recording a screencast can be done with the following steps:

  1. launch gtk-recordmydesktop
  2. launch Scribus and resize the Scribus window to the desired size
  3. in the gtk-recordmydesktop window click on the button "Select Window" and after this click on the Scribus window. Even it says "select window" this only defines the recordable area. So every window you bring in the area defined by the Scribus window will be recorded.
  4. Set the sound and video quality (most FAQ oggs on this page were created with 55% quality and sound was disabled). If you know you have a great voice and know how to pronounce "Scribus" it will be great if you can enable sound and explain what is going on while working in Scribus.
  5. When you are ready to start just click on the "Record" button and start doing wonders in Scribus for others to enjoy. gtk-recordmydesktop will be minimized to the task bar (at least within KDE).
  6. Once done with the magic click on the gtk-recordmydesktop icon in the taskbar. recordmydesktop will then create the ogg video and save it to your current working directory with a name out.ogg (out.ogg.1, out.ogg.2...).
  7. Rename the video and share it.

Wink on Linux and Windows

Wink is a freeware (free as in beer) tool to create screencasts on Windows and Linux (x86 only). I've been using the Linux version 1.5 on my Kubuntu Dapper Drake system, the Windows version 2.0 has some more features including sound support. My workflow to create a Scribus screencast is a plain out-of-the-box procedure and can basically be done with only few steps:

  1. launch Scribus and resize its window to the desired size
  2. launch Wink and choose File/New
  3. in the first dialog of the "New Project Wizard", select "Window" in the combo box and click on the "Choose" button, and click on the Scribus window, then click on "OK"
  4. in the second dialog of the "New Project Wizard", click on "Minimize to Tray" button
  5. right click on the Wink applet in the tray, select "Start Timed Capture" from the context menu
  6. do whatever you desire to record in Scribus
  7. right click on the Wink applet, select "Stop Timed Capture"
  8. yet another right click on the applet, "Finish Capture"
  9. back in the Wink window, select Project/Render and export your screencast to a SWF movie
  10. done!
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