As per our contract Get Interactive is handing over templates for InDesign (this was a choice we made during the EOI process to get the most benefit out of working with a graphic designer, to have access to the files used).
Pim now seems to be caught up on creating icons and the style guide and Jeffrey Laust asked if he could assist us in the production of a template using an open source tool more accessible to our community.
Two options were used by our community:
EPS
Not a template format, good for interchange between systems, often text is present as outlines for portabilty. PDF
Not a template format, good for interchange between systems, take care on how PDF is produced to avoid font incompatibility between systems
SVG (1.0) or SVG (1.1)
Application: SVG: Using InkScape (open/free), Sketch (paid/commercial), Boxy SVG (free/commercial)
Differences in representation of text blocks between SVG 1.0 and SVG 1.1 produce incompatibilities between InkScape and web browsers.
Illustration file format widely supported
SLA (Scribus Document)
Application: Scribus (open/free)
Desktop publishing program, strong separation between layout and content
User interface for editing text (italic, bold, heading) not WYSIWYG
We need to make a decision if we are to be in position to accept this offer of help:
Luca you did all kinds of amazing things with SVG, eventually settling on editing it by hand rather than use InkScape (which argued with us over how to represent blocks of text). Before printing in Boston I often had to open up your SVG files and adjust the aspect ratio and screen elements using Sketch. Do you have any direction on what program to use?
Anita you have the most experience with Scribus do you think it will meet our needs?
Astrid you are looking at translating into German as I understand it. Do you have any additional requirements to bring to the table that we should consider? What program are you comfortable with?
Personally I was able to get Scribus to work, but I do not like it. It was less difficult / more reliable then the SVG applications. The control of PDF export was appreciated. This is how I produced/fixed content for Boston, often starting from SVG file produced by project team. I personally found Sketch very productive and did much of the initial template experimenting using that application.
Q: Does this activity need to be shared with the discuss email list?
* Personally I was able to get Scribus to work, but I do not like it. It
was less difficult / more reliable then the SVG applications. The control
of PDF export was appreciated. This is how I produced/fixed content for
Boston, often starting from SVG file produced by project team. I personally
found Sketch very productive and did much of the initial template
experimenting using that application.
I haven't tried Sketch. I understand that it takes a bit getting used to
Scribus but in the end it is a proper publishing software that was designed
for use cases like ours.
I enjoyed sketch as productive, but also found Scribus more appropriate
(especially fine control of how fonts are handled during PDF export).
I would like to get confirmation from the others mentioned on this thread,
and ensure someone has time to interact with Pim before a decision is made.
I have a problem to open your sla file because I have Scribus 1.4.6
and you probably 1.5.*. Is it a common problem of Scribus? Could you
save in a format supported also by previous version?
Following up on an action item from last week the email list is settling on scribus as a open source desktop publishing solution for production of information sheets and etc…
I was able to download a mac version of scribus to produce some of the handouts used in Boston (admittedly I did not have the laptop frame for screen shots which Anita has since applied).
We would appreciate your review of the and any assistance you have time to provide in the production of a sribus template: https://www.scribus.net/downloads/
The main “print” folder holds the generated PDFs, the sub folders hold the source files.
One feedback I have is on the manual positioning of the small green triangles; do you think we can find a font representation of the triangle so we can use it as a bullet point style and avoid the manual positioning currently required?
I have a problem to open your sla file because I have Scribus 1.4.6
and you probably 1.5.*. Is it a common problem of Scribus? Could you
save in a format supported also by previous version?
Sorry, I’d have to check that in the evening …
I also had to upgrade from 1.4 to 1.5 after my initial 1.4 document was edited by someone with 1.5 …
Following up on an action item from last week the email list is settling on scribus as a open source desktop publishing solution for production of information sheets and etc…
I was able to download a mac version of scribus to produce some of the handouts used in Boston (admittedly I did not have the laptop frame for screen shots which Anita has since applied).
We would appreciate your review of the and any assistance you have time to provide in the production of a sribus template: https://www.scribus.net/downloads/
The main “print” folder holds the generated PDFs, the sub folders hold the source files.
One feedback I have is on the manual positioning of the small green triangles; do you think we can find a font representation of the triangle so we can use it as a bullet point style and avoid the manual positioning currently required?
I have a problem to open your sla file because I have Scribus 1.4.6
and you probably 1.5.*. Is it a common problem of Scribus? Could you
save in a format supported also by previous version?
Sorry, I’d have to check that in the evening …
I also had to upgrade from 1.4 to 1.5 after my initial 1.4 document was edited by someone with 1.5 …
Following up on an action item from last week the email list is settling on scribus as a open source desktop publishing solution for production of information sheets and etc…
I was able to download a mac version of scribus to produce some of the handouts used in Boston (admittedly I did not have the laptop frame for screen shots which Anita has since applied).
We would appreciate your review of the and any assistance you have time to provide in the production of a sribus template: https://www.scribus.net/downloads/
The main “print” folder holds the generated PDFs, the sub folders hold the source files.
One feedback I have is on the manual positioning of the small green triangles; do you think we can find a font representation of the triangle so we can use it as a bullet point style and avoid the manual positioning currently required?
I have a problem to open your sla file because I have Scribus 1.4.6
and you probably 1.5.*. Is it a common problem of Scribus? Could you
save in a format supported also by previous version?
Sorry, I’d have to check that in the evening …
I also had to upgrade from 1.4 to 1.5 after my initial 1.4 document was edited by someone with 1.5 …
