Microsoft Word, everything will appear alien and
nightmarishly complicated. But if you think in
terms of actual pieces of paper, celluloid, and
scissors then it all becomes much easier to grasp.
For a good example of layering we thought
we’d look to the vintage gaming magazines that
we’re imitating, where they take bright edgy
shapes and use them for eye-catching boxouts.
First we’ll put a coloured polygon in an image
frame, then put a text frame on top. Finally, we’ll
put a pretty background behind it all.
First we created the image frame to fit both an
image and a separate text frame inside it, which
meant deliberately spilling over the column
borders (which was a very ’90s thing to do!).
To achieve the right size we opened the
frame’s Properties, and opened the Image tab.
From here we enabled Scale To Frame Size but
didn’t enable Proportional, which meant we
could resize the shape and frame to perfectly fit
a paragraph inside. Next, we drew a text frame
on top of the shape and inserted some
informative and entertaining text.
Now is a good point to explore Scribus’s layer
controls. For now the text is sitting above the
image as it should be, but what if mis-clicking an
option somehow got it the wrong way around
- how would you correct that? So for now we’re
deliberately going to obscure the text layer
behind the image layer, but then bring it back.
Right-click the text frame and choose Level >
Lower. The text should now be hidden while the
image sits on top. To bring back the text, you’ll
need to lower the level of the image, so right-
click and choose Level > Lower again. This will
move the image back behind the text and
restore the text layer to the top.
Now to give it all a background. We already
prepared a simple background with a pretty
colour-fade in using GIMP, though any portrait
image should do. Then we simply drew an Image
Frame across the entire page and inserted an
image. Initially this just obscured everything, but
by clicking Level > Lower to Bottom it put
everything else back in the foreground while
providing a nice background.
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For the last piece of the puzzle, Scribus makes it
possible to place graphics anywhere you like
within text and force the surrounding text flow
around it. If you create an image frame that
overlaps text frames, you can try out the feature
by right-clicking on the image, choosing
Properties, and opening the Shape tab. In the
field Text Flow Around Frame we want to focus
on four options: Disabled, Use Frame Shape, Use
Bounding Box, and Use Contour Line.
Disabled turns off the feature entirely and text
will just run over or under the image, ignoring its
shape altogether. Use Frame Shape will make
your text strictly adhere to whatever shape you
have given the frame. Use Bounding Box will
make sure that text will always conform to a
perfectly rectangular field around the image.
This can leave big empty gaps, but it may be just
the look some people are going for.
For the advanced users out there, there’s the
Use Contour Line option. This is hard to explain
without a live demonstration, but this adds a
second shape for text to flow around,
independent of however the image may look
rightnow.Thecontourwillbebasedon
whatevertheimage’soriginalframewas,butby
clickingEdityoucanmaketheshapejustabout
anythingyoulikeusingfa irlyintricatecontrols.Readyformore?
Afteryou’vefinishedyourformattingand
establisheda feel,youcancreateanentire
magazinebaseduponyourownstyleandtastes.
Youcanalsousethisasa template,creatinga
distinctstyleyourreadersmayenjoy.
Thismonthwe’veonlycoveredthebasicsof
a magazinelayout,takinga moretext-based
approach.Nextmonthwe’llfocusmoreon
graphics,suchascovers,posters,andsoon.
Obviouslythisisn’tanenvironmenttoreplace
yourwordprocessor,butif thisweresomething
likeWordorLibreOfficeWriter,youwould
agoniseendlesslytryingtogeta graphictosit
intherightplace,constantlyafraidyouwould
upsetthefragileformatting.InScribusyoujust
clickthis,dragthat,andyou’redone.The
interfaceisn’tnecessarilydifficult,it’sjust
different.Stickwithit andyou’llberewarded.QUSING GUIDES
Guides are a tricky thing in Scribus. If you open the main menu and click
View > Show Guides, it turns on the big ugly lines that show where
everything goes. This may or may not be enabled by default according to
the whims of the document. Turning them on or off will probably result
in nothing with a brand new document, as they are generally things you
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For new documents, Page > Snap to Guides is less useful than Snap to
Grid, because it will only snap to the page borders and not the columns- one would assume Snap to Guides would work with columns from the
outset. Unfortunately, if you want to have your frames snap to columns,
you will need to enter these manually in the Guide Manager (from the
main menu click Page > Manage Guides). This is a right faff and we just
don’t have space to cover it this month.
For most people, drawing boxes freehand with a visible guide will
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DIWHUGD\LW·VSUREDEO\ZRUWKGRLQJ%XWZH·OOOHW\RXZRUNRXWIRU\RXUVHOI
where each row and column sits as it’s beyond tedious to try and write
about! Maybe next month. Maybe.
Here’s we’ve created our own magazine all about the Commodore 64, the faithful home
computer from the 1980s.BEST TIP
The Sample Text
function is very handy,
especially the option
for different languages.
If you use different
languages between
Text Frames, you can
spot linking errors you
mightn’t otherwise see.Explore
Design with Scribus
December 2019 | |^45