Discussion:
[scribus] Template for business cards
John Beardmore
2010-11-17 14:15:57 UTC
Permalink
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.

Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?

I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.


Many thanks, J/.
--
John Beardmore,MSc EDM (Open),B.A. Chem (Oxon),CMIOSH,CEnv,MIEMA,MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
Consultancy and Installation, Carbon Trust Standard Registered Assessor
Transition Training and Consultancy Energy Resilience Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332 Mobile: 07785 563116 Skype: t4sustainability
Alexandre Prokoudine
2010-11-17 14:34:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.
http://glabels.org/

Alexandre Prokoudine
http://libregraphicsworld.org
John Beardmore
2010-11-17 15:29:28 UTC
Permalink
Post by Alexandre Prokoudine
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.
http://glabels.org/
Thanks Alexandre, but I had in mind doing them in Scribus, partly
because I'm familiar with it, and partly because I'm working under
windows, so Gnome tools aren't of direct use.


Many thanks, J/.
--
John Beardmore,MSc EDM (Open),B.A. Chem (Oxon),CMIOSH,CEnv,MIEMA,MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
Consultancy and Installation, Carbon Trust Standard Registered Assessor
Transition Training and Consultancy Energy Resilience Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332 Mobile: 07785 563116 Skype: t4sustainability
Gregory Pittman
2010-11-17 17:32:33 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Alexandre Prokoudine
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.
http://glabels.org/
Thanks Alexandre, but I had in mind doing them in Scribus, partly
because I'm familiar with it, and partly because I'm working under
windows, so Gnome tools aren't of direct use.
Especially with the way that Multiple Duplicate works now, this is
pretty close to a trivial matter.

I wouldn't even bother with a template, or at least a fully fleshed out
one. All your template requires is one business card space in the left
upper corner of an A4 sheet. Make your card to your liking, then use
Multiple Duplicate to instantly make the needed rows and columns with
any necessary gap (or none).

There is some homework: get the necessary measurements and distances
from a blank sheet. Once you have done this, put the needed information
right on your template, in a visible but nonprinting frame.

Plan B:
Let's say you want some fancy graphics that is repetitive, and all that
changes is the text content. In this case, your template can include
all of that on a Master Page, with a multiple-duplicated text frame on top.

So if you want, you can get a collection of software programs to do some
specialized layout, but for the most part it isn't really necessary.

Greg
Victor Papp
2010-11-17 18:14:39 UTC
Permalink
Hi

IMHO its a wrong approach to use multiple duplicates with business cards.
I always set the page size to 9x5cm (with bleeds if needed).
And I do compose the card in this paper size.
Then, i print to postscript and do imposition using pstops and convert to
pdf with ghostscript for printing.
I tried the multiple duplicate once, but with complicated cards (several
layers of bg images, etc) it leads to very big files with reduced
performance. Also, as mentioned above you cannot use master pages and layers
in this case - or you should multiple duplicate each layer separately.

On the other hand, making imposition with pstops you have flexibility and
its easy to impose several kinds of cards on one A4 page. (In this case each
kind is on a separate 9x5cm page in one scribus document).
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Post by Alexandre Prokoudine
Post by John Beardmore
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.
http://glabels.org/
Thanks Alexandre, but I had in mind doing them in Scribus, partly
because I'm familiar with it, and partly because I'm working under
windows, so Gnome tools aren't of direct use.
Especially with the way that Multiple Duplicate works now, this is pretty
close to a trivial matter.
I wouldn't even bother with a template, or at least a fully fleshed out
one. All your template requires is one business card space in the left upper
corner of an A4 sheet. Make your card to your liking, then use Multiple
Duplicate to instantly make the needed rows and columns with any necessary
gap (or none).
There is some homework: get the necessary measurements and distances from a
blank sheet. Once you have done this, put the needed information right on
your template, in a visible but nonprinting frame.
Let's say you want some fancy graphics that is repetitive, and all that
changes is the text content. In this case, your template can include all of
that on a Master Page, with a multiple-duplicated text frame on top.
So if you want, you can get a collection of software programs to do some
specialized layout, but for the most part it isn't really necessary.
Greg
_______________________________________________
scribus mailing list
scribus at lists.scribus.info
http://lists.scribus.info/mailman/listinfo/scribus
--
Victor Papp
skype: victorpapp
Tel. +38 050 5 141 142
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Gregory Pittman
2010-11-17 19:53:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Victor Papp
Hi
IMHO its a wrong approach to use multiple duplicates with business cards.
I always set the page size to 9x5cm (with bleeds if needed).
And I do compose the card in this paper size.
Then, i print to postscript and do imposition using pstops and convert to
pdf with ghostscript for printing.
I tried the multiple duplicate once, but with complicated cards (several
layers of bg images, etc) it leads to very big files with reduced
performance. Also, as mentioned above you cannot use master pages and layers
in this case - or you should multiple duplicate each layer separately.
and the difficulty with that is....?

I am not hearing a simple procedure from you as an alternative.

This can all be done inside of Scribus, unless you really want to use 3,
4, or 5 separate programs.

Greg
Victor Papp
2010-11-17 20:49:25 UTC
Permalink
Post by Gregory Pittman
Post by Victor Papp
Hi
IMHO its a wrong approach to use multiple duplicates with business cards.
I always set the page size to 9x5cm (with bleeds if needed).
And I do compose the card in this paper size.
Then, i print to postscript and do imposition using pstops and convert to
pdf with ghostscript for printing.
I tried the multiple duplicate once, but with complicated cards (several
layers of bg images, etc) it leads to very big files with reduced
performance. Also, as mentioned above you cannot use master pages and layers
in this case - or you should multiple duplicate each layer separately.
and the difficulty with that is....?
The difficulty is: to multiple copy 12 cards per A4 page when you are using
layers and master pages means:
1. copying all layers separately
2. copying master page separately.
3. if you need to change something in the card, you should delete all copies
and restart.

Instead the above, I use the following script with the ps file produced by
scribus:

call pstops -w50mm -h90mm "1:0R(0,1w)" 1.ps _11.ps
call pstops -w90mm -h50mm
"12:0+0(1w,0)+0(2w,0)+0(0,1h)+0(1w,1h)+0(2w,1h)+0(0,2h)+0(1w,2h)+0(2w,2h)+0(0,3h)+0(1w,3h)+0(2w,3h)+"
_11.ps _1.ps
call pstops -w270mm -h200mm "1:0L(205mm,13mm)" _1.ps _2.ps
call ps2pdf -sPAPERSIZE#a4 -dAutoRotatePages#/None -dPDFSETTINGS#/prepress _
2.ps ready-imposed-cards.pdf

This script puts 12 cards per an A4 landscape page.
I saved the script and am reusing it anytime for any business card (where
1.ps is source file the script uses).


Victor.
Post by Gregory Pittman
I am not hearing a simple procedure from you as an alternative.
This can all be done inside of Scribus, unless you really want to use 3, 4,
or 5 separate programs.
Greg
_______________________________________________
scribus mailing list
scribus at lists.scribus.info
http://lists.scribus.info/mailman/listinfo/scribus
--
Victor Papp
skype: victorpapp
Tel. +38 050 5 141 142
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David Bookbinder
2010-11-17 18:29:02 UTC
Permalink
I'm interested in using Scribis foe a photo book and would be interested in seeing any templates from others who have done this successfully. I'll probably print through Amazon and will get their dimensions, but as this is my first DTP venture having a template to star that includes things like spine and jacket text as well as cover art would be a great help.

TIA!

Best,
-David
David J. Bookbinder, LMHC
http://www.davidbookbinder.com
978-395-1292

Sent from my iPhone
Post by Victor Papp
Hi
IMHO its a wrong approach to use multiple duplicates with business cards.
I always set the page size to 9x5cm (with bleeds if needed).
And I do compose the card in this paper size.
Then, i print to postscript and do imposition using pstops and convert to
pdf with ghostscript for printing.
I tried the multiple duplicate once, but with complicated cards (several
layers of bg images, etc) it leads to very big files with reduced
performance. Also, as mentioned above you cannot use master pages and layers
in this case - or you should multiple duplicate each layer separately.
On the other hand, making imposition with pstops you have flexibility and
its easy to impose several kinds of cards on one A4 page. (In this case each
kind is on a separate 9x5cm page in one scribus document).
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Post by Alexandre Prokoudine
Post by John Beardmore
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I'm not bothered about what's on the card, just keen to have something
which makes laying the cards out on A4 sheets easier.
http://glabels.org/
Thanks Alexandre, but I had in mind doing them in Scribus, partly
because I'm familiar with it, and partly because I'm working under
windows, so Gnome tools aren't of direct use.
Especially with the way that Multiple Duplicate works now, this is pretty
close to a trivial matter.
I wouldn't even bother with a template, or at least a fully fleshed out
one. All your template requires is one business card space in the left upper
corner of an A4 sheet. Make your card to your liking, then use Multiple
Duplicate to instantly make the needed rows and columns with any necessary
gap (or none).
There is some homework: get the necessary measurements and distances from a
blank sheet. Once you have done this, put the needed information right on
your template, in a visible but nonprinting frame.
Let's say you want some fancy graphics that is repetitive, and all that
changes is the text content. In this case, your template can include all of
that on a Master Page, with a multiple-duplicated text frame on top.
So if you want, you can get a collection of software programs to do some
specialized layout, but for the most part it isn't really necessary.
Greg
_______________________________________________
scribus mailing list
scribus at lists.scribus.info
http://lists.scribus.info/mailman/listinfo/scribus
--
Victor Papp
skype: victorpapp
Tel. +38 050 5 141 142
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_______________________________________________
scribus mailing list
scribus at lists.scribus.info
http://lists.scribus.info/mailman/listinfo/scribus
a.l.e
2010-11-18 14:43:45 UTC
Permalink
hi david,
Post by David Bookbinder
I'm interested in using Scribis foe a photo book and would be interested in seeing any templates from others who have done this successfully. I'll probably print through Amazon and will get their dimensions, but as this is my first DTP venture having a template to star that includes things like spine and jacket text as well as cover art would be a great help.
here is a very interesting work...

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1168184

it has also been presented at this year's LGM

http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2010/index.php?p=en/talk/new_zealand_book

ciao
a.l.e
Rob Oakes
2010-11-18 15:45:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by a.l.e
here is a very interesting work...
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1168184
Absolutely beautiful book. Nicely designed, wonderful photography, interesting text.

Do you by chance know how to get ahold of the author? I've got a couple of questions for him and I would love a chance to look at his import scripts. But I wasn't able to find a blog, email, or contact form (other than leaving a comment on the flickr page).
Post by a.l.e
it has also been presented at this year's LGM
http://libregraphicsmeeting.org/2010/index.php?p=en/talk/new_zealand_book
The presentation slides are interesting, but I'd love to get more detail on the Scribus portion of the workflow.

Cheers,

Rob
a.l.e
2010-11-18 16:51:06 UTC
Permalink
hi rob,
Post by a.l.e
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1168184
Do you by chance know how to get ahold of the author? I've got a couple of questions for him
and I would love a chance to look at his import scripts.
he may be reading the ML...

otherwise his name and mailing address can be found by following the
link above (and the links on that page)

ciao
a.l.e
Gregory Pittman
2010-11-18 14:45:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by David Bookbinder
I'm interested in using Scribis foe a photo book and would be interested in seeing any templates from others who have done this successfully. I'll probably print through Amazon and will get their dimensions, but as this is my first DTP venture having a template to star that includes things like spine and jacket text as well as cover art would be a great help.
Here is a collection of scripts I wrote some years ago for creating
something like a photo album.

http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Automatic_import_of_images:_Versions_not_requiring_Tkinter

What I was trying to do was to deal with the chore of individually
loading a large number of photos into a Scribus document. The idea was
to identify a directory full of images, after which the script creates
pages with a particular layout and loads the images in alphabetical
order according to the file name.

I have made options to simply cram as many photos as possible on a page,
and others with a staggered layout so that text frames could be inserted
for various descriptions and annotations. The relative dimensions were
according the the first digital camera I had, so when I upgraded my
camera I needed to alter those parameters.

The scripts are mainly meant as a starting point for the idea to show
how it can be done, and leave plenty of room for customization by others.

Greg
Owen
2010-11-17 20:24:35 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I am not sure if you are into building your own Scribus, but the
recent versions have a zillion templates, a million of which are under
the "Business Card" section
--
Owen
Philip Ward
2010-11-17 20:32:54 UTC
Permalink
Hi

i know its a silly question, what do i need to build scribus for OSX?
10.5, ie Xcode? or something else like fink?

cheers
phil
Post by Owen
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I am not sure if you are into building your own Scribus, but the
recent versions have a zillion templates, a million of which are under
the "Business Card" section
John Beardmore
2010-11-18 00:09:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Owen
Post by John Beardmore
Google reveals a number of sites that have Scribus templates.
Does anybody have any thoughts on the best template for business
cards ?
I am not sure if you are into building your own Scribus,
Not at the moment, but I was asking where I could get 1.5svns for windows.
Post by Owen
but the
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?

So where can I download it ?
Post by Owen
a million of which are under
the "Business Card" section
OK, thanks.


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore,MSc EDM (Open),B.A. Chem (Oxon),CMIOSH,CEnv,MIEMA,MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
Consultancy and Installation, Carbon Trust Standard Registered Assessor
Transition Training and Consultancy Energy Resilience Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332 Mobile: 07785 563116 Skype: t4sustainability
a.l.e
2010-11-18 07:18:04 UTC
Permalink
ciao john,
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Owen
but the
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?
no, 1.3.9

ciao
a.l.e
John Beardmore
2010-11-18 08:10:48 UTC
Permalink
Post by a.l.e
ciao john,
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Owen
but the
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?
no, 1.3.9
Many thanks ! Found that and those.

I'm still struggling to find the 1.5 svn strand. Is this not available
as a windows installer ?


Cheers, J/.
--
John Beardmore,MSc EDM (Open),B.A. Chem (Oxon),CMIOSH,CEnv,MIEMA,MEI
Managing Director, T4 Sustainability Limited. http://www.T4sLtd.co.uk/
Energy Audit, Carbon Management, Design Advice, Sustainable Energy
Consultancy and Installation, Carbon Trust Standard Registered Assessor
Transition Training and Consultancy Energy Resilience Assessor
Phone: 0845 4561332 Mobile: 07785 563116 Skype: t4sustainability
John Culleton
2010-11-18 15:21:32 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Beardmore
Post by a.l.e
ciao john,
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Owen
but the
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?
no, 1.3.9
Many thanks ! Found that and those.
I'm still struggling to find the 1.5 svn strand. Is this not
available as a windows installer ?
Cheers, J/.
Sometimes it helps to have more than one OS on your computer. For Open
Source projects the Windows version is often late in coming and harder
to install. For example on Slackware Linux all the bits and pieces
needed for compiling Scribus come with the system, the compiler, the
linker, the QT4 libraries and so on. It is a fair amount of work to
assemble and install these on other Linux flavors, and even more work
on MSWIn and OS X. So those who live on the bleeding edge, like me,
find that Linux is a more comfortable way to go.

The wiki will most likely have some useful information on installing
and updating an svn version on MSWin. I just prefer the easier path.
--
John Culleton, Wexford Press
"Create Book Covers with Scribus" $5.95 at
http://www.booklocker.com/books/4055.html

Free eps format barcode: http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/
Rob Oakes
2010-11-18 15:42:52 UTC
Permalink
Post by John Culleton
Sometimes it helps to have more than one OS on your computer. For Open
Source projects the Windows version is often late in coming and harder
to install. For example on Slackware Linux all the bits and pieces
needed for compiling Scribus come with the system, the compiler, the
linker, the QT4 libraries and so on. It is a fair amount of work to
assemble and install these on other Linux flavors, and even more work
on MSWIn and OS X. So those who live on the bleeding edge, like me,
find that Linux is a more comfortable way to go.
I'll second this. If you're doing a lot with OpenSource, the only operating system to use is Linux. My work toolchain includes:

- Scribus
- LaTeX
- LyX
- R / ggplot2 / RKWard
- ImageMagick
- Python
- Spyder
- numpy
- ITK
- PyQt / Qt

(and probably others I've overlooked).

To install these applications on a Windows or Mac is a multi-day affair. Longer if I have to compile anything from source. On a Linux computer (I use Ubuntu, mostly), I install the OS and run a simple shell script. Nearly everything is available from the repositories and it takes maybe an hour or so to download and install. During that time, I can work on other stuff.

The more invested I become in open source solutions, the more sense that Linux makes. I prefer to run it natively, but there are a few places where I'm not able to do that. In those cases a virtual machine works quite well. I even get decent performance when running models and compiling large LyX/LaTeX documents (true monsters with several hundred pages of text and many thousands of images).

If it's not feasible to partition and multiboot, a virtual machine can save a lot of time.

Cheers,

Rob
Daniel Wintersdorf
2010-11-18 17:26:50 UTC
Permalink
Am 18.11.2010 08:18, schrieb a.l.e:

Hello,
Post by a.l.e
ciao john,
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Owen
but the
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?
no, 1.3.9
Sorry, but didn't find any template in 1.3.9 for WinXp. Where do i have
to look?

Daniel
a.l.e
2010-11-18 17:34:20 UTC
Permalink
hi daniel
Post by Daniel Wintersdorf
Post by a.l.e
Post by John Beardmore
Post by Owen
recent versions have a zillion templates,
This is 1.5 ?
no, 1.3.9
Sorry, but didn't find any template in 1.3.9 for WinXp. Where do i
have to look?
it has not been released yet. not sure whether the snapshots are new enough.

1.3.9 will be released in about a week

ciao
a.l.e

Peter Nermander
2010-11-17 20:57:07 UTC
Permalink
Post by Gregory Pittman
Especially with the way that Multiple Duplicate works now, this is
pretty close to a trivial matter.
I wouldn't use multiple duplicate.

I would make the card layout using final size (possibly with bleed)
and then try to get some imposition tool to handle the imposition.

Of course you could also export to PDF and have an imposition template
where you import the PDF and number of times.

As a matter of fact, I wouldn't just do it, I have already tried it:)

But I won't use the imposition part because the companies I have
looked at, that are offering like 200 free business cards (if you
accept their ad on the back), generally just want a plain PDF (of TIFF
or EPS) with one card in.

/Peter
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