Scribus Lesson 7 - Master Pages

[@MizSuz]

All the stars for this one. I've appreciated the series to date, but this one is hitting on the things I was excited to see. Thanks for your time doing these.

[@chrish3175]

6 years later and still a very useful tutorial series

[@TraciStyner]

As others have said, part of this tutorial seems quite misleading. At the 3 minute mark, you show creating a master page called picture, with two picture frames and two text frames. However, when you apply the master page, you can't do anything with those picture frames and text frames. I don't understand the point of creating this type of master page. It would make sense if those frames were placeholders and you could put the pictures and text into the frames, but you can't. Can you please clarify why you would create a master page like this. Just to serve as a guide, since to add the pictures and text to the page, you would have to manually put the exact same frames on every single page?

[@ludwigsormlind796]

This is exactly what I came here to learn. Thank you for an amazing tutorial. :D

[@carolinekloppert5177]

Thankyou for putting together all these tutorials. They have been immensely useful. Although 1.6.2 is the latest version I can download on my computer, I have scribus 1.5.4 so that the descriptions in your tutorials line up with what I'm working with. I created the picture page and inserted at the end of the document. It produced an extra blank page. A pedagogical tip. You spent about 2 minutes talking about the need for the page being offset because of the binding, a concept that anyone who has ever created a book will be way familiar with and doesn't need explaining, but you skip over the complex stuff so one can't see your cursor and arrows. I replay 4 times to try and copy what you're doing and I can't see what you're doing.

[@ErikBongers]

This video seems to suggest that you can create empty placeholders in master pages, but you can't. This is very misleading. Could you add a correction to this video?

[@GoHardWithGerhard]

Great material. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@holbeincrane4130]

For all of you who would want a master page but that you can edit in the document, you can use the scrapbooks. Just select all your frames, groupe them, then go to windows, scrapbook, in the dialogue box that opens, choose copied object then selects your groupe, copy it and it will be part of your library. You can use this like a master page by just selecting one of your all page. By the way, you can degroupe the things you copied if you want a slight modification, and you can actually also degroupe your original object and modifie it, it will not delet the groupe form the scrapbook library. I just looked some tutorials so I may have said some wrong things their, correct me if I'm wrong ^^

[@3paddymac]

Agree that this is very misleading. No point in adding image placeholders in a masterpage if you can't edit them within the document later on.

[@AacatNet]

The fact that i cant override any elements of the master page in the individual pages make this feature 80% useless compared to inDesign. How is this not fixed 4 years later

[@hibiscusflower5911]

How do I assign a master page to an existing page. If I listened correctly you only showed how to create a new page with an assigned master page.

[@troypinkerton9876]

This is frustrating. Master pages don't seem to do what I would expect them to do. I expected that if you place a blank image box inside a master page and apply that master page to the pages in my document; you would then be able to insert your own image in each page in the main document. The master page would provide the size and position of the image box, but the content of those image boxes could be unique to each page if you so choose. The tutorials I have seen act as though what I am describing is how it works (without actually showing it being used), but from what I can tell in comments sections.. putting empty text or image boxes in a master page is pointless other than to use as a guide to trace your own live/editable text and image boxes over the top of. Even that is pretty pointless though, because you would be better off just copy/paste your image or text box from a previous page, then replace the content.

[@johancodelab5918]

To all of you FRUSTRATED that masterpage elements can't be edited after applied to normal pages - READ THIS: In Scribus master pages doesn't work like in other DTP programs. Master page elements are JUST for static elements such as (everywhere the same) background images, page numbers or headers. What we all want, standard layouts which can be applied to a blank page and then modified can easily reached by using the SCRAPBOOK. The steps are: do the layout on a standard page > select all elements/frames > right click "Sent to" - "Scrapbook" - (select folder) In order to apply Scrapbook stored items to a page, you can directly drag them from the scrapbook-library (Windows > tick "Scrapbook") to the page.

[@KTEIK]

How to create a book cover with spine in scribus?

[@t0dd000]

You don't. Use Inkscape.

[@MiguelHortiguelaMHP]

Hi: First of all, thanks for these tutorials, they're extremely helpful. However, after generating a MasterPage, as you did with Image and Text blocks, I inserted a page into my document, but those blocks aren't accessible for me to drop an image or text into. What am I doing wrong? Thanks for your time,

[@TJFREE]

Hi Miguel. I don't have Scribus in front of me now, but I think when you insert a page, there is an option to either insert a blank page or insert from a master page template.

[@MiguelHortiguelaMHP]

@@TJFREE I can't find any reference to a Master Page & Template, which may not be possible. It may be that I'm trying to create a Template / Page more so than a Master Page and the only way I can think to do that is to copy my "template" to a page at the end of the document and then C & P it as I work my way down the document. BTW I'm putting together a product catalogue and although several pages are similar, there is some variation.

[@jynclr]

I just found Scribus and am new to publishing. Thank you for these tutorials. I have a question. I followed this tutorial and I now have a new master page with a place holder for the image. I have added the page (this is just the sample book in the tutorial.) The problem I am now having is a way to get an image into the image frame on the added page that is using the new master page. How do I do that? Thank you.

[@jynclr]

PS: I understand i can add an image to the image frame in the master page, but that just puts the same image on any inserted page using that master page. I wanted to make a photo book and have all images in the same spot hence the use of master pages. But once I've inserted a page with a master page that has an image frame, there is no way to get the image into that image frame in the inserted page. How do I do that? Thanks!

[@TJFREE]

Hi, good question. Depending on your OS, you may be able to just drag and drop your picture right onto the image frame. You can also right click > get image.

[@jynclr]

@@TJFREE Thank you for the quick response! Okay so, I'm on Windows 8.1 pro. I can't drag and drop. Also, I just did a right mouse button click on the image frame and all I have is "get text" for the page. Not for the image, i.e. I don't see "get image" when I do a right mouse button click over the image frame. Remember, this is the image frame in a master page. I am on a page that has that master page with the image frame. Even "get image" from right mouse button click over the image frame doesn't show up. :( Perhaps since this is a dev latest this might be something that needs to be looked at?

[@jynclr]

@@TJFREE Also, the same goes for the text box. I can't fill in the text frame on the page (the text frame being on the master page.)

[@ShrubOfDeath]

@@jynclr Just started learning Scribus yesterday. From what I can tell, you and I both thought master pages worked the same way. We would setup a master page with the location and style of a text box and the location of a image frame then on our normal document, we just swap out the contents of those two boxes on an individual page by page basis. From my searching so far though, it seems this is not the way its intended to work :( Did you come up with a decent solution since you wrote your comment? I think I am going to look into copying and pasting elements from one page to the next so they are in the same location at least.. but this means if I change my mind on ANYTHING I have to go and re-do every single page. Unacceptable.

[@fredberri7225]

I have Scribus 1.5.8 and can not find any tutorials. Can you help? Do you know how to reach Scribus? I've exhausted my searces. Pleas help. When using your tutorials, they are different.

[@SLASHZ2000]

Can't recall if InDesign ever did this. This feature is creative.

[@damianpiatkowski5158]

it's worthless. i can make a masterpage and setup there all the text and picture frames... and they appear on the pages, but can't be edited. so what's the point of putting the frames there. on every page would be the same text or picture (if it is set in masterpage setup) or new frame must be added on every page. it's crucial thing and it's not explained here.

[@IbrahimAli-sx5lq]

A master page can only be edited inside the master page editor: Go to Edit>Master Pages>select the page in the Edit Master Pages dialog box - then edit your page.

[@damianpiatkowski5158]

@@IbrahimAli-sx5lq i know that. what is the point of have the same picture on every page?

[@IbrahimAli-sx5lq]

@@damianpiatkowski5158 It's not just pictures - but also text, logos, shapes, watermark, etc. If you have a hundred or more pages, you would use masterpages for page numbering, author name and book title in header/footer, etc. to avoid repeating.

[@damianpiatkowski5158]

@@IbrahimAli-sx5lq i know it, but this video suggest that you can use master pages to make some kind of template for the page. but you can't. this kind of template would be nice. for example: all the photos at the same place but different photo on every page.

[@IbrahimAli-sx5lq]

@@damianpiatkowski5158 By template he means page patterns (or sort of mini-template) as related to sections of document - not template to be saved in template format ( - you can do that by going File>Save as Template)

[@mgn2949]

Hi TJ, I am trying to create 2 master pages ( left and right) so that i can setup different margins/bleeds etc, but I cannot find the "bleed" settings anywhere other than when creating a new page from scratch ( which creates a new document ). Also tried to duplicate a master page but the settings do not show any bleed options? Any idea how i might go about doing this? My intention is to create a single page PDF for a booklet ( as opposed to a double paged PDF). Thanks

[@nintahalapande7755]

Good tutorial, but you got lucky and had some master pages already there XD... and you used page formatting from existing master page... I do not have this luxury, and using "insert - character - the whole character is grayed out" so I cannot add a text box with page numbering somehow :( Edit: I found how to insert the pages.. when in Master page edit, by using right-click on text box and picking "Edit text with Story Editor". There, characters work. Besides this, it was a good tutorial for me. Thank you

[@dotdashYTP]

01:45 PM about to jump back into JavaScript, will be right back

[@Jeffreymart]

I need to use a background image for childrens picture book.

[@dianaodonnell5186]

Thanks for the info

[@dizyazmo9481]

Thanks.

[@tulisanteguhgunawan]

Thank's Sir

[@bkr0127]

This is Incorrect. This is not how master pages work