Talk:Localization guidelines (Bookshelf)

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Most of the people on this wiki are not Scribus experts. Specific Scribus-related questions can also be asked on the Scribus Community mailing list. Please help us improve the localization guidelines with lessons you're learning.

I get an "[*.sla] is not an acceptable format" error with Scribus on Windows 7 for the files included in the ZIP file. Any ideas how to solve this?

(Also the Zip file seems to contain a lot of OS X system files, that are probably not necessary for the localization.) --Bdamokos 10:04, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't open it with Scribus 1.33.3.13svn (the version that ships with Ubuntu Lucid). It would be helpful to know which version(s) are required to successfully open the file.--Eloquence 18:12, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I created these files with Scribus 1.3.5 for Mac OSX. As I understand it this file should be backwards compatible to at least 1.3.4. According to the Scribus site 1.3.7 is the latest available install for Mac OSX and Windows (including 7).
As far as additional files go, the files in the directory named "Placed" are resources for the layout files. Additional files are included there in case those placed files need any adjustment for localization. If there are more files included in the top directory, those are invisible to me on MacOSX, but may be required by Scribus.
There does not seem to be a way to save files in an older format from Scribus 1.3.5.
I am sorry I couldn't be of more help, but my experience with this software is limited as the only project I have completed with it is this file "Welcome to Wikipedia." --Dhorstman 20:26, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Erik, the latest version of Scribus is 1.3.8. You can download it here. There are several linux versions available (Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE) and Ubuntu is one of them. --Frank Schulenburg 21:14, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Thanks for the additional info, here's my experience on Windows 7 64 bit – the essence of it could be shared in the guide. The latest stable Windows release of Scribus is 1.3.3. which is not compatible with the later version used for the guides. The development version for Windows is 1.3.7. which should be able to open the files, didn't run on my system. The SVN version is 1.3.9. runs on Windows 7 64 bit and does open the files (available at [1] under "Newest files").

On opening the files, I get two warnings: the Helvetica Neue font is not present on my system and the color profiles (although generic in name: "Generic CMYK" and "Generic RGB" I believe) aren't either. I suppose the fonts could be bundled with the production files.

In later editions of the guide it might be useful to provide some tips on how the screenshots were edited, as they will all need to be replaced (eventually) in the localized versions, especially if they serve any functional roles. --Bdamokos 12:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I found that the scribus-ng packages from the official Ubuntu repositories work, and have added a note to the wiki page. (The more recent version is easy to install using the provided repositories, as well.) I get the same warning messages when opening the file, Bence. It also took me a while to figure out that you could only manipulate objects in the active layer, so I've added a hint to that effect.--Eloquence 23:32, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, to be able to edit the text of some of the Try It sections you have to first ungroup them (right click --> Ungroup). --Bdamokos 09:31, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Scribus has an option under File --> Collect for output which will output into a directory all the source files that are actually used in the final product and it can also include all the colour profiles and fonts as well. I guess in the future it might be useful to provide the source files in such a matter (and add to them as extra all the files that are not used in the actual product but could be useful for localization). --Bdamokos 13:39, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Globe image on page 7[edit]

The Roles_Globe.svg file in the Placed/Page Elements folder seems to be out of sync with its PNG version (Roles_Globe.png in the same directory) used in the Welcome to Wikipedia booklet on page 7, making editing the globe a bit complicated. (Localizers might want to do slight adjustments to make the map slightly more realistic for languages that are not speaken worldwide - although not much can be done, with the projection of the globe.) --Bdamokos 11:55, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fitting the copy[edit]

A good tip for fitting the copy when changing the size of the text area is not a good option is to hyphenate the text in Scribus (Extras --> Hyphenate Text in the menu). --Bdamokos 17:40, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hungarian[edit]

I have put together the first draft of the Hungarian version at Welcome2WP Hung.pdf. (I haven't found the best place to mention it on the wiki, so I'm just dropping a note here.) --Bdamokos 23:49, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese[edit]

Hello guys. I met a very serious problem. Scribus seemed not work with Chinese Characters. I just can't type in any of them. And I try typing them in notepad and copy them directly to Scribus and they turn into blanks like there should be something. Am I doing anything wrong? Or essentials like fonts are missing? Songford 03:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that Scribus doesn't support Chinese characters, it's that the font you're using (Helvetica or Arial) doesn't support it. Have you tried using Arial Unicode MS? That works with Chinese characters. Cbrown1023 19:34, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah , that's quite true. Thank you for your help Cbrown. 222.68.146.201 11:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Uploading source files[edit]

The guideline recommends that "As localized versions are produced it is recommended that they should be packaged in a similar way to the English masters and uploaded/linked to from this site. That way a growing archive of materials can be made available here for all to use." Unfortunately, this cannot be done as .zip files cannot be uploaded to this wiki.

Scribus files on the other hand can be uploaded and they should be enough if the original English secondary source files (all the images) were not changed. If any of the images has been changed in the localization process (which is very likely, given the use of screenshots of the English Wikipedia that need to be replaced and the embedded reference guide image), then they would need to be uploaded as well and downloading and putting back together everything from multiple files will become a tad bit tiresome.--Bdamokos 13:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Scribus text editor odd-behaviour[edit]

On my version of Scribus (1.3.9.svn) the text editor had an odd behaviour where it wouldn't let the first word, line or sentence have formatting (like bolding or different colour) different from the rest of the first paragraph (this is especially annoying with texts where the first word of the first sentence was bold).

The way to solve this issue for me was to insert an empty first line in the text editor, apply the formatting, close the text editor and then by double clicking on the text frame in the main Scribus window delete the empty line. --Bdamokos 11:51, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Page 11[edit]

On page 11, "Life of an article", part of the text in the source document has been truncated by the text bounding box, and moved to the next page. Please consider this since the text may unwillingly become visible on the wrong page if the translated text is shorter than the the original. --Jollyroger 16:03, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page 10[edit]

Please, provide step-to-step instructions on how to wrap text around the "try it!" box. Could not replicate the effect of the original source on the whole graphic block (only on the green box). --Jollyroger 16:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page 6-7[edit]

For you out there trying to translate the homepage screenshot too, there is a few thing to consider when modifying the image. Here a detailed walkthrough:

  1. check under the "\placed\screenshots" folder for Main_Page.PNG
  2. open it in your photo editing software (strongly suggested Photoshop, gets a much better skew effect than Gimp, with only minor pixellation defects)
  3. max zoom on the corners of the distorted image, add a couple of guidelines (horizontal & vertical) on each corner of the existing image. The corner to be used is the grey edge, not the white one
  4. open WP on a browser on a computer with the biggest 4:3 display available. Do you have one of those fancy 16:9 widescreen? Me too, and I can say: you are pretty f**ked. Good luck on finding the right ratio
  5. ok, you have WP on firefox on your old display now: check you see all the mennu lines needed, F11, wait the menu to disappear, press preintscreen
  6. back to photoshop, paste
  7. edit>transform>distort, move the handlers to snap to the guidelines
  8. extra check: is the wiki ball logo in the right proportions (almost circle)? Or is it an ellipse? If it's the latter, check your display size and GOTO 1
  9. add a "stroke" effect to the layer, choose an RGB:(50;50;50) color (warm gray), size 3pz, position inside (else, it will round the corners)
  10. do not add a shadow, we will be using the original one (since it's difficult to replicate the same without any data provided). If you did a good job, the new image will perfectly cover the old one.
  11. resave as PNG, open scribus
  12. if the image was not reloaded, or if you had left scribus open, right click and reload image.

--Jollyroger 16:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fonts and user handle[edit]

Hi all, Two things, as somebody told above "On opening the files, I get two warnings: the Helvetica Neue font is not present on my system and the color profiles (although generic in name: "Generic CMYK" and "Generic RGB" I believe) aren't either. I suppose the fonts could be bundled with the production files." - Bdamkos. I am getting the same issue.

While there is some information given in the page https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/outreach/wiki/Localization_guidelines_(Bookshelf)#Type_font_and_conversion its simply not enough. The best would be to give a link to the fonts (an external URL or something) and also atleast the User handle of whoever this Aradhana is or somebody at the foundation who can look at it. Shirishag75 23:29, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Helvetica Neue is not free (the fonts needed amounts to around 100€).
The color profile is, as the name suggests, just a "generic" color profile, useless for any printing purpose. Change that to any default (Agfa CMYK and Adobe RGB).
I may say that for the future documents, we definitely need a better support for the translator: use free fonts, provide color profiles, write instructions for complex editing, and most important *use a file format that can be opened with a stable release of the software an all the platforms*. The file provided on Win7_64 can be opened only with the beta/SVN version of Scribus.
I just completed the Italian translation, [2], that is under proofreading by the community. --Jollyroger 00:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trouble editing Course sylabus in Scribus[edit]

Hi,

Can anyone please confirm that they can edit the course sylabbus [3] source files in Scribus? I have opened them in Scribus 1.4.0rc5 in Win 7 64-bit and when I edit a text area and try to save it, Scribus freezes.

Thanks, --Bdamokos (talk) 16:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to edit it with Scribus 1.4.0rc2 on Linux and Mac. I did an overhaul of the content recently, and can send you the source of the newer version if that would be helpful; maybe you'll have better luck with that, which was saved with a more recent version of Scribus than the currently available source. Contact me at sross at wikimedia.org and I'll send it to you.--Sage Ross (talk) 17:18, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]