Matt, I'm fairly new to Scribus myself, so I can't answer all your questions -- I'd like to see the answers to your questions about sections myself.
I've found that for text editing, saving in plain text is best. For formatting, what I do is create the styles I want in Scribus, then create a text filter as per the instructions here: http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Laying_out_articles Then, I designate every paragraph based on the style I want in the text file. Import as per above, and voila! Almost-instant formatting. It really doesn't take that long once the initial text filters are set up. Jennifer Matt Savigear wrote: > Hello Scribus users, > > I have just installed Scribus (on Linux) and have some pretty basic > questions which don't seem to be answered in the docs - they're more > along the lines of recommendations anyway. > > I want to create a relatively long manual, of perhaps 200 pages all > told. Now, I know I need to create the text separately (probably by > chapter) and create tables and picture elements separately, and then > tie them all together in the scribus frames. No problem. > > There are still a few things I'm unsure of: > > (a) Having made my last efforts using LaTeX I love the document > structuring features but I was unable to fully get the layout I wanted. > LaTeX does have some neat features such as automatic section numbering. > You can generate a section layout such as: > 2 > 2.1 > 2.1.1 > 2.1.2 > 2.2 > 2.3 > 2.3.1 > 3 > ...and so on, and if you insert a new \section header in the text > between, say, 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 it will automatically renumber the old > one at 2.1.3 and keep document integrity. Can this be done in scribus? > > (b) What do people use for their text editing needs? It seems that the > cleanest way of doing this is to write in absolutely plain text however > that makes it difficult to denote chapter and section headings, as well > as numbered and bulleted lists. Is HTML a good medium? This would allow > lists and headings without trying to export style information I would > rather leave to scribus. > > I guess what I am really asking is what is the cost/benefit of using > scribus? How much more manual layout needs to be done over direct > content creation in a word processor or markup language? > Benefit: Vastly better control over document layout. > Cost: Loss of a lot of neat automated functionality. > > Of course, what I'd _really_ like to be able to do is import LaTeX > documents into scribus for layout. That would be very neat indeed! > > Many thanks for any responses! >
