WORKING WITH FRAMES

1 Set up a text frame

After opening a blank document, click the text frame button, then click and drag on the page where you’d like the frame to appear. This can then be resized and moved as required. Press F3 to bring up the Text Properties box to set other attributes including text columns (under Columns & Text Distances). Be sure to set a gap between columns as shown.

3 Make use of guides

To ensure frames line up correctly, create guides to help – click and drag from the vertical or horizontal rulers to the left and top of the page respectively to create them. As you click and drag, you’ll see their exact X or Y position is shown to help you position them precisely. Choose Page>Snap to Guides to help align frames more easily to guides.

2 Link text frames

If you want to flow text between different frames and/or pages, you need to create links between them. Select your first frame and press N – you’ll see the cursor change. Simply place this over your second text frame and click to link them. Repeat the process for any other frames. You can unlink frames by pressing the U key instead.

4 Layer frames

Frames can overlap or be placed one on top of another thanks to Scribus’s support for layers. Right-click a layer and choose Level to move it up, down or to the top or bottom of the current pile. This affects how content in other frames is displayed – for example, to flow text around an image, place the image at the top, press F2 and set the flow using the Shape tab.