Hello,

I'm writing a guitar instruction book. It will use images and tables in it. I'm not sure which program would be right for it as I'm not familiar with either.

Below are some examples of what I'm looking for. It will be a print book so I'll need to be able to create images with at least a 300dpi resolution.

Thank you in advance for your help.

For line drawings and text, I'd use Inkscape, or a combination of Inkscape (for graphics) and Scribus (for page layout).

Gimp is more appropriate for editing raster (bitmap) images.

TD

Ok, thank you.

For the tables I would just use a spreadsheet app like Libre Office Calc, then use some screengrab app you have on your computer to take a screenshot. Stretch the window fullscreen and zoom in to get the biggest screenshot, for printing quality.

But yes definitely Inkscape for the illustrations, that's what it's for .

You can use GIMP to create the same drawings but I think it would take much more time, and if you're inexperienced with graphics app that use layers it would take a really long while to learn. Inkscape on the other hand manipulates objects, which is much more intuitive, and is much easier to use.

Thanks prkos. Unfortunately I tried that and didn't have much luck. I tried using Snagit and saved the image as 300dpi, but at some point it reduces the setting to 72dpi.

Have you tried contacting their support? I doubt they would limit that, maybe there's a catch you just need to adjust in your settings. Was the area you were trying to capture large enough?

I'm on Linux so I'm out of the loop there, but I sometimes use Shutter when I need heavy stuff. Here are some alternatives. https://gitlab.com/inkscape/vectors/gen ... adquarters

But I think any screenshot app should do what you need.

Thanks prkos. It's probably me. I don't know enough about graphics yet. Hopefully by learning about Inkscape and Gimp I will be able to solve my problem.

I advise against screenshots for print. The bitmaps will degrade.

tylerdurden wrote:I advise against screenshots for print. The bitmaps will degrade.

Yes, so far that has been my experience.

FWIW, it seems tables can be directly copied from LibreOffice spreadsheet cells...


Good: the text is editable text
Not great: the borders become individual paths.

tylerdurden this is awesome! Very nifty use of Select too

Inkscape.

The advantage of using SVG (Inkscape) is that it can be rendered to different resolutions. Converting images to pixels can be delayed to the last minute where the resolution of the device can be used. They can be shown at the maximum resolution of the device. This eliminates the blocky or pixelated look of the images.

I'm not able to copy from Calc to Incscape as vector - it paste as raster image. I use Libre Office version 5.1.6.2, may that be too old for supporting this?
I use Linux Lite 64 bit.

What about just creating tables in Inkscape? Is that a better solution?

tylerdurden you clearly did it. How did you manage that? Do you have special settings for this?

I think it's faster to do tables in Calc, personally. (I'm using v. 5.2.0.4 (x64) )

Using no borders in Calc seems preferable. each cell can have a border of its own (or not).



TD

I'm using Calc 4.2. Do you know if it's something to do with the Calc version? A new feature? I can't find anything that rings a bell under 5.2 new features. It may have been implemented earlier.

Might be a clipboard setting in LO or Linux...?

Definetly inkscape.