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One of my pages has a single image taking up some space on the page. The rest of the space (the space not occupied by the image), should be transparent: that is, whenever I send it to the printing service, the base color of the selected paper should be visible, without any ink being printed on it (not even white - the paper will have a base color/texture that I do not want to print over)

Currently exporting the page to a png file creates an image with my original image on a white background, since that is what the background in scribus is set to. I do not want this: I want the image to be on a transparent background.

I have taken a look in all possible menu options and I have been unable to find where can I set the background color, which currently seems to be white. I do not know if it is possible to set the background color of a page, and in case it is possible, if it is possible to set it to transparent.

How can I achieve this in scribus?

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  • This sounds a little odd; though I have not really used Scribus in a longlong time. Are you certain that the png you are exporting actually have a white background, and that it is not your png previewer that has a default white background? If not, all I can think of is the actual export settings for png. – benteh Apr 7 '14 at 23:33
  • ..another thing; chances are that even though it looks white, the printer will not recognise it as white as per file type. – benteh Apr 7 '14 at 23:38
  • I have opened also in gimp: the background is indeed white. I do not want to risk it: I am making a big order in a special textured paper, so it will be very sad if it is printed white. – blueFast Apr 7 '14 at 23:41
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    You certainly do not want to take any chances. However, it is extremely unlikely going on impossible that a printer would print white. Only multicoloured art prints and specialised printing can do that. BUT you should send it to your printer and ask how they read the file. Can I ask why you have made it in Scribus, when Gimp or Inkscape would make a little more sense? Scribus, I think, are not really the tool for png? – benteh Apr 7 '14 at 23:50
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    In print production, white generally means transparent or stock. Unless you are specifically paying for a white ink, I think you're over-thinking this entirely and don't need to do anything. Of course, png is an inappropriate format for print production as well. – Scott Apr 8 '14 at 1:48
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I don't believe that the option exists as print-layout software is focused on laying ink on paper. Since "white" is the absence of ink, it acts as a transparent background.

Keep on mind that unless you are laying a base of ink as a spot color on top of your specialty paper, you will not have any "white" areas in your print. In fact all non-black colors will be darker. You can mock this up by layering a png of your layout with a image of your paper using the multiply blend mode in any decent image editor.

You should ask your printer for a proof if you have any more reservations.

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  • Thanks. According to this, we have the interesting situation that if I place an order with, say, a green paper, any white in my document will stay as green. If I tell the printing service that I want white to be printed (because maybe some of my images have some white), the problem will be that both the white in the images and the white in the background will print. How can the printing service distinguish between white meant to be transparent and white meant to be white? For that we have another color: transparent. But according to the answers here, scribus does not have it. Any solution? – blueFast Apr 8 '14 at 5:36
  • @jeckyll2hide The solution to this supplementary question is to use a tool which can cope with the requirement. Even Microsoft Publisher will set transparent colours! – Andrew Leach Apr 8 '14 at 11:44
  • From a pre-press point of view, you can specify white ink as a spot colour, which will allow you to distinguish between stock colour and white. Note that white is not a normal colour for litho; it's usually done via screen printing or DTM. – Dre Aug 14 '15 at 17:35
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For sending a document to be printed, don't use PNG as the export format. There are three reasons for this:

  • A printing press uses CMYK, and PNG is an RGB-only format.

  • If your document contains text, that text will be rasterized and will print at the resolution of your PNG (perhaps 300 ppi) instead of the 2800 dpi at which live text or vector information is converted in a RIP.

  • PNG does not contain a color profile, so not only are RGB > CMYK color changes going to occur, lack of a color profile in the image means that you have no idea what those color changes are likely to be.

Use the Scribus Print PDF workflow instead. Not only will this be a lot easier for your printer to deal with, the output quality will be much higher.

As everyone else has noted, white is transparent on press, so is not something to be concerned about.

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  • Interesting. I'll try that out in my printer before placing the order. – blueFast Apr 8 '14 at 5:17
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If you are printing in CMYK (which most of the time you will) you will note that there is no 'white ink'. In other words, whatever is white in your file is 'transparent' when it goes to press.

So what is white on your document will be 'the paper'.

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  • Thanks, makes sense. I am too much used to the web. One thing that I still do not get: what if I want another background? How can I change that in scribus? Do I have to place an image in a low layer taking the whole page with the color I want? – blueFast Apr 8 '14 at 5:16
  • It's been a while since I've used Scribus, so not sure if I'd be much help. That said, if you want to 'emulate' what you might see, I'd export the entire page from Scribus as an image, then bring that into a raster program such as The Gimp or PhotoShop. Put your 'page' on one layer, and underneath a scan of your paper. Then set the layer blending to 'darken'. But note that that is just an emulation. Inks will change a bit when printed on colored stock, so definitely consult with your printer. – DA01 Apr 8 '14 at 5:21
  • Thanks, interesting tip. Why the darken blending mode? – blueFast Apr 8 '14 at 5:39
  • Anything lighter than the background layer (your paper) will be 'transparent' with that blending mode. – DA01 Apr 8 '14 at 6:36
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As others have noted, white = paper in the print world unless you request it to be otherwise.

When using a specialty stock, it is often useful to have a reference background while designing and during the early in-house proofing process. For this purpose, I create a separate layer below all artwork that contains a scan of the stock or a representative color. Before sending for final proofs, you simply toss this layer.

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    that can be useful, but also misleading, as a true colored stock will affect all of the perceived colors of the printed parts, which you wouldn't necessarily see as a digital background file. – DA01 Apr 8 '14 at 3:24
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    Unless you activate overprinting on the other layers. You have to be sure the printer knows what you're up to but, even a bad facsimile is better than looking at it on white. – plainclothes Apr 8 '14 at 3:26
  • It's admittedly been a while since I've done much DTP in page layout apps...do they now emulate printing on colored stock? (If so, 'cool!' but I don't know if Scribus has that capability) – DA01 Apr 8 '14 at 3:30
  • You can piece together a reasonable representation in InDesign. Not sure about Scribus. Any app with layers and layer blending can at least give you an indication. That's still better than designing on white :) – plainclothes Apr 8 '14 at 3:48
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If you really want your printer to print your document on green paper, then you can visualize this with Scribus:

Open your document in Scribus

Click

File > Document Setup > Display > Colors (at tab) > Fill Color

Now in the window, select a color that corresponds to your paper. Now click OK or Apply.

Now - just on your screen - Scribus will show you how the printed result will look.

This is only an approximation, unless your workplace has got a calibrated screen and your printer has provided you with precise detail about his setup and the paper for your order. You can improve the simulation on your screen like this:

File > Document Setup > Color Management > tick Activate Color Management and fill in all the detail that you know about your own system and about the printer.

You also asked this in a comment:

Thanks. According to this, we have the interesting situation that if I place an order with, say, a green paper, any white in my document will stay as green. If I tell the printing service that I want white to be printed (because maybe some of my images have some white), the problem will be that both the white in the images and the white in the background will print. How can the printing service distinguish between white meant to be transparent and white meant to be white? For that we have another color: transparent. But according to the answers here, scribus does not have it. Any solution?

No, I do not know an affordable solution: If you opt for green paper (which is exeptional, if you want photos printed on it), then indeed, any white parts of any content (parts of photos) will not receive any ink and will show paper-green.

You can define (pay for) a spot-color and tweak your document to have white ink applied but that would almost re-invent printing. You should rather opt for the classical approach and order white paper and print "green" on any area that you consider to be background. That would turn out cheaper I believe.

You mentioned special, structured, paper. My advise would be to concentrate on finding that quality of paper in white, rather than trying for exotic workflow which will be expensive and potentially frustrating to you and your printer.

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