sfriedberg

I have had this (or something very similar) happen just once. IIRC, I was trying to cut and paste some spans of formatted text when it started. I did end up closing AffPub and relaunching it, since I didn't know what I would get if I saved the file in that state.

Well, I must correct myself. Publisher evidently does have those features. The "dynamic transformations" are implemented by setting or clearing OpenType properties, letting the font choose the glyphs (at least if the font supports small caps). I don't know if AffPub does fake small caps for fonts that don't directly support them. The "persistent transformations" are things AffPub does to permanently change your keystrokes. In the V1/V2 Windows AffPub help, there is a reference near the top of that help page to the Text > Capitalization menu, and the features are indeed found there. No idea what the iPad interface looks like.

The features you mention in the first quoted sentence are "word processor" rather than "layout" features. It is pretty common for layout programs not to support them (at all). With OpenType, small capitals support is implemented by the font itself, not by the host application. So in a layout application, that's the primary place you will find any options for modifiying the choice of glyphs, including context sensitive capitalization. So that's why that panel was mentioned. Toggle case, title case, and sentence case are not something usually implemented in an OpenType font, so you won't find those features in that panel (or anywhere else in Publisher).

Sun2Son, OldBruce is correct, we can only guess unless we have the document to examine. My guess is that you inadvertently rescaled one of several linked text frames using the handle at the far bottom right corner, in an attempt to resize it. Rescaling a text frame causes all its contents, including text, to be rescaled (after all the character and paragraph style properties are applied.) AFAIK there is no way to exactly reset the scaling on a text frame, but it is simple enough to delete the accidently rescaled text frame, create a new one with the proper size (leaving the rescale handle strictly untouched) and link it into the other frames so the text reflows through all the frames.

Give me a dropbox link and I will be happy to supply my four chapter .afpubs and the .afbook.

@Patrick ConnorI really regret to say that AffPub 2.0.4 is still giving me problems with the book feature, although the hangs are gone. I tried the previous exercise: Convert v1 document to v2. Chop v2 document into several separate documents and save them independently. Add the several new documents to a new book. When I go to the book hamburger menu and try to Save Book As ..., it simply doesn't save. No discernable error message. I can now close the chapter windows without trouble, but when I go to reopen any of them, I get the recovery file dialog prompt. When I go to the book hamburger menu and try to Close Book, it tells me the book's been modified, do I want to save, say yes, and again it doesn't save. I quit AffPub, started a new book, and immediately tried Save Book As... . That worked. I added my chapter documents to the book and tried Save Book. Quit AffPub, and tried reopening the book. Chapters are there, and I can open them without the recovery file dialog. So there seems to be a problem adding chapters to a not-yet-saved new book. With the successfully constructed book, I tried Close Open Chapters. That removed the document windows but left the entries in the Books panel marked as open for editing. When I then tried Close Book, I was prompted that the book has been modified and would I like to save my changes. If I respond "Yes", the book stays in the Books panel. Another attempt to Close Book just gives the same prompt. Responding "No" also leaves the book in the Books panel. I would have expected that to work. Quit AffPub (I get the unsaved book prompt, and respond "No" and app does close), relaunch AffPub, open the book. Chapter statuses were initially "OK" and then quickly transition to "Out of Date". Before doing anything else, try to Save Book but that command is disabled (greyed out) in the hamburger menu. Opened the out of date chapters, (statuses transition to "Open for edit". Try to Close Open Chapters, document windows close, but chapter statuses remain Open for edit. Reopen chapters. Try to make small edit, but cannot plant text cursor in text frames. Also, the Layers pane is strangely unresponsive (can expand Master row, but not frame text rows, no selection highlighting). Document windows do not have [Read only] tag. At this point, I am pulling my beard hairs out with frustration again. I would be very happy to supply my test V2 chapter and book files, if that would be of any service.

The book feature of AffPub 2 was the biggest draw for me, and I cannot use it. I get lots of lockups. So I am still working primarily in AffPub 1, as I don't get a big benefit from switching my jobs-in-progress over right now.

Another tracing application I didn't see mentioned above is in CorelDRAW. It used to be a standalone application that shipped with CD, but it's been integrated into the vector graphic part of Corel Graphic Suite. It's been a while since I used it (and I assume it's gotten better) but even a decade ago it was pretty capable. You could obviously trace solid outlines. But you could also generate a vector trace of photos or gradient images, with considerable control over how finely the trace program broke things up. Results of tracing "natural" raster images were not as clean as what Vector VonDoom routinely shows off, but you'd get recognizable faces from a portrait photo, etc.

@Joy BoyThe place to start is with your chosen publishing company's requirements for the cover. The precise dimensions will obviously depend on the book size (including page count), so you might get an updated cover requirement after submitting the manuscript. You will also need to know the ICC color profile the publisher expects, and whether you need to provide art for one side or two sides. When you have that information, you can set up a document in Publisher or Designer with the required dimensions, color model and ICC profile. It is simplest if the publisher gives you a one-rectangle layout that encompasses the entire cover. If the cover is actually a dust jacket, that would include the folds over the boards. It is much messier in the Publisher to attempt to work with a front/spine/back or frontfold/front/spine/back/backfold layout, although you can do that fairly easily in Designer using artboards for the three (or five) portions of the layout. So, you are going through the process backward. The place to start is with the publishing companies you're interested in. Do not watch some random Youtube tutorial and then try to figure out which publishers those instructions will apply to. Get specifications/requirements from the publisher, then set up a matching document in Publisher or Designer. Export your document in exactly the format the publisher calls for. If they want a particular PDF revision level, export with that option. If they want all text converted curves, make sure you export it that way. Etc.

Same here. If I explicitly range select a span of characters (by click-and-drag, or by click-shift-click), I seldom or never get the extra space. But if I double click on a word, copy and page, I almost always get an extra space.

Even in applications, such as CorelDRAW, which have an explicit curve roughening tool, you seldom get what you want. I think I would employ Affinity Photo in the subtle roughening of those shapes. Bring the Designer vectors into Photo and convert them to raster. Then add/subtract some noise of appropriate size/frequencies with appropriate masks, then threshold or make a levels adjustment on the result. The result will be raster rather than vector, but you can quickly process an arbitrary amount of curve this way. If you insist on a vector result, you will need lots and lots of nodes, and if you don't want to put them in by hand, you probably need an automated trace program, which the Affinity suite currently does not have. CorelDRAW does have a trace tool. IIRC it used to be a standalone application, but some years ago it was integrated into the main app of the Corel Graphics suite.

That ... makes sense, as footnotes are placed in frames. I am both surprised and pleased that AffPub will auto-create another footnote frame in these case.

@Kdiver25The answer to your question is "Use the contour tool in Designer". You can generate contour lines inside, outside, or both inside and outside your original curve.

Speaking from experience with scripting CorelDRAW, this is likely to come back and bite us at some point in the future, namely when scripting is added. Reasoning: It's not uncommon to script operations on groups selected by name or by Z-position in the layer stack. If you can't create a group with exactly one object, then you can't apply the same script that you would normally apply to a group. In some cases, the user could set things up with a layer instead of a group (there is no requirement to have more than one object in a layer), but this is not always possible, especially when scripting a serious of operations that may move and/or create objects between layers.

I believe I am having the same or a closely related problem. Upgraded to 2.0.3, created a new book, made copies of a V1 document, cut them into disjoint pieces and saved them as book chapters, added them to the book. That all looked OK. Trying to close a chapter (from File menu) did not make the chapter window go away. Subsequently trying to close the chapter (from book context menus) also did not work. Forcibly closing the window appeared to work, but then reopening the chapter document got a "Recovery file exists, do you want to use it?" prompt. Selecting "no" opened the chapter document in read-only mode. In the Book panel, the chapters were all marked as still "Open for editing". When I got to that point, I tried exiting AppPub2 and it's been stalled for minutes now, with the rotating progress indicator. Windows 10 Pro, AffPub 2.0.3.