Fantomas.CZ

Hi, I'd like to bring up the topic of inline tables once again: Why are they not in Publisher? For formatting longer texts with tables, it is a must (in my view). Is there any plan to introduce them? Is there any plan to introduce columns as a property of text itself and not the text frame? I have been setting a lot of texts where two-column sections alternate with single-column parts or images. Introducing this would be such an immense help... (and InDesign has it, of course...) Thanks for the replies, have a nice day!

Thank you, Walt. I kind of guessed this. BTW, the desktop versions, both Windows and Mac, do have a way to add other languages, it’s just not as convenient, as it could be... (well, maybe it’s a bit better than InDesign, but that’s nothing to boast about... The real question is, will the iPad versions offer this possibility too? And it’s quite a logical question, because as the iPad Pro can be used basically like a computer, it would be real shame if this option stayed unused. And, of course, when working with text, as in the future iPad version of Publisher, it’s quite a bummer, if it’s not there...

Hi, I have a short question: is it possible (or planned) to use custom hyphenation dictionaries (or at least built-in ones) in the iPad apps? And is it planned for iPad Publisher? Thank you for the reply and have a nice day!

Yes, that's what I did. And it worked. Actually it didn't really cross my mind that it could have been a system failure, but when I got back home, I tried it and found a solution pretty quickly. Thanks for the reply everyone! I leave this here as a reminder of my stupidity, rashness and failure to research the problem (I was in a hurry...).

Hi! Yesterday, I have upgraded to Affinity Publisher 1.8.3 and saw a very serious problem: the Esc key from the TouchBar has disappeared! I have a MacBook Pro 15" 2018. I didn't really try to document it properly, so I just know it happens in the text editing mode. Which is bad! How am I supposed to end the text editing mode and enter the move mode or any other? Had you introduced this Cmd + mouse to enter the move mode like the InDesign has, this wouldn't be that serious, but man, it is! Please fix it as soon as possible. Thanks, have a nice day everyone and stay healthy, stay safe!

Yes. However Publisher does all those things on-line, it doesn't store the (soft) hyphens into the document. When I open the file in Designer on desktop, it does work (somehow, I suppose the Windows version uses the same dictionaries, I have currently no way to test it), but iPad doesn't do the hyphenation, not even with some generic dictionary.

Well of course. My aim is currently to be able to open Publisher files on iPad. It sort of works, but not with the hyphenation. But this messes up completely the layout for most texts. As the file format is identical for all three Affinity apps, it makes sense to implement the reading engine in all three iPad apps, when they are available. So that's why I'm asking.

Hi, I have a simple question: is there any way to install hyphenation dictionaries in Affinity Designer (later Publisher, when it becomes available) for iPad? Thanks for the answer, have a nice day!

Actually I'd love to have this behaviour too. When using InDesign, I often combine text with other objects like pictures or tables and moving a picture in a text field is not always easy, when AP gets stuck in a different layer etc. The Adobe solution is more practical, at least for me. And of course, the Cmd key is more at hand than Esc, not to mention the virtual Esc key on a Touchpad I'm writing on right now. Any chance of reconsidering this feature? I'm sure you could make it optional in the menu for those who don't like it. Thanks!

Thanks for forwarding the issue. Actually there is no setting for this in the system, you can set only tracking speed, which is simply the ratio between distance traveled on the trackpad/with the mouse to the distance on the screen. As far as I know, both trackpad and Magic Mouse read not only the scrolling direction, but also the speed of the finger, which translates to the speed of the cursor. This is great when working with multipage documents and long webpages. It seems that other apps can read the combination of distance and speed and move the document the appropriate amount, however in Affinity Publisher, the scrolling always happens at the top speed. Which is rather impractical and next to unusable, of course... It will be great if you are able to solve it in next releases.

Hi, I've been using Affinity apps, especially Publisher for some time now. I do love them, however on Mac, which is my primary computer, I'm facing a kind of drawback: it's the scrolling sensitivity, when scrolling over things like font size, various Character and Paragraph settings... It's a very neat feature to be able change the values just by scrolling, especially on places where the arrows are missing. On a normal mouse, everything works fine, however on Apple Magic Mouse or a trackpad, the sensitivity is way higher than it's supposed to be. Therefore if I want to change the font size or paragraph leading just one step, it's next to impossible... My question is: is there a way to set the Magic Mouse/Trackpad sensitivity, so I actually could move the value just by one step and not twenty at a time? Thanks for the answer!

@Affinity: any update on this topic? I'd love to have autotrace too, as I'm using line art from old books and (auto)making vector art of it is much better than any other way.

Hi, I wonder whether it's possible to store and use multiple keyboard shortcuts for one function. For example in LibreOffice, there are both Cmd+Shift+Space and Option+Shift+Space for unbreakable space, I'm kind of used to it and don't really feel like remembering the right one in order to use it. In InDesign, you can set more than one shortcut for each function (plus also define, in what mode is it activated, which is not really necessary for me). Is it possible in Affinity Publisher too? And if not, could you maybe introduce it? Thanks!

An alternative solution for layered fonts/drop caps could also be a possibility to consecutively apply three(+) styles resulting in three (virtual) layers acting as one. This would be very nice. It would also make the text cleaner, as it would eliminate the need to repeat the first letter in the "drop-capped" word. It could be something like a style or set of styles that could be repeatedly applied on the same single word/sentence to emphasize it, like a font shaded by a different font and color, different size... Of course, I understand that is it probably not worth the effort for such a niche usage, especially when an alternative solution exists.

Thanks for the suggestion! I was surprised that this actually works in the Beta. There are however some issues: when I used 4 lines high drop cap, I needed to set the kerning to about -1020, but the maximum value that still did something was -1010, so the characters are slightly misaligned. It is also necessary to repeat the first letter three times, which is not very popular with the spelling checker. But if the kerning limitation gets extended, this is definitely a way to go. The ideal solution for this case would be something like a possibility to apply 3 consecutive styles on the same drop cap. This way, it would be possible to draw one letter three times on the same spot, every time with a different style and color. But this seems to me too far fetched to implement such feature for something that is not that frequent and can be done in a different way.

Exactly, this is the main reason I want to use a layered font like this - as drop caps. Luckily there is never too many of them, especially such ornate ones, so I can live with the 3 layers. Using an artistic text tool works surprisingly well in this case.

Hi! Please have a look at the picture beneath. The font name is LTC Goudy Initials and you can find it here. Now, I'd like to know, how to do this properly. I know the font contains the complete colorless version, then just the letter outlines (here in gold) and finally the floral decoration (here in red). My question is: I'd like to use this as colored drop caps in Affinity Publisher. Is there a better way to do this than creating three layers with three text boxes and then manually matching the exact size and position of the original drop cap, that is part of the big text box with the text? (BTW? I'm just interested in the content in black boxes, the floral motives above and under the text are of no interest of mine). Thanks for the answers!

Thank you Although it's not an everyday thing, I'd love to see this happen in Affinity software (I suppose as the file format is shared, this would need to be introduced into all three apps...).

What a shame. Isn't is a time to at least start reconsidering? I mean when talking about SVG color fonts, it's not just those flashy colorful typefaces, but also other types, like those "handwritten" brush typefaces. It's quite nice and there are quite a few fonts available out there.

This is the OKI MC563, so it has 4 separate cartridges for CMYK toners. Also, for some reason, the pure black text looks way better than the "composite" black text, the details are way better, which is probably explained by the way the color printing is done...

Sure, that makes a lot of sense. Actually I wonder if it even looked nice, if there was a Vantablack printing dye... However I'm sure I like the black ink in my printer, therefore I'd like to have it render all black text and graphics. Therefore the need to convert whatever the RGB -> CMYK conversion spits out, whatever my OCR software spits out.. to the 100 K black. Or any other color. But thanks for the conversion chat anyway

Sure. RGB 255:255:255 kind of corresponds to CMYK 0:0:0:0, then the colors are different. There is no question about that. It would however stand to reason to convert RGB 0:0:0 to 100K and not 72:68:67:88. Not to mention that this combination depletes all the color toners and the result is not that nice (not pure black, but some kind of greyish "black," at least on the OKI printer I'm using. However, again, that's not a problem. I just want to be able to easily change the color in the entire document. However, as color swatches and handling have been a subject of some complaints and wishes, maybe @Affinity will look into that.

Well of course, that's why I want an easy option how to adjust the conversion results. Or when I simply change my mind and decide to change one format in a structured text to another, say the blue italics to violet bold in the entire 50-page document... And in InDesign, there is an easy option for that, in Affinity Publisher, there's not. The conversion process has never been the problem of mine. Still, thanks for the reply.

Thank you both for the reply! @Callum: I'm using two basic colors: black and red. Of course, I want the black to be K:100, however if I convert RGB 0:0:0 to CMYK, I get 72:68:67:88 and not 0:0:0:100, as I would logically like to have... For some reason, it seems that the program converts it to K:100 on output, so this is no big deal in this very case. @Lagarto: Thanks a lot, that seems to be a solution, at least for most cases I need. I tried searching for CMYK K:100, which was not a problem, but this strange value CMYK 72:68:67:88 did not find anything... Never mind.

Hi, I'm currently switching from Adobe InDesign to Affinity Publisher. In InDesign, when I wanted to change the text color in the entire document, I just did search and replace, left the search query empty, searched for a certain format (text color in this case) and replaced it with another format. It worked like charm. However, in Affinity Publisher, this method doesn't work. When I leave the search query empty and set the color in the Format dialog, it simply doesn't find anything, so I cannot do the replace. Also, the color picker here doesn't work (1.7.3.481). It finds the color, but is doesn't transfer it into the Format dialog. In InDesign, I could also delete any unwanted color from the swatch and InDesign asked me for a color to replace it with. This also doesn't seem to work in Affinity Publisher... Am I doing something wrong, or is this function really missing? Thanks for the reply and have a great day everyone!