natecombsmedia

You don't set it in sections. That's only for sections within a document. You're setting the whole document to continue based on the previous document in the page numbering options in the book panel's menu.

Hi John, it looks like you saw my solution and started getting it to work. First chapters are definitely unique. I always set those in (I believe) the document settings or a similar area of the document itself long before I create a book. I'd have to look to give exact steps. I always make the second document in the book the master file (little key icon that can be placed to the left of one doc on the books panel) since it is chapter one for most projects. Not sure if that makes a difference on what I'm doing, but once that is done, I have to go in and do the page numbering options explained above on every single doc, from the second until the end, and save the book. I will note that setting the page number did not work for me. I'm like 90% sure I tried that. It had to be the "continue numbering from previous" option.

What's worse is I tried it in Beta with a separate book file saved specifically for Beta...and now none of my document files will open in the original Publisher as it believes them to be from a later version. And I hadn't copied the last few chapter documents to my backup drive yet. After a few crashes and some things not wanting to open in a specific way/order, I was able to find what seems to be a solution. The dropdown menu in the Books panel has a "Page Numbering Options" menu that only activates when a single chapter is selected. Going into that one by one and selecting "continue from previous chapter" has my numbers steady again.

Hi there, Installing the Publisher Beta did not help me with numbering. My books stopped updating numbers properly with the last update as well, but I have been doing it manually. Tonight, it started freaking out and reverting numbers to their original starting points (I usually save new chapters from previous left/right chapter documents). It undoes my manual work in regular and beta Publisher versions. Please help. @Serif Info Bot

Yeah, that really stinks, but I can't speak for the Mac version as I rarely use my laptop anymore. I think you answered my questions above, but you tried everything with new files, correct? I was curious if my issues came due to my 2.0 projects being several layers of books deep from a single origin V1 file in the same series from last year. Rather than saving all my presets or even copying elements over to a new document, I simply save new books in a series over older ones. I wonder if starting from scratch would help anything for me. My other question...did you not ever use V1? If so, do you still have the V1 file you could just finalize instead? Finally, I think you got the same results, but I was able to get a book (without a ToC) to eventually export. I often get crashing after my second chapter is added to the book. However, I am able to save right after adding it, so when I reopen, it is there. Then things seem fine. When I made it to the export stage, some books were fine. My latest one, though, gave me a new insight. It seems Affinity 2.0 is still a slow thinker, like its whole left panel was built on and for an older OS. Exporting PDF will give me a wheel of death and spin and freeze and "not respond," but if I wait long enough for the preview to generate (like 3-4 minutes), everything goes back to normal and exports just fine. _____ Side note, I am having a weird error where some PDFs display as single pages and some as a single page and then all two page spreads after. Can't tell where it is going wonky. Seems Google Drive may have something to do with it as files that start out fine might be the same file that appears wrong in gmail. Amazon needs single pages from Affinity to work properly.

This is exactly what I do just to get my brain back into the rhythm of working on chapters individually instead of one 300+ page document, which gets large, slower, and loses the scroll wheel after a certain number of pages. Just curious if any updates/bug fixes are around the corner. I have found that anything related to the left window of panels, particularly "Books" and "Find and Replace" (which I used to use often enough) freeze up AP 2, and not always with workarounds like this.

Ah, was looking all over the shortcuts in preferences. Thanks!

Good idea! I'll add it to my list of Text Styles with my other Garamond fonts. Didn't know I could shortcut that. That's perfect. Thanks Walt! One question. Do you know exactly where I apply a shortcut to that specific Style? Looking thru menus now and am unsure. So far, I have found a simple ctrl+c over a text with the Style copies it and then will apply the copied style with a ctrl+shift+v (Paste Style). I can always do that.

Loving the V2 suite, and I've always been a proponent of being able to apply almost anything in a program to a keyboard shortcut (Cubase, Mainstage), but there are a few in particular that I use all the time that aren't here yet. Specifically in Publisher, I have authors for the books I lay out who are really partial to Garamond typefaces, particularly EB since it is a little thicker and just works well for stories. However, it's default italic mode adds an unnecessarily massive swash to the end of every e and a few other letters. It would be great to just press "alt+L" to undo that when I italicize rather than having to go to the Character Panel > Typography > ... > Positional Alternate > Final Forms to turn it off. They italicize enough for me to think about it every book. I have suggested in the old suite as well shortcuts for the "Edit Section" and "Start New Section" parts of "Pages." Not as pressing anymore, but any additional shortcut options are appreciated!

No worries, and thank you all. So far, it is coming along nicely. Filter Forge worked fabulously for some rough edges, and I'm just working around the masking this guy is doing and hand-drawing a few things (like extreme Crystalize) myself.

The good news is rasterizing allowed me to use the filter and start the process out a little differently from the tutorial, since all edits were made to the mask there.

And it has to be with RGB files? I'm developing a book cover in Publisher, my preferred app for nearly every cover due to personas (which can't use Filter Forge without sending to Photo I've learned). My current project is actually RGB/8 right now since I am doing the digital version first at the request of the author. @walt.farrell, since you help on nearly every post I have ever seen, would you have any idea with the current direction print shops are going if I should move all projects, particularly ones that have print and digital versions of equal importance like book covers, to being RGB files and letting the print shops convert to CMYK? I had that suggestion in a different post, but I typically create both projects and alter anything that doesn't quite match up. It would be much easier to develop one file if they are going to do a good enough job converting. I have experimented with both for Amazon authors, and found RGB seems to work better with very dark covers, and I even had a print-only card game template project that required .png (RGB) files for the final prints earlier this week. To everyone else, I can always experiment with layer types and other forms of "roughing" up the letters since I am following a Photoshop Tutorial that isn't exactly 1:1 with Affinity for the effect I want. Was just hoping to speed up hand-created effects. Here is the tutorial, if anyone is interested or knows a quick way to make my text edges rough:

Wanted to test out the demo within Affinity before purchasing (just to make sure I can achieve the effect I want...applying an artistic border to text via mask). Is it not able to be run within AP2 as a demo plugin? It was automatically detected, and I checked Allow Unknown Plugins. After restarting, I can see it, but it is gray and will not open. I don't mind just buying it, but I want to make sure that is the issue as I don't have a large need for such effects...yet!

Ah, great to know actually. Amazon requires Affinity's style to be single pages or it doesn't turn out properly (odd because it's a PDF and other programs, they only take two-page spreads). The padding was my big worry. I have been making sure so far that there are no blank pages at the beginning or end of a document, and the page numbers seem to be lining fine. Hopefully, a final export will work out fine.

I do not believe the instability is related to a ToC, unfortunately (but I am not a software engineer). I love the idea of this feature and its user-friendly goal, but I do not have ToCs for most books I lay out since the authors are writing novels. I get crashing and hanging simply based on trying to load a chapter to the books panel and save the book. Now, I do have a few ideas as to where my situation may be related or separate. Related: I use Master pages to fill in page numbers and some other formatting. The page numbers do auto update based on the order of the chapters (super cool), and chapters seem to save fine. It is literally just my book file. However, numbering is technically involved, so perhaps it is related to the numbering and updates itself. Separate: For my first try at separating out chapters like this, I loaded a previous book from the same universe (ie, all formatting identical, was a V1 file); deleted it down to the title pages (saved as one doc), Ch 1 (saved as another doc), and end pages (saved as third doc); and then built the following chapters by saving over the Ch 1 file. So all chapters have the same origin file. Perhaps the book setting doesn't like that. I am in the latest version but am having a Windows issue right now where my new (5 months old) computer suddenly believes it isn't compatible with Windows 11...which it came on and was built professionally by Eniac at Newegg so that I could avoid such an issue (I assumed the weird and random Windows issues I always get came from me building my own computers). I do remember in a very specific update from around 2 months ago, I experienced a similar bug whenever I tried to use the Section Manager window (instant crash). Today, it seems like it is no longer crashing, but just that the save feature is completely dead in the books tab. I have also had the issue with DaVinci Resolve where the save feature would completely die if certain FX were used (guessing you are all familiar with it since it's the best and you have to make all your videos somehow). The program was completely fine, but the second I applied a speed up or slow down, saving did nothing. Then, if I tried to close the program, it would ask me if I would like to save...which still did nothing, then the program would hang, and finally, it would crash or be manually shut down. This is exactly what Affinity Publisher 2 is doing regarding Books.

Also experiencing regular crashing when trying to save the book file. Am I not supposed to add chapters as they are formatted? Is this more of a compile it at the end feature? That's how I did it back in the day, which is fine. It's just this feature is more advanced and theoretically user-friendly than InDesign 10 years ago.

Hey friends, Today is my first time trying out the new Books feature in AF Publisher 2. I love this idea and used to use the equivalent when I was back on InDesign. It has more files to work with, but I like the tradeoff for things it opens up, the document cleanliness, and the software power/stability. However, the initial setup is definitely taking more time than it needs to. I just want to check if I am setting up the smartest way: Is there a way yet to automatically view chapters that start on an even page (left) as a left side starting spread? Right now, everything starts on the right regardless of where it falls in the book. For example, chapter 2 might say Page 1, with the book page number (10) in parenthesis next to the document page. I saw in the documentation that you can use the Stray Pages feature to clean up after the fact, but I am pretty sure I will need it before the export stage. Some chapters that have shapes and other things that will cross over from the left to the right, and they don't work this way. I have been using Document Setup > Model > Start On Left (or Right) to adjust existing chapters manually, and this is probably fine since I believe I set up a master for both options to save each chapter over years ago in Adobe, but if there is anything simple I am missing to that is better, I would love to know. Thanks!

Yeah, I'd even say this post makes you seem very inexperienced with any type of design or publishing software. I use all 3 Affinity programs for a wide variety of things and I have some issues here and there, but no more than other companies, video software, music software, the internet, Windows, Mac, etc. Publishing software doesn't really like more than 400 pages in a single document in my experience, and I have some of the most powerful computers I could ever need to run way more than a simple publishing doc. In InDesign, I used to use the books compiling feature to keep files under 30 or so pages (based on chapter lengths), and so Affinity was a shock at first when I had V1 and docs over 350 pages. Massive slow down and scrolling loss. V2 now has the chapters feature, and it seems a little buggy/crashy since it is brand new. Hoping it gets fixed as quickly as issues arise, but today is my first time trying to get it set up. I've already learned that how you save the main book file vs the chapters is very important, or yes, you will lose some things. It hasn't been difficult to get back though. As far as the hyperlinks part goes...what do you need them for in a massive print file? (Side note, if you plan on publishing yourself or on behalf of a self-published author on Amazon, hard cover copies have a limit of 500 pages). If you are publishing a digital copy to Amazon, they need an ePub anyway, which Affinity doesn't do. Though you could probably get away with exporting a WebP file to Amazon still (how Microsoft Word users used to have to do it). Most authors use Google docs for Kindle copies, set up their basic formatting there, export the ePub, and then let Kindle take care of the rest since it has so many formatting restrictions. Hyperlinks work great. Using Publisher for something like that definitely wouldn't be my recommendation unless they worked together with Amazon to create some sort of awesome, seamless export style.

I've had all sorts of go arounds with Amazon via Affinity files. That article linked to above was my question, partially related to how Publisher vs Designer (more issues for me) seems to get along with Amazon and their newer 3rd party printing companies. Those are more suited to cover design than Photo, and I find Publisher is most ideal for Photo-based covers (it also has a Photo persona for similar controls). Way fewer issues arise with colors that are not very dark (or red skin due to the human tone map), but I have a few questions to help out. Your post says the Kindle version is fine, as is expected (they like thumbnails around 1600x2560 pixels), but I'm not sure if you meant on a Kindle it is fine, but on Amazon's site, the Thumbnail is bad. All of the ones I design for come out great digitally at the size mentioned above. Those must be in an RGB color space to upload. Inside look on Amazon is usually bad. Don't trust it. They might even lower the quality on purpose to keep theft down, help with bandwidth, etc. I've noticed that it, along with the thumbnails on a book's page, take a few seconds to buffer. As long as your actual thumbnails, eBook, and print are fine, you kind of have to go with what they give you for preview-related content. I just looked at several random inside looks, even from top books, and yes, they are garbage in quality on the initial look inside load. They require your print file (assuming you have one as well based on photo and export settings) to be CMYK color space if you do have hard copies. PDF x-1a:2003 is definitely the way to go for print files. I used to use press-ready before the post above. That will ensure it flattens everything in your document properly and leaves no weird issues with layers sticking out. That should be all you need, but is there a reason you used pixels for the PDF instead of millimeters or inches? Amazon KDP has templates it will create for you based on your page count to get exact dimensions for everything. The things I've had the hardest time with in some of their most recent changes are: Printing the right book (a lot of authors like to go live vs proofs to get reviews in early and have proofs count as sales, then market after everything feels good). However, Amazon will randomly put pages from other books, have parts upside down, etc. Printing the cover in the right spot. I understand the margins of error, but sometimes, the cover is just wayyy off (meaning 1/8 inch | 3mm or more). Matching print and digital colors. Affinity is supposed to be able to convert color profiles to keep the look the same rather than assigning new ones, but I find them to be drastically different whether I start with RGB or CMYK and convert to the other. Most modern printers can convert sRGB profiles to the CMYK specs they need to print, and I had to do this on a dark purple book. Amazon's create your own cover option is a pain, but it requires your print cover to be a JPEG in RGB instead, and then they will convert it to CMYK and retain a close color match.

Interesting. I have tried this very thing...maybe. I have made up to 5 blank pages, and no matter what, it will autofill at the end of document after it hits the last page rather than adding new pages immediately after. However, I don't think I tried with having text boxes linked in all 5. Usually just the first 2-3. Thanks!

Hey friends, Anybody figure out how to do this in Affinity Publisher 2 AND have it autofill new pages immediately after the page with the current text box? In 1 it worked fine, but now in 2, shift-clicking only adds pages at the end of a document, and I cannot figure out how to change that. All of the books I lay out come with the credits/promo pages for the end already in them, so as I add chapters, it's now an extra step to create blank pages for it to safely autofill. I will probably use the new chapters feature and compile a final later, but I have moved some docs over from 1 when I switched to 2. Not the end of the world if I can't get it figured out, but would be very nice.

Here they are. 3 from the first time. 3 from today...looks like one encounters an error and cannot upload. 82187b85-3b4e-48a0-99be-1314ea8681a7.dmp a98d03ec-2df9-4918-bbfd-f461e63d41c9.dmp cb5494cf-55c8-46fb-ba44-080a9934f85e.dmp cf99783c-1325-40b0-aef1-794bea71e4df.dmp f5f19c37-5db5-4c65-afb2-95bcc4a95ebf.dmp

Thank you @LeeThorpe. Windows updated again yesterday, and the same problem came back. I will file the report. Didn't realize I wasn't following the topic. Thought I was 😅

@PixelPest Thanks again. I was able to get the harder edges and thicker height by using gaussian blurs after all. It also coincidentally happened to be recommended in one of the shading tutorials. A bit more work to tweak, but worth it for the effect! Now to finish blending the letters and branches nicely, which is making me wish I had merged those shapes before all this 😆 Turns out, if you make a top and 3D layer(s) and then apply a Pillow effect with no highlights to the 3D layer, you can achieve—or perhaps enhance is a better word—similar results across an entire group. And since it is still direction-based, it adds nice thickening/thinning around curves.

As I feared, Blender is pretty awesome but a bit difficult to get the lighting and angle right, especially for an all-white image as it wants to use grays. I'd also have to send the entire image as opposed to the girl, or the perspective just doesn't make it. I know Danilo Fiocco, Jhon Silva, and others have some pretty awesome vector tutorials on Affinity Designer. I may have to watch and see how they use duplicate layers and transparency to shade curves and just do some advanced shading myself. I also had an idea to gaussian blur my simplistic duplicate layers shading, which may turn out nicely.