Colorado

Hi, is there any way of positioning or anchoring tab stops in order to make a set of interlinear translation texts? When you justify the first line - you can use tab stops to position words in 2nd and 3rd. But once you change a font-size or anything, they whole layout crashes.... here's the thing: One can't use text boxes for each word separately - as it would be a nightmare for selecting and editing What's the best way of type setting such text in Affinity Publisher?

1. yes, I'm using the latest version 2. Can you reproduce it - yes. I was trying to make an interlinear translation booklet: just make e.g. 13 text fields (one page wide), flow the text from 1st to 13th; then make 13 text fields and flow the text, and then another lines. In total, 39 text fields on left page and 39 on right page. (I will send you a sample tomorrow) 3. Does it happen for a new documen - sometimes yes, sometimes no. For example, when you try to flow text without styles, sometimes is OK. And if you copy from another file, then it crashes. You never know... - I'm using windows 10 - What happened for you (and what you expected to happen) - software kept crashing while I was expecting to use it as Ind... - Provide a recipe for creating the problem (step-by-step what you did). As above, I created a master page with 39 text fields line-by-line for interlinear translation (13 for one language, 13 for another one, 13 for pronunciation) When I tried to fill the pages with text, most of the times, AffPub crashed.

also, when inserting e.g. 16 pages of pure text (A5 format - 100% sure, checked in notepad), after clicking shift+flow button (the traingle), the indd creates like 206 pages (it takes ages) and then, after 2 minutes reduces it to 16 :) maddness

AffPublisher keeps crashing. I made a master page with 13 text fields (26 on spread) and inserted 26 pages of unformatted text. The software crashes as hell - without a reason, it's unstable, sometimes works sometimes doesn't. The more pages/paragraph styles, the more unstable the software is. I have to built a book of about 150 pages and I am not sure if I should continue with AffPub or switch back to InDesign. please help

Dev team should know the users are trying to help. People still stick to .... software only because - as they say "text flow in AP looks like sh..."

I know this must be a challenge for the developer team - but there are hundreds of possible ways of employing AI into the process. For example, by analyzing the rough graphical form of the paragraph - like aligning not words but objects. Secondly, by applying machine learning - designers could use their skills to "train" the algorithm to automate actions done by the users.

What I'm trying to say is this: you cannot expect software users to act like a traditional typesetter, inserting blank metal slabs on a metal plate and manually manipulating the metal-casted letters. Yes, it is possible to achieve good results in AffPub (no rivers, not overly stretched lines of text, spaces between words that are not disturbing, correct spaces after punctuation marks, etc., optical tracking) - but it is so f... painstakingly time consuming and boring - that you can edit like a few paragraphs. The same amount of time is enough to set up a whole book! Seriously, one time I spent two hours defining styles, master pages and rules in Indd. It took me some time, but when it was ready - I could flow 400 pages of text and it was somehow ready for print! When setting a book in Indd my working is more about reading and finding those odd exceptions to the set rules - than about manually correcting anything. In AffPub, it's about difficult, chaotic and time-consuming struggle with bad-looking text paragraphs. If any the Dev Guys(and Gals) read it ;D Please understand - you need to learn the rules of good, aesthetic typesetting before designing the algorithm. It is really crucial because many people still use Indd because the text looks better and the job is much easier! If you fix this one thing - it would be like a jewel in a crown! So many people will loose the last argument for using Indd. In this very subject - don't consult a team of visual artists, but rather hire an old-school graphic designer. Good luck! ps. and for the .... sake, make a checkbox for removing orphaned conjunctions

Publisher is used for designing publication with text - and yet the way it put the text together is far from the rules of good graphic design (e.g. rivers with small font and hyphenation). This is a huge no-no. I can make a leaflet for a guy selling shoes - but I would not use it for a book. The text looks like being set up by an amateur. It is very hard and time consuming to achieve greyness of text in Publisher.

I think that good typesetting is a must - it is the very core of all DTP software. It is very difficult at the moment to layout text which is in compliance with the very basic rules of good design. I'm sure that Serif's developers will come up with hundreds of ideas of improving it - but this features needs backing from other users...

In the 80s Sega wanted to dominate Nintendo. They employed Tom Kalinske and he made a list of 5 things that will make it possible: lower the price, defeat Mario, more sports, cool for teens, make fun of Nintendo. Have you ever thought of making such list for Adobe Publisher? 1) improve typesetting algorithm - make the text look gray when squinting your eyes. Read about professional, esthetic typesetting. For example, study the Nigel French books. Introduce optical kerning and tracking, improve hyphenation. 2) introduce one-key preview mode (equivalent to pressing W) 3) make it read .indd and .idm files 4) see point 1 5) see point 1 Let's say that in my country there's 400 000 designers. If half of them buys a $35 app, you'll get $7mln. If they buy all 3 apps, it will give you $21mln. Now multiply it by 44 (the number of countries in Europe). $924mln - now you see that it is worth implementing small changes the users are asking for? People hate The-You-Know-Which products and they will be more than glad to ditch them. But now they can't because of the above...

here's another one 8pt Encode Sans

What I'm trying to say is - of course, you can manually keep "sculpting" the block of text, manually changing the distance between each letters, words, etc. - but it would be like in an old print-shop, when a typesetter would use metal slabs to compose a paragraph. So... If you ask users to do it that way - then you cannot brand this software as a "professional software".... I'm not talking about some advanced, "magical" text functions - but these are the basics of type setting. ps. by the way, not providing the dictionaries - forcing the users to install it manually is just a laziness of the developers

The problem is, AP should automatically apply optimal kerning, tracking and letter-stretching (yeah, I know it sounds weird - but we all do it...) There IS a problem with the algorithm... Here's an example with Encode Sans 11 (I know it's a larg font size, but I wanted to illustrate the problem - it is less obvious when using smaller font size and wider text frame) 1) the first image shows automatic justification with hyphenation and the right dictionary installed 2) the second, with applied tracking changes (alt + left arrow)

I've attached two examples of a continuous text from a novel. Whatever I do, there are always un-esthetic gaps that a professional designer must avoid.

I have to complain about the way Affinity Publisher aligns and justifies text in a paragraph. To put it simply - the text is not "grey" enough. Even when I use small font size and hyphenation (with correct language), when you squint your eyes you will notice that the block of text IS NOT GREY. There are poorly-looking gaps, orphaned letters, chaotic hyphenation - and it just looks wrong! Please do an experiment and render the same block of text in InDesign and Affinity Publisher.