gw2020

Pšenda: "After all, it goes without saying that each user, before buying a product, finds out and tests whether it meets exactly his expectations." Yes, I did try the program, but not with the full 400 pages. I was also swayed (foolishly?) by the lavish and flashy website portrayal of what was a publishing program. And the price, of course, was right. To see that it 'met exactly my expectations' would have meant me formatting the entire thing in the trial version, but, being impressed at that point, I bought the full version. That was a mistake, apparently! I wrote the novel in an old version of MS Word, and had no problems with file size, so why can't Affinity Publisher match the formatting ease-of-use of the 2003 version of Word (or am I missing something obvious here)? Of course Publisher offers much more scope for fine tuning of formatting, which is why I bought it, but if it's that extended scope that causes the problems then all I can say is -- "needs more work".

Oh dear, seems I'm not alone. Since I began this thread I have formatted my 400-page novel to my satisfaction, but I would not attempt the same again with Affinity Publisher as it stands at present. Although beginning with the correct file type (.txt) made a big difference, the later stages were scary to say the least, with the fear of losing my hard work or at least having to deal with peculiar changes I did not ask for. Slowdowns and freezes were the order of the day, and simply to insert/delete pages from the middle of the document was a traumatic experience. Long waits for changes to be updated (with 'not responding' in the top bar), and often having to restart the program to get things moving again. And as for having two longish documents open at the same time and swapping between them... forget it (a split-screen feature would be so nice). I have always used the latest version, currently 1.9.2.1035. I have an i5 2.9GHz processor with 16Gb RAM, and loads of SSD storage. I should not have to upgrade my system just to format 400 pages of text-only content. So I wait for Affinity Publisher to be able to painlessly do what its name promises -- publish a simple, longish, text document.

Hello TomR55, and thanks for that. Interesting. I was aware of LaTex, but thought it was just for academic/scientific documents and the like. You say Publisher is not the tool for large text documents, and this is a surprise to me (and to many others, I would guess). I am very serious about this, and want my book formatted properly. The big appeal of software like Publisher (for me) is that once you've set up paragraph/text styles etc you see straight away what you've got, and you edit on the page, and if the rules are followed regarding input file types I can see how it's a great option for a non-expert. I have a coding background so the plain text inputs of LaTex do not daunt me, but at this stage I'll stick with Publisher because it's working very well for me now (And I don't need a new learning curve!). I'm three-quarters through 400 pages, with just the barest occasional lag on some (usually global) functions... so unless things go downhill again all will be well. If they do, then I'm afraid I would use something else rather than risk starting again with Publisher. But so far so good. It's still early days for the program, and the potential is there to make it so much better. Roll on v2!

Thank you again Bruce... I was importing from Word (.doc) converted to .docx, and it was not good. I saved it all as .txt and it's made such a difference. I knew Word was not good to import (at least when it's been done without any styles & with lots of tabs, as mine was) but I'd written the book without thinking to self-publish -- so it could have been someone else's problem! Hopefully I won't be a newbie for ever.

I'm using the latest Publisher to format a novel, all text, no images. Anything over 20 pages, and everything slows down. I've struggled to page 120, and my novel is around 400 pages... It now takes around five seconds to highlight a line or paragraph of text, and another ten to apply styles, and it's getting slower. Just about everything is now so slow as to make it unworkable. I need to finish this work this week, not sometime next year! Looking around on the web it seems I'm not the only one with speed issues. Turning off Baseline Grid (common advice) has no effect. Applying text styles (for example) takes CPU usage to 98%. I can forget about changes to the Master Page, or turning on Baseline Grid -- either of those take forever. I have Intel i5 2.9Ghz, 16Gb RAM. Would more RAM make a difference here? I even reinstalled the software, with no effect. Feeling a bit desperate with Publisher now, after such an excellent start. Any advice?

Yes, you're right. I set up the master pages with just the page number frames, and the main page frames were set up on page 1. Now I understand what Bruce was saying! Luckily I'm not far into it, so I'll start again. Thanks to you both for the help. GW

Thanks for your reply, but I still don't get it. I change the text frame on the master page, and that copies to all pages, but still the existing text is aligned to the old margins/text frame. How do I get the text on all the pages to align to the new text frame? I'm probably older than you Bruce, so go easy.

Hello all... Publisher newbie question: I want to reset the margins on an existing project. I go to Spread Setup, and change them on the Master page (=only used for page numbers) but they don't change on the existing pages, even with All Spreads set. What I get is the existing pages with both the old and the new margins showing in blue in the Preview, but the text stays to the old margins. I'm sure it's something simple, but how can I get the new settings to work? Thanks for advice...