MikeTO

Are you embedding the TIFF images or linking them? How large are they? I'd never seen a beachball when importing an image, it's always lightning fast, but my images are all optimized and all are linked. When I placed a large original of 130MB I did see a beachball and it took 4 seconds before the image appeared but that seemed reasonable.

Serif has grouped the attributes in the Context Bar into Paragraph and Character attributes. The Context Bar has the usual assortment of character attributes followed by character style. Then it has paragraph style followed by the usual assortment of paragraph attributes, the opposite order of character. I'm unsure why it's the way it is but there you have it.

That's interesting. Am I correct in assuming placing the same or similar image in 1.9.x was much faster? What is the image file format and could you share a sample here for testing?

If you purchased from the Mac App Store, you won't have a key to use the version from Serif's website.

Tables in professional page layout apps are not intended to serve as spreadsheets but to make tables in documents. Ideally you'd use a billing app that generates invoices but if you don't have that and you just want an invoice template to add up some numbers and apply tax before printing then I recommend using MS Excel or Apple Numbers.

This isn't happening for me. Does it happen with any font? What if the text frame is a tiny bit taller? Could you upload a sample file (before typing the apostrophe of course). What OS and version are you using?

I supported another professional app in the mid-nineties and people asked us for Linux support saying the same thing. It's 25 years later and Linux app sales are negligible.

Could you provide more details about what you were doing that led to the crash and which version of macOS you're using? v1.10 has been rock solid for me on a 2015 MBP with Big Sur. Can you duplicate the crash with a new file using the same features that led to the crash? Can you upload a sample document that crashes? Thanks.

Are you using Microsoft Edge? If so, you may wish to read this. https://www.windowscentral.com/how-download-blocked-files-smartscreen-filter-microsoft-edge

Agreed that it's for those who have the time, but it's not just so that Serif can get free testing, it's because even with enough lots of QA staff it's difficult to test on the variety of hardware, software, language, and document configurations necessary for apps as complex as these. Even with the number of people testing during the beta for 1.10 there were no reports in the final release candidate of the two serious bugs reported in the past few days (crash on opening and the inability to save). If just one of the people who is experiencing those bugs had been in the pool of beta testers those bugs might have been squashed before this release. I find spending an hour with the Publisher release candidate to ensure my own documents open, compose correctly, print, and save correctly is worth my time, but I know we can't all afford to do that. I do it just with Publisher which is the app I'm most dependent on, leaving the testing of Designer and Photo to others.

I think the point is that it is now fixed. The value you entered into minimum character spacing in 1.9 was ignored. The fix was that it's no longer ignored so your layout has indeed changed, but it's now respecting the value you entered just like XPress and InDesign. Just change the minimum character spacing to 0 and it should look like 1.9 again.

I'm using macOS on Intel and I haven't seen any slowdown with 1.10. The things that were advertised to be faster are faster for me, such as generation of thumbnails.

I don't have this problem with Safari on Big Sur. Strange.

I suggest uninstalling and reinstalling 1.10 from scratch.

Agreed. I would replace Insert Filler Text in the context menu with Insert. I use Insert regularly and Insert Filler Text only when setting up a new template. In fact, I think Filler Text should just be a submenu of Insert, it's odd that it's a top-level menu command.

It's a palette of 256 colours from a 24-bit colour space. Dithering is used to simulate more colours than can be stored in single image. Dithering was very popular in the eighties and nineties before 24-bit graphic cards and appropriate monitors became common.

This isn't unexpected for GIF - do you really need to use that format? GIF is limited to 256 colours so gradients often look dithered (what you referred to as splattered). JPEG or PNG (for online) or TIFF (for print) would provide better results.

I think you'll need to provide a screenshot and/or sample file - I'm unsure what you mean by half the page separating paragraphs.

I'm not having any difficulty exporting to PDF from Publisher with my own files. Are you using Mac or Windows and which version? Could you share a sample file?

It's fine to embed images for small projects but for large projects, you'll want to link the images. This will keep your file size small, improve app performance, and allow you to update the images without having to re-place them into Publisher. If you need to move the document, move the document with all of its images. If you're working on a larger project, it's a good practice to put all the images into one folder. So for example, create a sub-folder in the folder containing the Publisher file and name it images, book-images, or whatever you like. If you move the document and the images folder when you next open the document you'll be told the images can't be found, but if you follow the prompt to re-link the first missing image and all of the rest are in the same folder, it will relink all of them for you automatically.

It works for me without any issues. Each page of my book has two masters assigned to it, one for the things common across chapters such as text frames, and one for chapter-specific things such as the chapter name. If I add pages (by clicking the overset text icon) at the end of a chapter before the start of a new chapter which has a different chapter master applied to it, the new pages will be inserted with the correct masters applied without impacting the next chapter. If I delete pages anywhere in a chapter, the next chapter will be unaffected. It works as you'd expect.

And I'm a page layout person but a terrible photographer. 🙂

I know this is an old post but I just wanted to say that I like the photography.

FWIW, all three of the app updates took <5 minutes each to install for me on my old MBP running Big Sur. I don't know the precise time, it could have been 1-2 minutes, it was fast enough that I didn't pay attention. But 5 minutes max.

I don't see any issues with your doc setup and your second screenshots which I believe are 1.10 is what I'm seeing with 1.10. I'm not going to be much help to you as I don't have 1.9.x any longer for testing. But it sounds like you do have it or that you've reverted back to 1.9 for now. If you have only one machine now with 1.9 then you could install the 1.10 beta for comparison testing, assuming it's still available. I'm unsure whether the issue is with min/max character spacing or min/max word spacing, but you have both set. I suggest making a three-page test document in 1.9.x. All three pages would have identical text but the first copy would have the character and word min/max spacing settings you're using now. The second version would have only character spacing set while the third version would have only word spacing set. If you could compare those pages in 1.9.x vs. 1.10 you could verify whether the problem is with character spacing, word spacing, or only both. My personal preference for your two screenshots is the 1.10 version - I think it looks the spacing looks more consistent - but I can understand how the change could be disconcerting to you at this stage in your work. Good luck!