MikeTO

The first thing that comes to mind is the font - what font are you using and where did you get it? Is the exact same version installed on both the Mac and PC?
Did you set Leading to Default or Exactly? I recommend trying Exactly to avoid a default leading issue.
Good luck

In 1.10, the Fields panel is opened with View > Studio > Fields

Or, if you don't want to use a baseline grid for caption, you can fix the initial advance of the caption Text frame to the value of the document-wide baseline grid. 
Select the caption text frame and align its top to the document-wide baseline grid Select Text Frame panel > Vertical position > Initial advance = Fixed Set Minimum = Document-wide baseline grid value You don't have to change this because it's the default value, but ensure Vertical position = Top Align
Align first line on baseline without an independant grid.afpub
 

Hi all. I believe you've always been able to do this with Affinity but it doesn't work the same way as InDesign. Here's how to do it using the OP's example from InDesign.

Select the caption text frame and align its top to the document-wide baseline grid Select Text Frame panel > Baseline Grid > Use Independent Baseline Grid Set Start Position = document-wide baseline grid value Set Grid Spacing = whatever you want for the caption You don't have to change it because it's the default value, but ensure Relative To = Top of Frame Here's a quick Publisher 2.6 document showing how to do it.
baseline.afpub

Hi all. I believe you've always been able to do this with Affinity but it doesn't work the same way as InDesign. Here's how to do it using the OP's example from InDesign.

Select the caption text frame and align its top to the document-wide baseline grid Select Text Frame panel > Baseline Grid > Use Independent Baseline Grid Set Start Position = document-wide baseline grid value Set Grid Spacing = whatever you want for the caption You don't have to change it because it's the default value, but ensure Relative To = Top of Frame Here's a quick Publisher 2.6 document showing how to do it.
baseline.afpub

The Style Picker tool definitely copies text styles but there is a trick to pasting paragraph styles. I wrote about this in my manual and I retested it just now and it worked fine.
Once you've loaded (copied) paragraph formatting, you must drag select the entire paragraph you want to apply it to, including past the last character as shown in this screenshot. This is easier with Show Special Characters selected.

Cheers

I'm seeing the same thing in the 2.6.2 beta. It's not just XL - it doesn't remember Small or Medium either, it just reverts to Large when restarting.

We began to discuss it some time ago, about another question:
 

Mine samples and applies styles like a charm — unless yours is just shy. → Check out the demo.
 
Not at all, Mike. Just use quadruple click and the paragraph will be selected along with the paragraph break mark.
DEMO: Style Picker: Sampling AND Applying? 🤯 Yup — just in case someone’s still unsure.↓

Style Picker.mp4  

If I ever need to apply a Paragraph Style to a paragraph I will use the Text Styles panel to apply it. That is so much simpler than what I see in the videos. If I ever need to apply some styling from one Paragraph Style to a few characters within a paragraph I may use the style picker.

The Style Picker tool definitely copies text styles but there is a trick to pasting paragraph styles. I wrote about this in my manual and I retested it just now and it worked fine.
Once you've loaded (copied) paragraph formatting, you must drag select the entire paragraph you want to apply it to, including past the last character as shown in this screenshot. This is easier with Show Special Characters selected.

Cheers

That is incorrect. The Style Picker applies paragraph and character text styles. Please see the screen recording below for a demonstration.
You are probably missing the End of Paragraph symbol. It is very tricky to select the End of Paragraph symbol because Affinity inconsistently selects the End of Paragraph symbol when you drag to its right. Here's a screen recording and a test document (created in the 2.6.4 beta). I intentionally recorded me struggling to select the End of Paragraph symbol. After each application with the Style Picker, I switch to the Frame Text tool and click in the text so you can see if the style has changed.
Drag select past the right of the End of Paragraph symbol to try to select it. If the End of Paragraph symbol doesn't become selected, drag down to the left of the first character of the following paragraph to select it. It won't select it if you drag to the left of the column edge If you drag just a bit too far to the right of the left edge it will select it but also the first character of that following paragraph which you don't want The target is the very narrow area between the left edge of the column and the first paragraph I don't know why drag selection of the End of Paragraph symbol is inconsistent but this isn't limited to the Style Picker, it's like this when selecting text normally. I'll do more testing to see if I can figure that out.
Note that when you apply formatting with the Style Picker, the History panel shows "Apply Object Style". That is correct but misleading. What it's doing is picking up all the text and object attributes at the point you click, subject to your Context Toolbar options, and storing them in an object style which you're then applying when you drag select.
picker.afpub

Screen Recording 2025-07-13 at 11.50.16 AM.mov    
 

I already showed you how to make the word "Chapter" appear in your TOC. Follow the steps I provided or open test.afpub which I attached above.

To make the word "Chapter" bold:
Position the text cursor in the table of contents Edit the TOC 1: Heading 1 List Number style Set Font > Font Weight to Bold Click OK
 

Tabbing cycles through the styles in the drop-down list. With the focus on [No Style], pressing Enter does the same thing as clicking: the formatting is previewed correctly, but not ultimately applied.

The Style Picker tool definitely copies text styles but there is a trick to pasting paragraph styles. I wrote about this in my manual and I retested it just now and it worked fine.
Once you've loaded (copied) paragraph formatting, you must drag select the entire paragraph you want to apply it to, including past the last character as shown in this screenshot. This is easier with Show Special Characters selected.

Cheers

The Style Picker tool definitely copies text styles but there is a trick to pasting paragraph styles. I wrote about this in my manual and I retested it just now and it worked fine.
Once you've loaded (copied) paragraph formatting, you must drag select the entire paragraph you want to apply it to, including past the last character as shown in this screenshot. This is easier with Show Special Characters selected.

Cheers

Choose View > Show Context Toolbar to restore the bar across the top of the window with the controls you're looking for.

Selecting and moving the handles at the same time would be very nice and it opens up a whole new world, coming from Inkscape and a little bit from Illustrator I didn't think they can do that too, I don't know how difficult it would be to implement this feature, but it would be really useful.
example:
Move them simultaneously in one direction
move internally or externally of themselves
in line with each other.
I don't think Affinity Designer has this feature and it could be something exclusive.

I spoke too soon, I thought of a way to do it but it's not a general-purpose solution so if the pages don't always have an image in the middle it won't work for you. This solution creates a text frame with a hole in the middle.
Draw two rectangles the same size as the text frames Select both rectangles and choose Layer > Geometry > Add Choose Layer > Convert to Text Frame Using the Context Toolbar, change Columns to 2. Delete the original text frames and link the frame on the previous page to this new frame and this frame to the frame on the next page Set note position to Bottom of Column so notes are stacked on the left or right as required

Updated for Publisher 2.6 (Feb 2025)
Publisher Manual Feb 3 2025.pdf
This free, 390-page manual is filled with steps, tips, and recommendations:
Everything you need to know about documents, pages, spreads, master pages, text formatting, text styles, text frames, picture images, books and chapters, sections, cross-references, tables of contents, indexing, footnotes and endnotes, page numbering, running headers, fields, anchors and hyperlinks, printing and exporting, and customising settings New sections for multi-page spreads, the reading order panel, guides, grids, snapping, and other features This manual does not describe the illustration and photo editing features Q&A
Is this really free? Yes, it's copyrighted only to prevent others from publishing it as their own Is there a longer manual I can purchase? No Is there a version for Designer or Photo? No, but many of the features are the same so it will still be relevant Is there an iPad version? No, the steps and screenshots are for the macOS and Windows versions Why does it use a print layout if it's a PDF? It's a demonstration of how to use the features it describes to create a print book You might also like:
Special Characters Quick Reference Chart: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/176386-special-characters-in-affinity-quick-reference-chart/ Terminology Translation Dictionary for Dutch, Polish, Ukrainian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Finnish: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/209953-terminology-translation-dictionary/ Previous 2.5 edition for those who still want it:
Publisher Manual May 23 2024.pdf
 

Hey,
In multilingual documents, it is common to place different language versions of a headline in the same position, hiding the ones not needed for the current output. For example, the English version might be hidden while the German version is shown. Although only one version is visible, both may use the same paragraph style, which currently causes all of them to be included in the Table of Contents.
Affinity Publisher includes hidden text objects in the TOC, even when their visibility is turned off using the Layers panel or when they are placed on hidden layers. This behavior makes it difficult to maintain clean TOCs in complex layouts with alternative content, especially in large documents with many of hidden headings.
In the TOC configuration dialog, there should be an option to control this behavior more precisely. A checkbox such as “Include hidden text objects” would allow users to explicitly decide whether invisible elements should be considered during TOC generation. This would be particularly useful for workflows involving translation layers or conditional layouts, where different versions of content exist side by side but only one should be reflected in the final TOC.
Ideally, this toggle could be added near the existing settings such as “Look in: All Text Frames / Text Flow” or “Include as PDF bookmarks,” allowing for a more flexible and accurate handling of content visibility in TOCs.

I spoke too soon, I thought of a way to do it but it's not a general-purpose solution so if the pages don't always have an image in the middle it won't work for you. This solution creates a text frame with a hole in the middle.
Draw two rectangles the same size as the text frames Select both rectangles and choose Layer > Geometry > Add Choose Layer > Convert to Text Frame Using the Context Toolbar, change Columns to 2. Delete the original text frames and link the frame on the previous page to this new frame and this frame to the frame on the next page Set note position to Bottom of Column so notes are stacked on the left or right as required

Note that Affinity has separate defaults for Frame Text and Art Text. Here's what I wrote in my manual, it's a bit tricky to do this for both types of text.
To change Publisher’s defaults for one or more attributes:
1. Create a temporary new document; its settings are unimportant because it will be deleted when you’re done.
2. Choose the Frame Text or Table tools to set the defaults for text frames, including shape text frames and tables. Or choose the Artistic Text tool or any other tool to set the defaults for text objects, including art text and path text.
3. Change any attributes you wish to change.
4. To set the defaults for both text frames and text objects, you must select the attribute separately for both tools. For example, choose the Frame Text tool and select a font family, and then choose the Artistic Text tool and reselect the same font family, even though the control will show that it’s already selected.
• For a list control such as Font Family, select the option from the list a second time by clicking it twice—once to open the list and once to select it again.
• For a text field control such as Font Size, click in the text field and press Return.
• For a checkbox control such as No Break, click it twice to toggle its selection on and off.
• For a toggle control such as Underline, select another option and then select it again.
5. Choose Edit > Defaults > Save to save the session defaults as Publisher’s new defaults. You can now close the temporary document.

Here's a list of some of the bugs which have been fixed in beta build 2.6.4.3439, fixes since 2.6.3.3322
This thread is locked. To report any new bugs please do that against the relevant in this Other New Bugs and Issues in the Betas forum.
(A) Bug fixes which affected all platforms 
Lens correction for OM 12-100mm F4 not being automatically applied.  AF-7224 APO-LANTHAR 35mm F2 Aspherical II lens not identified.  AF-6408 Canon RF 70-200mm F4L IS USM lens Detected as a Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM.   (B) Bug fixes which affected Desktop (Windows and macOS) 
User file crashing when disabling Facing Pages  AF-6808 Linked Resources- Layer visibility states are not synced when file is re-opened  AF-6647 Master page pasteboard content no longer appears on page AF-6420 Shortcut label missing in Text Style Editor.  AF-7201 Crash when double clicking Reading order panel Embedded AI files lose their data once edited User File- Pinned objects trigger PDF export failure with 'Tagged PDF' enabled Independent Baseline Grid is Not Scaled Correctly Cannot place a website image as Linked (Remote) if the image url source contains height and width information After adding a single page converting facing to non facing loses content frames Adding a single page in a facing page document shows frames in the pasteboard that should be hidden Images that are promoted and replaced on a page don't show in resource manager Crash placing a specific AI file into an embedded document Artboard Margin Colour Can't be Changed (C) Bugs fixed which specifically affected Windows 
Warped objects don't print or export to EPS as warped.  AF-450 Certain View dialogs remain selectable with no open document, causing crashes or unexpected behaviour.  AF-4003 Clicking in an Empty Layers Panel With No Document Open Crashes the App AF-6580 Opening app, closing New Document window and clicking Layers closes app.   (D) Bugs fixed which specifically affected macOS 
User File crashing when disabling facing pages.  AF-7074 Edit Hyperlink- All Hyperlinks default to first in list if the hyperlink has been inserted on a shape  AF-6660 Data Merge - Anchors names are unexpectedly appended with a number.  AF-7594 Duplicating a Page with Index Markers fails to update the Index panel.  AF-6996 User file- PDF Open/Placement causes immediate app crash.  Text Styles are Synchronising Between Open Documents.  Delete article in Reading Order panel changes order of children.  The ML Object Selection tools no longer work in the Pixel Persona of Designer in 2.6.3 Switching documents can render text at different size. (E) Bugs fixed which specifically affected iPad 
Develop persona: Overlay's opacity move together.  AF-6284 No Keyboard shortcuts for paste without formatting.  AF-631 On iPad, there's no provision to assign a keyboard shortcut to some tools Please report any bugs introduced in 2.6.4 in this forum.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/139-other-new-bugs-and-issues-in-the-betas/
If you have reported a bug and it is not yet fixed, please do not report it again. More fixes will be made during the 2.6.x beta cycle, and will be reported in posts in this thread.

We have released a beta build to try and address a number of issues found in 2.6.3
We think a few of these fixes require some time to test them with our affected customers but we would like to release 2.6.4 to customers very soon, but it may require a number of weeks of testing.
Here are the release notes for the 2.6.4 (build 3439) beta
If you are suffering from any of the 30+ issues mentioned in that 2.6.4.3439 beta post, then please (sign up for and) install the latest beta build. If you have reported a bug and it is not yet fixed, please do not report it again. Nor can we correspond in this thread on when other bugs will be fixed (or why they are not yet fixed).
This beta is open to ALL Version 2 customers