Brian_J

Bummer. Maybe another user or Serif will be able to help.

File previews went back to normal for me after uninstalling MSIX and installing the MSI apps — preview size is as expected and resizes based on width of the preview pane. I don’t think I’ve come across reports about what you’re experiencing. Shot in the dark, but have you restarted your computer?

Is there another object on the page that the Shape Text layer may be snapping to instead of the top of the page? If you zoom in further, move the Shape Text layer above the top of the page and drag it down slowly, are you able to get it to snap where you want it? Is the right side of the Shape Text layer snapped to the top of the page? If the top of the Shape Text object is not perfectly horizontal, that would create a gap. If you're still having problems, if you can upload the Affinity Publisher file, that would help someone identify the issue.

Or, everyone else could deduce this conversation (and others similar to it) is futile and move on.

I find the iPadOS ‘Open In’ shortcut really convenient, and it works for me on iPadOS 17.4.1. Here are screenshots from iPadOS 17.4.1 in case they’re helpful. If you want to create shortcuts and have trouble doing so, let us know.

It can be confusing when viewing the version number of Affinity v2 apps. What you were actually seeing is ‘Publisher 2 2.4.2 is now available’ — the first “2” is part of the app name, not the version number.

I think an ideal solution would be to place alert messages at the top of v1 help pages stating the content is for v1 and providing a hyperlink to the corresponding v2 help page. Depending on how the site is built, perhaps a time-consuming and unrealistic solution… I don’t know. I always look at the URL in the web browser and add a ‘2’ if I landed on a v1 help page, which seems to be most of the time. I’d rather not have to do that. I think the Affinity Help site is in need of improvement — e.g., I’d appreciate more in-depth information; search function is rudimentary and often does not provide adequate results; and sharing a help page URL can be confusing for new users. Helping users get to the appropriate Affinity Help page via an internet search is another example of something I hope Serif addresses to make the Affinity Help site a better resource for new and experienced users.

Gradients can't be saved as a swatch from a pixel layer. If you apply the gradient to a vector shape (e.g., Rectangle Tool) or a Fill Layer, you can then select the layer and save the gradient swatch to a palette.

Select the Clone Brush then tap it again to display additional tools.

One other thought… again, if you’re using Word. If you create a character text style in Word for italics and use the character text style instead of the italics button in the Ribbon, the character text style will be brought into Affinity Publisher. Having a character text style applied to italic text would enable you to apply a different paragraph text style without overriding the italics.

The bold is a mystery. Since I don't have the Bell MT font, I can't experiment with it. What app are you copying the text from? If it's Word, doing the following will create a new text style in Affinity Publisher when copy/paste from Word: In Word, create a new (text) Style (don't use the default 'Normal' style). In the new Style, change the Style based on to (no style). Apply the Style to your text. Copy the text in Word and paste it in Affinity Publisher. The text style used in Word will be applied to the text in Affinity Publisher, and the new style will show in the Text Styles panel. You could use this new text style as your Body text style. If you want to rename the text style, it would have to be done after all the text is copied over from Word. I don't know if bringing the text style over from Word will have an affect on the issue. And if you're not using Word, this is all moot. I always paste plane text into Affinity apps and apply text styles in Affinity. It would be a hassle, though, to have to reformat large amounts of text. Maybe someone else will have a suggestion.

Sorry man… you mentioned that in your OP but I overlooked it.

I’m not on a computer with the Bell MT font installed, so I can’t test it, but it doesn’t look like the Font Trait is set in the Body text style. If you set the Font Trait for the Body text style to Normal — or whatever it’s named for the font — does that resolve the issue? Edit: I didn’t see Walt’s comment; maybe what I mentioned isn’t the issue.

In the Refine Selection dialog, with the Output set to Selection, clicking the Apply button should result in a pixel selection that you can invert: Select > Invert Pixel Selection. I'm not sure what the '2 mode buttons' are that you're referring to. If what I mentioned above doesn't address your issue, a screenshot showing the entire screen (all Affinity UI), including the Refine Selection dialog, and/or your artwork with the selection you'd like to invert would be helpful.

Something I found useful in Adobe apps was the Duplicate file option. Duplicating a file presents a dialog with the original file name appended with “copy” — so there’s no chance of accidentally overwriting the original — and the option to change the file name. Duplicating a file keeps the original open and the duplicate can be saved or experimented with and closed without saving.