Glyphs

Ah, talked too fast. A few images are still blurry, and I can't select anything. It seems like everything isn't loaded in memory. I'm going to try again to load the embedded files one by one, and see where it leads me.

Following my latest post: I have reinstalled Affinity Publisher, then tried to reopen the file I was talking about earlier, and opened it in a few seconds. I'm still at a loss as to what caused the problem, but reinstalling Publisher is the solution. Any hope to have a fix in a next update, so that I don't have to reinstall Publisher every two week?

It has been this way since the latest major update. I even sent you files I couldn't open in Designer and Publishers. You might still have it. Afterwards, there was a maintenance update for all the apps, and I managed to open the files. So maybe just reinstalling the App would do the trick. I'll try it as soon as possible. I am working on an iMac 2012 on macOS Catalina 10.15.4 There are periods when the system is slowing everything down, not just Publisher. I have system crashes when I'm using Publisher, but since I'm using it everyday, I couldn't say if it's coming from Publisher or the system itself. It's been like that since Catalina's latest updates, and reinstalling Catalina doesn't change a thing.

No, it's all the files. Even those I didn't work on at the time of the crash. Every afpub file is opening in slow motion. I did have this same problem a few days ago, and the backups were as slow to open as the other files. I'll try to reinstall Publisher as soon as my latest file is loaded.

I just created a new document a few seconds after your reply while latest file was loading, so it's OK on this side. The latest file I opened is stil loading though.

No message. I only read that the file is loading in the menubar. So far, I managed to load a 487 Mb file in 30 minutes, and a 1,32 Gb file in an hour. I am working on an iMac 2012 with Catalina, so it's supposed to be slow, but not that slow. The only thing peculiar that happens each time I reopen the files after a force restart of my Mac is that Catalina is verifying each file I am trying to open before it is actually handled by Publisher. So I have been wondering what Catalina is supposed to do when Publisher is trying to open a verified file with unverified embedded files in it after a restart. Since I have been trying to open a file containing a lot of linked and embedded files all day to no avail, I am now opening each embedded file separately. So far, it's very slow, but it works. Each file is verified separately, and opened in its App. Then when all the files will have been verified separately, I'll try to open the main afpub file containing all these files. Do you think the problem is somehow linked to Catalina verifying the files after a force restart?

I am trying to open my afpub files after several system crashes and force-quitting Publisher several times, and even the lighter files aren't opening yet. I suppose I would have to wait a few hours for the files to finally open, because it happened before, but it's tiring. Are there preferences to reset, or something to do in Publisher to not have these problems ?

Sorry for the trouble. I solved my problem by opening the page in Designer and unlink the page symbols. I don't know how they became linked in the first place, though.

In the previous version of Publisher, I placed a multi-page Publisher document into another Publisher document on several pages. To display only 3 pages of this placed document for example, all I had to do was click the pages menus of the placed document. And it just worked. Now, it doesn't work anymore. If I place 3 instances of a Publisher document into 3 pages of another Publisher document, then click the Pages menu of these instances, all the instances are modified at once, like linked symbols. Is there some option to check to be able to change the displayed page of each placed document individually instead of in all the instances at once, or is it a new bug?

Sorry for the delay in replying, I had to correct my book file a second time because of a bug I didn't know about… I tried double-clicking the image instead of its layer, and it's working fine both ways. As long as I remember not to double click the layers to edit it, everything should be fine.

Oh, OK. That's exactly what I did, because it was more intuitive to me. Double-clicking once fits the image to the screen, and double-clicking twice opens it individually. Does it happen too if I double-clic the image itself instead of its layer?

Yes, either I never checked this option, or I checked it a year ago and it was reset with all my other preferences after a forced restart. So, I checked it, quit and relaunched Publisher (just to be sure), checked if the option was still checked, then edited a Photo file in Publisher. When I closed the Photo window in Publisher, there was no message asking me to save the file, and when I opened the original file in the Photo App, it was still unchanged. But I think I found out what is happening: The Photo is marked "Embedded" instead of "Linked" in the Tab's title when I open it in Publisher's Photo Tab, and it's marked as Linked when I check its entry in the Resources Manager dialogue. Currently, when I click its entry in the Resources Manager, it is listed as Linked, and I even have a button to embed it. I do have an integrated image, but when I click its entry this button changes to "Link". Not sure what is happening, here, but this might be a bug. Is there another way to ensure that the linked files stay linked ?

As my Photo & Designer files sizes are too big, they are linked instead of embedded into my Publisher files. I thought the possibility of editing the files in Publisher was a great and simple way to work, but obviously, I need some support. Here is an example: Suppose I place a Photo file in my Publisher document, then want add to the image a vector circle for example. The usual way to do this is to add it in Photo, then go to Publisher and update the linked Photo file in the Resources Manager, but there's another way, which looks a lot better at first: Double-click the Photo file in Publisher to open it individually in a new window, then click the Photo button to edit it in Photo, add the circle, then close the window. The image is immediately updated in Publisher, and really, that's a great way to work! But there's still something I don't understand: If I proceed this way, even if the Photo file is just linked, the circle I added in the Photo file in Publisher is not in the original Photo file (It's so twisted I even have trouble reading what I just wrote). So let's say I made some corrections to my Photo files directly in Publisher, then have to update all these Photo files in Photo before finishing the book. I then go to the Resources Manager in Publisher, update all the Photo files, and just like that, all the corrections I had made directly to the Photo files in Publisher are gone. Is there some option to check in Publisher so that the updating of the linked files go both ways?

Both files are opening in versions 1.8.2 Problem solved! Thank you!

I have tried again to open the .afpub file by replacing the image file I sent you by another image file, but it doesn't seem to work, so the .afpub file might have a problem too. Can I send the .afpub file to the same dropbox address?

Thank you for your reply. After many hours trying to understand what went wrong, I believe I isolated the problem to just one file in the placed files of my Affinity Publisher document. It's a 302.9Mb Affinity Designer file which displays exactly the same Document Loading dialog as the Affinity Publisher file in its title bar when opened in either of the three Affinity apps. I have been waiting for it to load for 15 minutes, so I am sending you this file in hope you can save it or tell me how to repair it. It's a converted Photoshop file from the days I was working in Photoshop, and I never had any problem with it until a few days ago. I tried to open a version as old as 2019/08/25 and it just doesn't open. If you can at least tell me what went wrong, it would help me to find more files like this one. While checking all these files, I also stumbled upon a new problem. It's not much, but a tweak could help me to not force quit the Affinity Apps in the middle of a job: Each time I am opening an Affinity file in either apps, there is a progress bar right under its title. If I edit the file, then try to save it before this progress bar is fully loaded, Affinity Designer freezes with the color wheel cursor. So I had to force quit Affinity Designer a few times. Sometime, the progress bar even begins after I start editing the file, and I never seem to notice it in time. It would be simpler to just not allow us to save anything while the progress bar is loading or waiting to load (with a message explaining us what it actually does. I suppose it's linked to the file format being updated, but I can't be sure).

While Affiinity Publisher was loading one of my .afpub files, I had a system crash, and had to restart. Since then, all my other .afpub files are opening save this one file, and I need to work on it. I am using macOS 10.15.3 and the three 1.8.1 Affinity Apps (but the problem occurred before the update, while still in version 1.7.x). This is a 5.08 Gb file, and it usually only takes a few minutes to load on my iMac 2012. I let Affinity Publisher all night to load it, and it still didn't open. I also tried to load the very first version of the file, which was saved in a Time Machine disk, and it didn't load either. I am now trying to load this file in Affinity Designer, just in case (and I'll try opening it in Affinity Photo afterwards), but it has been loading for half an hour and it's still lagging. The file doesn't seem to be corrupted, since even its oldest versions can't open either. Is there something to do to the file, or some kind of debugger to download for this kind of problem?

This might seem like an odd question, but I have stared using Affinity Photo to draw on my iPad, and I find myself using Apple Pencil to draw lines, then a finger of my other hand to try to erase parts of it… It kind of seems natural to me. So is there a way to develop an option to differentiate a touch with Apple pencil from a touch with a finger, which would allow us for example to use the eraser with a touch, and the brush with Apple Pencil?

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying. As this thread is 3 years old, I suppose the PM I sent at the time has been deleted, since I can't find any trace of it. Same for my video. These days, I don't have too many troubles with assets in Designer. When an old asset looks wrong in the Assets panel, I place it onto an image, correct it, then delete the old version, and put the corrected one in the Assets panel. I don't add any constraints to it.

OK, this is going to be hard to explain, so here is a sample file. This is part of an image I edited in Affinity Photo. I stripped it of all its layers save the problematic ones. I have been working on a werewolves story, and needed the werewolves on the cover to have different fur colors, so I asked my colorist to send me a file with the flats on a layer, so that I could better select the werewolves' furs, and update the colors myself. The result has been fine with the previous versions of Affinity Photo, but since the updates, the cover file updated itself too, and not for the better. Not sure if I understand how it works, but here is what you can do with the attached file: Just develop the Teared Cloth group, and put its layer out of the group. To change the colors, I had created three group layers titled Red, Blue and Brown. As long as the Layer 1 stays in the group, the colors are fine. As soon as I put it out of the group, the colors revert to their original version. This didn't happen in the previous versions (and I didn't have to put the Recolor Layer in a group for it to work). Does anyone has any idea about what is happening? Update: I have tried to add a Levels layer on top of all the layers inside the Test folder, and it also cancels the colorization layers effect. The only way to avoid this so far, is to select the Level layers and put it out of the Test Folder, or to ctrl-click the Levels layer and place it in a group. I have tried a few other Adjustment Layers, and had the same problem. This bug might be affecting all the Adjustment Layers. Rage #5 Cover Tests.afdesign

Ah, I hadn't seen the page Navigator. I'll try it next time, thanks.

Still trying to optimize my workflows with Publisher. Now, I'm trying to simplify the localization of my books. I'm almost there, but a few things are missing. The good news is that I can actually use Photo's Macros on Publisher's pages in the Photo Persona, so even if Macros haven't been implemented yet in Publisher, I can still find a workaround. The bad news (so far) is that I haven't found a way to use Photo's Macros in all the pages at once. Each time I use a macro on a double page for example, I have then to go to the next double page, then select the Move tool and click in an empty part of the workspace so that the layers' page are visible, and then use the same macro again. So my question is: Is there a way to use the same macro on all the pages of a document at once?

I just bought Publisher, and it does look great for optimizing my workflow, but I still have a few questions about StudioLink: Is there a way to have the same saved interface in Designer and Designer for Publisher for example? With the same Assets in the Assets panels, the same Brushes in the Brushes panels, and so on?

Sincerely sorry for all this. What happened is that Kindle Tech support told me there was a problem with the black values, and I thought it came from… the black values. I have received my new proofs today, and everything is now fine. Here is what I did, and what (I think) happened: as the black values seemed to be fine in the original files, but seeing that Kindle's software had created a color difference between the layers, I thought the problem might come for the layers, so I flattened every layers on every page, so that each page actually contains only an image, and it worked. Now, of course, I have a new question since flattening the whole file page by page is time consuming, but I'm not sure if this question should be part of a new thread or not. Obviously, at first, I had exported a PDF with some kind of layers in it (or transparencies, as Kindle Tech Support seems to call it). I don't know how PDF conversion works, but it's obvious Kindle's software recognizes the same layers in the PDF file as in my original file. I have looked at Publisher's PDF export options, and don't know what option I should have checked to not have this layers problem, so my question is: is there a way to export a PDF with flattened layers, instead of flattening the layers in the Publisher's file itself, or if not, is there a way to add such an option? I understand that you couldn't answer questions about the files generated by Kindle's software without having a look at these files, but I can't ask Amazon to send me the files they use, and a lot of us are going to use Kindle's services to publish printed books, so this problem is bound to happen again. I think the simplest way to do this would be to add an option to have Publisher flatten the layers in the PDF only when exporting the file. Should I start a new thread with this question? UPDATE: Finally found out you can do this by exporting in PDF/X-1a: 2003. I didn't try the PDF (flatten) option yet, but I'll make a few tests with Amazon Kindle. Sorry for the trouble.

I kept the default values for the Publisher document and the PDF export, so there shouldn't be any problem with the RGB file or the color profile. I copy files from Photo files. I select all the layers, then choose Merge Visible, and copy and paste the merged layer into a Publisher page. I am showing you the result of Amazon KDP conversion. The GIF image is what they sent me. I don't know anything else yet. I don't think I could ask Amazon to send me the converted file, but I could try anyway, adding to my request a link to this thread. I remembered yesterday that they sometime have a problem with what they call "Transparency" in a PDF. Maybe this whole thing actually comes from their process, so what I did is flatten all the pages layers, and send them a new PDF. I should receive a new proof in a few days.