Meanderling

@thomaso Yep, that's pretty much what I did in the end It didn't click at first, because I testing separate styles & TOCs, so didn't have the autoflow option available, but after some reformatting, I think it's the best workaround. Thanks to both of you for your input!

Hi @Old Bruce, I don't need page numbers, so that's not an issue. Manually replacing the Returns doesn't change how the text flows, it will still flow top to bottom, then across. Also, any manual changes you make to the TOC will be lost each time it's updated. Actually, I just figured out a slightly better solution than to create individual TOCs, and that's to use the AutoFlow feature and just drag/draw the next text row in. That's a win in my book, but being able to control the text flow in columns would be pretty handy (who knows, maybe a future update?).

In answer to your questions, the image below is essentially what I'm trying to achieve: The return at the end of the TOC entry would ideally cause the switch to the right column. The Columns option is not an option within TOC specifically, it's from the options menu applied to the text frame that holds the TOC - the below shows the menu item when the text frame is selected: An option to change the text flow within columns, as is possible with the Data Merge Tool (see top image), would be ideal. I've tried to force the behaviour by manually adding different breaks from the Special Characters menu, to both the source text and within the TOC itself, but to no avail. As far as I can tell, the only way to achieve my desired result is to add each row as a separate TOC - not the end of the world, but as there are so many options in AP, I wondered if I simply missed it... With regard to using the Data Merge Tool "without fusing the data import or generating a data merged document" - I doubt it's something that could be used here, but as I haven't come across this functionality before, I thought it might be worth looking into, mainly for reference sake. If I can't achieve something, I do tend to do fairly extensive research to find an answer, but in this case, I don't think there is a simple solution (other than what I've mentioned). Thanks for stepping in and trying to help though.

Hi @thomaso Thanks for your reply. Sorry, but I'm not sure I understand your question: I was actually wanting to use the text flow in a TOC, so that it flows across and then down (as in the left image). Obviously, as it's a TOC, it's limited as to what adjustments you can make, but as columns is an option, I wondered if I was perhaps missing a setting somewhere. Your comment (below) was interesting - I didn't know you could use the Data Merge Tool without actually data merging. That might be something I could look into? Can you link to any further articles or threads on it? It might not work for a TOC, but it might prove useful for something else

Hi all, I'm just wondering if there's a way to choose how text flows into columns? Something like the Data Merge Layout Tool, where you can select the Layout Order: OR The closest I've found is to use the 'Balance text in columns' option, but that gives questionable results sometimes (eg putting the last letter of a word into the next column, rather than putting the whole word into that column, which would actually make the columns balanced). Other than that, I haven't found a way to do it, does anyone know if there's another way? Many thanks!

It's doing it again... So, after a bit more investigation, I think I've figured out what's going on (assuming that's been the case all along?). The layer(s) in question have moved from the visible artboard into no-mans land, which is why they're not visible when I make changes. How they got moved or when, I don't know, as it's not something I did (I had to zoom quite far out to find them). I've also just noticed that when I hover over the symbol in the layers panel, it does briefly show a popup saying, "Unlinked Attributes: Transform/Constraints" - it's pretty quick, so I didn't notice before. However, it's worth noting that all layers within each symbol instance show a solid orange line, indicating that all layers are indeed sync'd. If I delete the symbols from the 2 artboards that aren't showing the 'missing' layer and drag a new instance from the symbols panel to the now empty artboards, the 'rogue' layer is still out in no-mans land (on both new instances), despite being able to see the exact same layer on artboard #3. This suggests that it's this layer that has become unsync'd... However, if I delete the object in no-mans land, the object that's visible in artboard #3 is also deleted, confirming that this object is sync'd, as the solid orange bar indicates. If I delete all symbols from all artboards and drag a fresh instance of the symbol from the symbols panel, all new instances show the popup, "Unlinked Attributes: Transform/Constraints". Now that I've found the 'missing' layers, most of the behaviour makes sense and is correct (more or less). I'll even concede that the/a layer (or indeed, an entire group of layers) may have inadvertently become unsync'd and got moved (although it seems unlikely). However, there's no dashed orange line in the layers panel to indicate this (if I deliberately unsync things, the dashed line shows up, so the functionality is working). I also don't understand how a fresh instance (from the symbols panel) can be unsync'd from the off - is this a bug or am I missing something? I've attached a trimmed down file, as @walt.farrell suggested. If this is deemed a bug, I'll move this topic, or perhaps admin can do that?? Symbol_Test.afdesign

@walt.farrell Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I'm not sure screenshots would help, as it's not possible to show the expanded layers for more than 1 artboard at a time (not on my screen anyway). All it would really show is that the active layers are within a symbol and that none of the links are broken. As for sharing, it's actually client work and therefore not really suitable for sharing - I thought about re-jigging it for that purpose, but then I stumbled upon the 'cut & paste' hack I mentioned, so rather than lose any more time, I figured I'd better make the most of it... while it lasts. If the issue comes back, I'll do what I can to make it shareable and super obvious in a screencast, as that would probably be the best way to show the issue. Thanks again.

@Lee D Thanks for letting me know - it didn't show up before or when I opened Publisher & Photo, so I thought it best to mention it, in case it was related to the issue.

Hi all, I'm using symbols to see what a design will look like within different mockups. I have 1 artboard for the main design/symbol and have used an instance of that symbol on separate artboards; 1 showing it in a desktop view, the other showing the instance within a mobile view - the symbols have never been unsync'd. The design isn't that complicated and the file size is around 40MB. While designing, I'm trying out different coloured overlays, painted with a textured brush on a pixel layer. I have 2 groups containing the coloured pixel layers, occasionally one or other of the groups will stop showing any of the coloured overlays on any of the symbols. Alternatively, it'll show the overlay(s) on only 1 of the 3 symbols and not necessarily the instance I'm actually working on. Likewise, if I put the paintbrush over a symbol in an active artboard, the preview may or may not show and if it does, it may not show on the active artboard. All the layers are still visible in the panel and within all instances, I can even see that they contain colour, it's just not showing on the artboards - restart, reboot, copying & pasting the layers within the same file or pasting them into a new file doesn't bring the colour back. However, I've just discovered that if I cut the pixel layers and paste them outside their original group, the colour is visible again. Even if I regroup them, the colour remains - although I'm not sure how long that will last... Occasionally the file size bloats by 10-20MB for no apparent reason, but that doesn't necessarily accompany the above behaviour. Thinking that perhaps the file had become corrupted, I recreated it, but eventually I get the same behaviour. Very odd... Wondering if anyone's experienced similar or has any idea what might be causing the problem?? Many thanks in advance!

Excellent point! Because it had 'hung', bloated the file and lost visibility of layers within symbols, I assumed it had crashed and corrupted the file in someway - seeing crashpad_handler seemed to support my suspicion, but if you think that's not the case, I'll shuffle along and see what else I can rustle up Thanks for stepping in!

@walt.farrell thanks for confirming - I don't recall seeing it before, but then I probably wasn't looking for it... Still, there's the issue with the missing layers and nothing in ...\User\.affinity\Designer\2.0\CrashReports\reports. I have no idea what the problem is - any recommendations?

Hi all, I'm getting the above showing up constantly in Windows Task Manager for Designer, and crashpad_handler.exe showing up for Photo & Publisher (v2), this happens on opening and even without having any files open. I've no idea how to get rid of this or if it's OK to ignore - can anyone help? I've mostly been working in Designer recently, which seems to be fine for the most part and although it's been hanging on occasion, it resumes after a few seconds with no error messages and no shutdown. The other thing it's been doing (even without hanging beforehand), is that it'll suddenly stop showing overlays within instances of a symbol, ie the overlay (which is just a coloured pixel layer over an image) will show on one symbol, but disappears from the 2 other instances of the same symbol on different artboards. I can see the layers if I click into the instance, I can even see that they have colour, but the layer(s) isn't showing on the artboard. At first I thought maybe the file had become corrupt, as it's file size increased from around 40MB to 59MB for no reason, so I recreated it from scratch, but it's happening on this version too. There's nothing particularly complex going on in the file and no extreme memory or CPU usage showing in Task Manager, but clearly something is amiss... [ I'm on Windows 10, Intel i7, 16GB Ram & plenty of available space - it's old but I've never had any issues with Affinity v1 or v2 until now ] I have searched the forum for crashpad_handler, but haven't found anything that seems to relate to my situation. I've also tried 'Repair' in the Apps Advanced Options, and before I try reinstalling (or anything else), I thought I'd see if anyone has any suggestions or experienced anything similar. Many thanks in advance!

Aww shame, I've been marvelling at how teeny-tiny the file sizes are Does 'Save History' record everything that's going on, including anything in the background or is it just saving user actions? If it's the latter, then it probably won't help, as the result would have taken a few steps to do manually and I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done it by accident. I tend to have a lot of things open on my PC, so keeping file sizes small is a good thing. However, as mentioned, AF has crashed/closed inexplicably a few times recently, so if you think 'Save History' will yield some tech info, I'm happy to do it. Thanks for looking into it for me!

Hi @NathanC, Thanks for replying! I've uploaded the files as requested - I'm not sure if the 'date modified' info will remain intact, but if it doesn't FYI, version _03.1 was saved at 00:49 and _04_X was saved at 00:50, so virtually identical (I added _X to the file name itself (without resaving) when I realised it was kaput). After that, I tweaked version _03.1 and saved it as a new version 4, on reopening it today, everything seems to be intact and as it should be. I wondered if I might have done something by mistake (it's possible!), but I don't think there's an easy to do what it did. For instance, if I'd somehow selected all the pages and replaced the existing master(s), that would account for most of what happened. However, pages 18-25 still have headings (but none of the other data that was on the page), but now they appear as text frames, rather pulled in from master, as per the original file. Let me know if you need any more info. Thanks again!! L

Hi All, Just wondering if anyone's experienced this or knows what might have caused it... I have a Publisher file with several master pages, which have been applied throughout the 100+ pages of the document. Everything was looking fine, I double checked the document and saved it as a new version because it was finished. However, today when I opened the new version, it's removed all of the master pages from the document and applied just 1 master page throughout. All masters seem to be intact, but are no longer applied to any of the pages. It definitely wasn't like that when I saved it. Luckily I have a version I'd saved a few minutes earlier, so no major damage (assuming I can remember what I'd done between versions), but so not helpful I wondered if the problem occurred because I'd applied master pages to master pages, but doing that has been mentioned elsewhere in the forum and nobody seemed to flag it as 'disallowed'. BTW Publisher has crashed or instantly closed a few times recently (for no apparent reason), but nothing like that on this occasion. None of the files look bloated, but the 'latest' version (without the master) is not surprisingly smaller than it's predecessor. Does anyone have any ideas what's going on? I definitely don't want that happening again, so any advice would be appreciated. Many thanks!!