gumbo23

Hi @gumbo23,
Are you possibly looking for the text auto flow function? This can be activated on your frame containing the overflowing text by shift + clicking on the text frame arrow. I've linked the help guide below for a more detailed overview of this feature.
https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/pages/Text/flowingText.hml

Unexpected ruler subdivisions are a known issue, reported since years and logged as tag afd-3643 for instance.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=subdivision ruler&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

@gumbo23  It is those little x-marks at the four corners of your image that show you what you need to fix.  Because the Picture Frame Rectangle Tool was used on your Master Pages, you could place images on each of your document pages, but cannot edit them as they are.  You need to highlight the Master Pages Layer in your Layer Panel, then right click and choose Edit Detached from the dropdown menu.  The four x-marks will disappear from around your image and be replaced by white dots.  Then use your Move Tool, click on your image, and you can use the FX options, including adding an outline.
If you need to put borders around every image (on many pages) then in the Pages Panel, hold Shift and click on each page so that they are highlighted in blue, then go to the Master Pages Layer and right click, and choose Edit Detached.  That will release all the pages you have highlighted, so that you can move from page to page, creating any FX effect that you want.  I hope this helps!

And now where we have the NL text as vectors (see the above shown screencast), we can apply that mesh image easily to it as a fill, via clipping that mesh image to the NL text vector curves (by dragging the mesh image layer slightly right nested in below the NL curves layer).

Capture3.mov    

In case you have already some outline font etc. type for the "NL" text on your OS system, aka if you initially maybe typed that in as graphics text then via some selected outline style font, then you have a text shape representation where you can setup stroke & fill colors accordingly. So for example stroke=black and fill=none, which will give you a text shape form with a transparent inner fill. A graphics text  shape can be converted into plain vectors via a right click on it and "convert to curves".

Capture2.mp4    

In case what you want to do is just to let the image shine through the NL text here (?), then clip the image (the image layer possibly better converted to a pixel layer) slightly right shifted underneath the NL text (so it is clipped to that one). Then select the mesh image and size & position it to your needs.
For example ...

NL-capture.mp4   nl_test.afdesign BTW, I've used vectors for the NL text instead of an image representation of that text characters and a pixel layer for the mesh image!
 
 

I seem to have a vanilla setup in Designer, but there is no sign of any selection tools. And there is no help in the help menu - it does not tell me where to find them, only how to use them.
So where/how do I find them?
Thanks.
Update: In case anyone else is lost on this - I found that you have to hit pixel persona in the top left, next to Designer persona, which is next to the traffic light buttons for Mac.
It would be very helpful if Affinity could put this location info right at the top of the Help section.

It sometimes also helps to make sure you have View > Studio > Show Left Studio enabled. 

Go to View > Studio > Character. 
You may have moved it off screen, in which case go to View > Studio > Reset Studio and then you'll have to get it to show by doing the above.

Hi @gumbo23,
Menu View > Studio > Character and View > Studio > Paragraph or switch to a text tool and click the "a" and flipped "P" icons (pilcrow symbol) in the context toolbar.

View - Studio - Character

Create a gradient on a fill layer above the cloud then Arrange/Move inside

Looks like you have all the elements already in your document - here's a screen recording which will hopefully, help you 
Just to clarify you can use anything as a mask by just dragging it to right of the layer or group 
Screen Grab 2021-08-18 at 14.51.25.mov

Or the online Help. https://affinity.help/photo/en-US.lproj/index.html
Just type gradient into the search box.

I tried you suggestion but that dot is still there - causing havoc. 
 
It's right off the image, and picking up other elements and painting them instead of what I want to clone.
 
Are there any detailed instructions on how to use the clone tool? I tried a Vimeo tutorial, but it didn't mention that cursor.

Are you perhaps masking/cropping instead of nesting/clipping?
 

View > Studio > Transform
or
View > Studio > Reset
If it still does not show

Why not using a mask to blend the png with the black background, like so:

Hi,
Your blacks are different, and the dfifferent CMYK channels have different colour densities.
Look at the channels to verify.
From this, you can decide of a way to correct the problem on some areas (masking, contrasting, etc.)




 

A simple blend range adjustment would sort this in a few clicks
Screen_Grab_2021-01-09_at_17_10_37.mov

There you go, this shows the masking process and how to merge the layers. You can simply turn off the layers below the merged layer and export to your file format of choice.

Masking.mp4

You need to uncheck the contiguous option (9 sec into the video)
 

Uncheck Contigous before clicking with the selection wand.

I started here: https://fixthephoto.com/indd-file.html
Convertio says: 
Online Covert says: 
Conversion Error
Unfortunately we can not convert your file yet from your source file format to this target file format. Please take a look at our FAQ.

Turn the octagon by 22.5°.
Copy the octagon for later use.
Draw behind the octagon a square bigger than it, select the set and do "Intersect".
Transform the result to "Text Frame" and type the text ("Justify Center" and "Bottom Align"), set "Baseline" if necessary.
Paste the previously copied octagon and place it under the text.