Michael117

AF Publisher V 1.7.0.249 Mac OS X: 10.13.6 When working with the text in a Table, the Text Ruler does not show. I'm unable to alter the start position, tabs, or end position of the text. If I click outside of the table, the text ruler appears at the top of the text column.

Publisher Version: 1.7.0.249 Mac OS X: 10.13.6 iMac (27-inch, Mid 2011) Processor: 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 Memory: 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Selected File>Save As.. Save As.. Dialog box is displayed in the collapsed form. Click the expand button to open the expanded form of the Save As... dialog. The Expanded Save As... dialog is displayed, but the right side of the window is truncated and only a small sliver of the Save button is displayed. Repeating this procedure causes the application to crash. (Crash Log attached). I was able to reproduce this several times. First pass through, expand the Save As.. dialog. Cancel the Save. Select File>Save As... Cancel the Save. Repeat 1 or 2 more times and the application crashes. Crash Log 03022019.txt

Yep, I used LaTex to lay out and manipulate a text book that we commissioned from the Ohio State University's Radio Frequency Engineering dept. I turned it into about 5,000 html elements, jpgs and pages to be used for a self-paced training site for Bell Labs' incoming wireless engineers.

Ah, ok, that makes sense. Is there a list of features on the roadmap that we can see. I understand that you can't guarantee when a feature will be implemented, but it sure would help to understand what's your planning on. Thanks!

@walt.farrell Do you know why the decision was made not to anchor tables to the text? I'm curious as to the reason for that design decision. I would think that most potential customers would find that a problem especially for documents that are text and table heavy.

@walt.farrell thanks for your patient explanations throughout the forum. I think what frustrated me at first was that you had to start the table outside the text frame. Until you said that it never occurred to me to do that. I'm used to adding a table from inside the text frame, so I only considered that approach.

Thanks, @walt.farrell, I found that I had to start the table in the page margin, then move it into the text frame. The first time I tried the whole application crashed. Upon which, I tested the auto recovery functionality The table was there and I was able to manipulate it.

Also, the grid doesn't appear over the page, only on the background. Is that the expected behavior? I checked in Designer and it does cover the page.

A lot of the "when is it coming" questions would be solved if they had posted an article on what is still being worked on for the first gold master release and what features are on the roadmap. I wasn't a customer of theirs when Photo and Designer first came out and don't know if they posted Public Beta versions like they did with Publisher, so they may have been through this before. I also see the "when is it coming" postings as people really wanting this application and wanting it to succeed. I also agree with you about the dry sense of humor.

I created a new document, 3 master pages, and 2 body pages. I set up auto-flow text frames on the body pages and was attempting to insert a table into the body text. I clicked on the Table Text Tool and tried use that to insert the table. Nothing seemed to happen. I next opened the Table Format item in the Studio and double-clicked on the default table there to see if it would insert the table into the position where my cursor was. At that point the application crashed. Crash log attached below AFPub Table Crash 09022018.txt

Is the functionality associated with Text Fields working as expected? I'm trying to insert a field into the text frame I added to one of my master pages, and there doesn't seem to be any Menu item to allow me to insert the field into the text frame.

Follow up: I was able to save the document and reopen it. I reopened the Edit Text Styles dialog and could click on OK or Cancel when changing properties for anything except the Tab Stop dialog. Once I got there, I was not able to successfully click OK or Cancel. Also, the Style Name of the Text Style is correct, but in the Text Styles dialog box, this new Text Style format still shows a box (not the work Box, but a rectangular box)

I have created a new document and I'm in the process of setting up the Master pages for the document. I added a text frame under the main body text frame to hold the footer information. A new text style is created named Box. When I go into edit the text styles for that Text Style, I'm unable to click OK to save the changes, or Cancel to leave the box. Nothing happens. I was editing the tab stop properties when I tried to click OK to save my changes. Also note that the + symbol under the box where the tab settings are stored looks odd.

It's been on that list since 2014. I would think that it could have been added by now.

Great Review and spot on!

YIKES! Altering Master pages from changes on the Body pages is no bueno.

@carl123, please don't take my comment as being unhappy with the version we are evaluating. I'm actually very impressed with where they are and I agree that basing this release off of the 1.7 platform was good. I've worked in software development for over 30 years and I understand the evolution that happens with an application from it's earlier releases through it's maturity. I really like the way that they are approaching this market and I hope that they can make another product that can provide a robust set of features at a very affordable price, and one that makes them a profit to continue making those products. Along those 30 years, I've spent time working in Product Management, Quality Testing, Customer support, and Documentation and Training, with the largest part in the Technical Documentation area. I wrote and have managed teams of writers who used FrameMaker, and sometimes Word, to write that documentation. I've lived using a tool like Publisher day-in and day-out to turn out thousands of pages of documentation and I see this application being able to grow into a tool that can be part of that market. What Technical Documentation Manager wouldn't seriously consider moving to a tool that comes in at the price point Affinity has (assuming that Publisher is comparable to Photo and Designer) and provides the features that get the job done. I started my comment off, saying that I may need to adjust my expectations and that this application is intended to solve a different set of problems from what I wanted it to solve. The Affinity/Serif team have provided two great products that I use almost every day which provides enough functionality to allow me to leave Adobe and become dedicated to Photo and Designer. I'm hoping they do that again with Publisher. My feedback was intended for Product Management to point out how important it is to control the layout of the document you are creating. It all starts with the layout. In another topic on this forum, I asked the Affinity team to post a list of the features that are still being worked on, or that are planned for the gold master release so that we could see what is coming. Being able to see that list would help those of us reviewing the Beta from repeatedly commenting on stuff we don't see but may be coming. I've never felt that the Affinity team were arrogant, at least based on my interaction on this forum. TL;DR Affinity Publisher (1.7 Beta) Really solid Desktop Publishing product for a first release of a product - could be a disruptive market changer like Photo and Designer How can my real world experience help make it better? Where can I buy it?

Nope, Quark is still being developed and sold.

That was one issue that I was working on myself. I would think that for a document, you would create the master pages, lay out the text flow, then apply the master page to the body pages, and they would inherit the text flow. Maybe my expectation for AF Publisher is wrong, but if yo have to draw the text flows on the body pages and link them there it will be a real challenge to pick up another writer's document to enhance and maintain. My office mate and I each had a set of docs we were responsible for, about 7,000 pages total. We had defined a set of master pages, with text flows, and used them as a template for every new chapter that we added to the doc set. There were about 10 or so master pages in each template based on the needs across the doc set: First page, Left Page, Right Page, Landscape Page Left, Landscape Page Right, Index, TOC, Chapter TOC, List of Figures, List of Tables, Copyright page that also contained legal verbiage about the warranty of the doc. We were based in the US, but we had customers in countries that use an A4 format, so we had a set of template Masterpages to reflow the document to A4 specs. We also integrated the training materials into the user docs, so we also had master pages for when we generated the training guides and instructor guides. Everything was controlled through the master pages. The Paragraph and Character styles were also set up based on the design of the master pages for indents and spacing on the text flows on the page. The document setup also controlled how the initial page started (always on a right page), and so if text ended on a right page, the software would automatically add a blank left page so that the next chapter would start on the right side of the book. I had a hard enough time getting my writers to not create their own tweaks to the paragraph styles, let alone having to make sure that they laid out the text frame that as exactly correct on each type of page. But maybe my expectation for the use of this product is incorrect and the target market is for small brochures or marketing documents and not a technical documentation like the stuff I had to create and maintain.

@Dave Harris are you saying the to be able to include the chapter number in the Figure number would be managed through a cross reference? Table 8-1 is the first table in Chapter 8? Using some from of cross reference makes sense to carry the chapter number through the book.

Check the Paragraph tab for the Flow Options. The bottom checkbox is used to control widow and orphan lines. You can set the number of lines to protect. The app should automatically insert the page break.

Thanks for the additional info. That makes a lot of sense

Is there a list of the features that didn't make the Public Beta but are intended to be added through the beta period and potentially before the first gold master release candidate? Obviously, not all of those items may/will make it into the Gold Master, but it might cut down on the request list in the Forum if we could see what's being worked on that is being considered for the final release candidate.

Agreed, +1

+1 for a visual indicator for Text Frame overflow.