nwhit

Yay! Looks like this got fixed in the final release! Never could copy/paste text from ID. It would bring everything into APub as single line text frames. That said, in at least one beta I thought I remember it working, but after reading your post, I see it apparently is working correctly for the most part! So pretty much a workable solution! That really resolves a huge problem for migration. In longer, more complex ID docs, opening a pdf version of the ID file meant a LOT of work to restore text flow, etc. This looks great! Glad I read this post!

Thanks! These will really allow some nice automation of common tasks!

If I set up a text frame with the correct indents, background fill color, etc., can I select it and somehow create a reusable Paragraph/Decoration? I'm not seeing anything for that similar to the usual Create a Paragraph style.

...using the Recipes. After clicking on the Accept (regarding getting rid of previous filters), always crashes. Metal on.

Just used this to fix a tech sheet where I needed a 35% opacity white fill for the text frame that overlays a background image. Eazzy-Peezy now that I know how to do it!

Also just added note to above instructions that you can't use the top Contextual tool bar Fill button. MUST use the main Swatches/Color panel in order to have access to modifiers.

This is what you see when you have Solid selected in the top Contextual Tool Bar with the Fill tool selected. Can select the color from any interface desired (within the main Swatches/Color panes, but not the Frames Fill or top contextual Fill icon), but change the Opacity in the Swatches pane of the main color pane, not the Text Frame fill.

Another view when you have one end of the gradient selected with the Fill tool.

Once you create or select a Text or Table Frame, click on the Fill tool in the left side Tool Palette. Check the top Contextual Tool Bar to be sure it is set to either Text or Frame, then you can pick your Fill type and use the normal Color or Swatches panel to select colors, opacity, etc. DO NOT USE the Fill button within the Text Frame panel or within the top contextual tool bar!

Aha! Solved! Or sort of! Playing around with the Fill tool (left tool palette), I can see that the Text Frame and Table Frame fill can be adjusted and in many ways! 1) Create a Text Frame or Table. 2) With the Frame still selected, select the Fill tool in the left tool palette, making sure on the top Contextual toolbar that Frame is selected and not Text. This activates the color within the main Swatches/Color panel (not the Text Frame or Table Frame panes) where you can select the color or swatch, then change Opacity, Tint, etc. Can at that point even set it to a gradient via the top Contextual Tool Bar (active when the Fill tool is selected), then change directions of the gradient, add points, etc. plus opacity settings. NOTE: Also just discovered that you can't pick or change the Fill color within the top contextual tool bar with the Fill tool selected. You MUST use the main Swatches/Color panel to select and modify the color (gradient, opacity, tint, etc.). A bit different than what you'd think (instead of using the Frame panel Fill) to get it done but workable. And in reading old threads on gradients, Affinity prefers the more robust controls offered with the use of the Fill tool (APub, ADes) and Gradient tool (APh) as opposed to performing some of these things in the main color/Frame panes. No problem! At least figured a way to do this routinely and with little pain. RECOMMENDATION: I would recommend that the methods to change Text Frame and Table Frame fills were better covered in a Text and Tables tutorial since it is a little obtuse/non-intuitive on how to get there. I think I have watched those videos and can't remember this method being shown, although I may be wrong. Works great once you figure it out but a bit tough to get there when you assume you should be able to change these things within the Text and Table Frame panes' Fill settings.

In original pre-electronic graphic arts, the English term was called "screening" to accomplish an opacity, or in some cases a tint, since it involved the use of actual screens. The common use of screened/variable opacity backgrounds for text blocks and tables generally involves matching the client's branding package, so has traditionally been done on the fly based on needs of whatever publication/advert/etc. being produced. In the initial days of DTP, we would use a separate graphic element with the correct tint/screen/opacity, arrange it under the text block or table, then often group them so they moved together. With Publisher having a separate Text Frame and Table Frame color capability, including opacity, it saves a lot of time. However, based on the particular publication, the amount of opacity being used for the elements' backgrounds in that document can vary significantly based on a number of factors. Not really practical to have pre-done "styles" since they vary so much from client to client and project to project. That said, the amount of opacity for all the elements within a specific publication most often have to be the exact same percentage of opacity on the various backgrounds in order to match (continuity), but that amount varies considerably from publication to publication. On occasion it can even vary depending on the page it's on or the content under the screened background. Hope that makes sense.

Still has a monotone/greyscale interface, but as in the final beta before the retail 1.7.1, at least can open and apply any presets a person may have already created in PS. Thanks! Now if we could just get the EC interface to render properly!

The bug back in the 1.7.1 beta where the clone tool had a real hesitancy when first starting a drag seems to be gone in the newest beta. Tried it on a 24mp jpg and it seems to be back where it was in 1.6.7. Thanks!

Tried with Metal Compute on and it wasn't any faster as far as I could tell (long enough that I need to leave it alone for quite some time, so don't know exactly when it ends processing at each stage, and that's true for both Metal on and off). I have to say that the second stitch using the same pics was not as good as the first one with a good amount of misalignments, similar to what I was getting with 1.6.7 and 1.7.1, so perhaps the accuracy part on the first one with the new beta was just a random chance thing. I am not aware that Metal would affect the accuracy of the stitching but don't know that.

Interestingly, when I open the APh file in ADes, the page size is correct and right in Doc setup. When I open a TIFF from the APh file in ADes, again the dimensions are correct. It's just when placing it into APub that it has the strange dimensions.

For a lot of our work, need to have (and routinely use) "screened" fills for text frames and tables. I just tried using a gradient fill with both ends the same color/opacity, and while it can work, it is very clumsy. Hopefully they can fix this in 1.7.2. But do appreciate the workaround for right now since we do have work to produce. And I am starting to prefer APub over ID.

...but it is interesting that when placing the APh file into APub, the "frame" shows the graphic items at the top of a too large frame (see top screenshot). But these art elements/items within the original PDF were all at the bottom of that page. So it not only kept a ghost page size, it moved everything to the top of that ghost page.

Agreed! Not sure if it is an APh issue or an APub issue/bug, but figured it had to be reported someplace. It is strange how when the APh file is opened, everything shows it as having the right dimensions. Until it is placed into APub.

Had two processed pano's open and tried to quit the beta, but APh froze and wouldn't quit. Both open files seemed to close and I was left with the blank APh screen. The files were 878 and 686 MB each, so large files. Had Metal on.

Correction: I think it may have been from an A4 multi-page publication pdf, opened in APh (opening a single page), grabbed the artwork items, then put into a new APh file to create the block as an APh art element file. The items copied and pasted into the new APh file were not A4 but were as shown when opening the APh file. However, when placed into APub, the file retains a much larger bounding box. The APh file opens and shows within APh as the correct size, but changes when placed into APub. When the APh file is opened with APh, the document and canvas sizes are correct, but not when placed within APub.

Loaded the new beta yesterday and read something about improvements to the pano. So I loaded a project I'm working on, 302 - 6 MB pics of a drone mapping. I have to say that it executed much faster than 1.6.7 or 1.7.1, plus it was more accurate in the stitching. Open GL and Metal Compute off. I think I'll give it a try to see if Metal is working better in this beta.

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I guess I never tested that in the betas, but now that we're using it in production, how in the world do we set consistent opacity on color fills for tables and text frames? I have yet to find any alternative where we can enter the opacity % in order to get exact opacity settings for these elements within a pub. That seems to be a very fundamental need.

Had a linked ADesigner file in a pub. I had previously used the Designer Persona to make a few changes but today discovered that those changes were not made to the original Designer file (also read that in another post here). I thus opened the original Designer file, made the mods by opening the Publisher Edit window/tab for the graphic, then copy/pasting the artwork back into Designer. Then Saved as the original Designer file name. When I went back into publisher, the Resource Manager showed the linked file had been modifies, so I clicked the Update button. Got nothing but a spinning ball. Could not quit nor get out of Publisher, so ended up having to restart the iMac. After restart, I tried again but it once again stalled out. This time I was able to very quickly use the Dock to Force Quit Publisher before it froze the iMac. To resolve the issue, I had to delete the linked graphic from the pub, then Place the file again. Seems to be okay now, but should not do what it did. Also hoping you can get the auto-update to the original file fixed when using the Photo and Designer Personas. Until that's fixed, can't really use the Personas since it isn't updating the linked files.

Works correctly for me on High Sierra. Both the Open With and QuickLook.