kat

If you want more flexibility you could use an index instead of a TOC, but you can only have one index per document.

Changing the layer order is the solution but you can avoid this by not putting your chapter titles in separate text frames. If the only difference in the first page of a chapter is the title, there's no need for a separate master. Just use the normal full size text frame and format the chapter title using space above and below to position it within the frame. Then you'll never need to worry about the layer order.

To completely detach elements from a master page do the following:
From the Layers panel, select the master page entry (e.g., 'Master A - Right') and choose an Edit option from the context toolbar (or right-click the master page's layer entry for equivalent options).

 OR 
  Click Detached— that lets you transform the frame and change its properties independently of the master page's frame. Changes affect only that page/spread.


  Drag out the desired master page items outside the 'Master A - Right' layer.


  Click Finish on the turquoise information bar to commit your edit.



Done. Now the  items you're pulled out of the 'Master A - Right' are no longer connected to the master page.
Their location and appearance have been preserved.
Now you can edit them in any way you like, just like any other usual elements on the page/spread.



   
 
 
 

GREP can be used only with find and replace, Publisher doesn't offer GREP styles.
I don't think you can preface page numbers with "Page" in the TOC. You'd probably only want to do that for a very short TOC or else it would look cluttered and in that case it would be easiest to just do it manually rather than try an awkward workaround. There's always a way to make it do something, and I could envision a solution with two TOCs, one with the page number to the left of the TOC entry and prefaced with a paragraph bullet set to Page somehow, but I didn't give it a try since this seems awkward.

@walt.farrell I believe we're saying the same thing. I was referring to renaming the TOC Style by clicking the More icon to the right of it in the TOC panel, not to renaming a TOC text style in the Text Styles panel.

Does that really work?
I would expect that you would need to change the TOC Style name in the TOC panel, and then let Publisher generatet its text style names based on that. That is, type in a new name here:

If you were to type, say MyToc there then the text style names used for that TOC would by MyToc: Header 1, for example.

Yes, you can rename a TOC style from TOC 1 to whatever you like. Click the more icon to the right of the TOC Style list in the panel and choose Rename from the menu. Most people only have a single TOC so they don't care that their TOC text styles are named TOC 1: Heading 1 (or whatever). I have two levels of TOCs in the manual I wrote, and just use TOC 1 for the main TOC at the start of the manual and TOC 2 for all of the chapter-level TOCs. I could rename them but don't need to.
Anchors - there's a chapter on anchors. They're similar to ID but a bit different. You can insert an anchor in text or to an object. Note that the TOC generates automatic anchors at the start of each heading. If you keep editing your headings used in the TOC you may have multiple anchors due to a bug that is scheduled for fixing in 2.5.
Cheers

Hi Kat, I provided steps on how to generate and format TOCs in the free manual I've shared in this forum, including how to set periods (a dot leader) between the entries and page numbers. The link is in my signature below.
Cheers

To complement Mike’s manual, YouTube is a good resource. I haven’t watched the following videos, but I watched content on both channels when I started using the Affinity apps and both have good content.
YouTube search: Affinity publisher table of contents
 
 

Hi @designably yours 
I used Text > Show Special Characters to identify that there are 2 'tabs' in this line, unlike the other lines of your TOC. Deleting one of these tabs returns the TOC line to the expected view:

You can achieve this using the Paragraph Studio, simply select the 2 lines you wish to alter, then increase the Left Indent value until you're happy with the results:

I hope this helps!

It depends… 😄
Essentially, a group style helps when you want that a bunch of related styles (all based on a common parent) can be grouped in the style panels when using hierarchical presentation of styles.
Its main advantage is that any formatting applied to the group style is propagated in all the styles based on it, excepted for overridden formatting in each style. 
   (To have an example, you can look how the paragraph style Body and the group style Base interact in Affinity's default style sheet.)
For your imported styles, you select the most representative style, you duplicate it, modify its type to Group style. Then you base all your imported styles on it. 
If you prefer an alphabetical presentation, you'd be better to rename and prefix the imported styles. 

A group style is a Style, first and foremost. If other styles are based on the group then changes to the group's font, size, colour, etc will cascade down to the other styles.
A category is collection, for organizing purposes only. A category has no ability to change the font, size, colour etc.

A Group style is identical with a Paragraph style but just has a slightly different user interface:
• Clicking on a Group style does nothing whereas
• Clicking on a Paragraph style applies this style to a selected text or text frame.
In this aspect a Group style is less effective but more or less efficient, depending on the user's habits.
To apply a Group style you can use its burger menu:

Group + Paragraph + Character styles can get displayed collapsed | unfolded as soon they have styles that are "Based on" them. They list them as hierarchical child entries, regardless of par- or char-styles. Also each style type may 'contain' other Group, Paragraph or Character styles.
The ability to assign a paragraph style to characters only (~ as character style) + the ability to create a Group style based on a Character style increases the flexibility in potential effectiveness, efficiency, complexity and confusion.
Thus it is just up to the user to achieve the "best" setup:
• To reduce confusion it can be useful to avoid the "Based on" or "Next style" attributes but sort the style entries in the panel by their names only.
• To increase efficiency it is required to use the "Based on" or "Next style" attributes.
• While "Based on" is indicated in the panel interface as child entry, the "Next style" attribute doesn't have a visual indicator and thus it appears quite useful to mark a "Next" style by its style name (or number).
• If a Group or Paragraph style has 'nested' styles defined, for instance as "Drop Caps", "Initial Words" or "Bullets and Numbering" it can be useful to define those as "Based on" to achieve hierarchical presentation in the panel – but this also creates dependency between the parent & the character style which may disturb if these character styles are meant to get used for multiple parent styles, for instance if the character style causes a different colour only that will be used for various highlights across the document.
• Since a Group style is a paragraph style it doesn't have to get a further paragraph style nested and may contain character styles only or even no further style at all. You can switch a style between Char | Par | Group style type at any time with the according consequences to its possibly dependent style properties in other styles.

Yes, by editing the page detached. Choose Layer > Master Page > Edit Detached. if you have multiple masters applied to a page, you should instead right-click the master page name in the Layers panel and choose it from there so that you're editing the right master page. Click Finish when you're done editing the master page. Note that this only edits the copy of the master objects on this page, not on other pages.
Cheers

You could rename the text styles in one document or the other with a prefix before importing from the other document and then you'd see all of one document's styles together. For example, you could prefix them with I- (I for Imported).

I can only think of disadvantages! Why create something in AD and then import it into APub, when you can choose to ‘Edit in Designer’ or even simply switch to the Designer persona in APub, depending on the complexity of what you want to do? APub itself has tools for creating and manipulating curves and shapes, so that may be all you need.

First, AP is Photo (as you can see by hovering your mouse over that abbreviation). You will want to be using Publisher, which you might abbreviate  APu or APub. Or just say Publisher
When you first open the application, you probably see a screen like this (or you can get it by using File > New:

Click on Account. Or click on it on the upper right of the Toolbar (by default):
Or use Help > My Account.
Items you have purchased from the Affinity Store will be there. You can click on them to download.
Help: https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/GetStarted/registerAndSync.html
 

FYI the 2.5 beta isn't available yet.
What are your Performance settings? Go to Affinity Photo 2 > Settings, click Performance on the left. Turn off Enable Metal Compute Acceleration. Turning it off will slow the app a bit but will avoid some random crashes on Apple M1, M2, M3 chips.
Good luck

Updated for Publisher 2.4 (February 2024)
This free in-depth manual is filled with steps, tips, and recommendations for:
Documents, Pages, Master Pages, Sections, and Baseline Grid Character and Paragraph Formatting Text Styles (paragraph and character) Text Frames, Text Flow, and Stories Images and Picture Frames Books and Chapters Cross-References, Table of Contents, and Index Notes - including Footnotes, Sidenotes, and Endnotes Fields - including Page Numbering, Running Headers, and Custom Variables Anchors and Hyperlinks Printing and Exporting Settings This manual does not cover objects, drawing, photo editing, or the other artistic features.
Download:
Publisher Manual Feb 26 2024.pdf
Q&A
Is this really free? Yes, I'm making it available free of charge. It's copyrighted to prevent others from publishing it as their own. Is there a longer manual I can purchase? No, this is it. Is there an iPad version? No, the steps and screenshots are for the macOS and Windows versions. Is there a version for Designer or Photo? No, but many of the features are the same so you should still find it useful. Why does it use a print layout if it's a PDF? It's a demonstration of how to use the features it describes to create a print book. Previous version for 2.3:
Publisher Manual Nov 29 2023.pdf

So sorry I'm talking about Affinity Photo - Sonoma. Good catches

It's a Publisher template, not a Designer template.
How you open it depends on how you installed it. If you installed it with a manual download, then you could find the .aftemplate file via File > Open in Publisher, wherever you saved it, and Open it. Or, if you downloaded it via the Account function within one of the applications, it should be available automatically in the Affinity Store entry if you do File > New, then click on Templates.

In addition to opening IDML templates from InDesign, Publisher can also open PDF files. This means that most of the design elements can be derived by any PDF. Each of the elements can then be easily converted into text styles or graphic assets.
Paolo
 

I don’t know how I got it* but I have a template called “Gradient Magazine Template” in my “My Account” which looks like my attached image.
That can probably be used for a newsletter (maybe with some of the coloured blocks removed for home printing with less coloured ink usage).
* It might have been part of an add-in pack, or a special offer, or have come bundled with one of the versions of the software, I can’t remember which, but I can’t remember buying it either.

In a word, yes! IDML import was added in APub 1.8.

Cmd-click one of the points and drag. See the status bar for more modifier options.