[Cross reference support]

On 7/25/2020 at 7:53 AM, The Wook said:

From my (generally similar, although I don't produce e-books) perspective, you may be in a bit of a tough spot with regards to suitable software.

FrameMaker is very capable and long-proven in publishing long and complex technical documents. It has a long pedigree in this field. Its book capability, handling of large files with many images/illustrations/cross references, and the breadth of its features and capability make it the gold standard (in my mind, at least) for this type of work. For the past close to 20 years I've been using it for a suite of long technical documents of a similar length to yours, along with a separate program and data file reference that runs close to 500 pages. To my experience, all of the things that seem to be missing from what might otherwise be it's competition, it has. And more.

But it comes at a cost, literally and figuratively. It's part of Adobe's Technical Communication Suite that runs $600 a year. Also while the program has greatly improved over the time of my use of it, it can also be pretty frustrating to use. Compared to InDesign and the feature set it brings to the table, there are times where FM is just not very intuitive. It can also feel "clunky". I've always found I need a web browser open right next to FM whenever I use it as invariably there's something that I've forgotten how to do. In some cases, it seemingly takes forever to get some small thing to work...but that may just be me.

Out of the cost and my seemingly constant frustration with FM I've only recently considered attempting to convert one of my manuals over to InDesign. I'm not sure how well its own book features and cross inter-chapter referencing works with long docs. While considering this, I was pretty happy then to recently test Publisher as a possible alternative even to InDesign and thereby allow me to cut that Adobe CC cord....until finding out that even simple cross-referencing isn't available (yet?).

If you can accept its cost, test FrameMaker. You may find you take to it easily and that it does all that you want.

Thank you for the time you took. I have now installed a trial version of Framemaker and one of QuarkXpress. Framemaker really seems a little too expensive for my small one-man business. I also have the impression that the new 2020 version of Xpress covers most of the features I am looking for. A reference to its page number can be defined for a defined anchor. Long, complex documents are obviously not a problem. It also looks like Quark has lowered prices drastically. I remember prices over $ 1000 when I got interested years ago. The new version is currently available for USD 395.–. Maybe we have to thank Affinity for its aggressive pricing policy.

[Cross reference support]

I would like to inform you that these features missing in Affinity Publisher are a big problem for me. I started editing 18 printed books in which the cross-reference function would be of great help. There are up to 100 such references per book. Some of them are references that refer to previous volumes. So there is an example of the sentence in Vol 7 "... as I mentioned in Vol 2, Lesson 5.2, page 42, ..." This example therefore requires a reference between two different afpub files. In my opinion, this should be possible. Such a reference has been possible for years in Excel, for example. These 18 books are also published as e-books. At the moment I am still creating all e-books "by hand". That means I create xhtml, opf and ncx files manually in a text editor. Also with an index (of about 10 pages in the printed version).

Example of this printed version (created on Affinity Publisher): https://www.amazon.fr/Cerveau-son-fonctionnement-Psychosyntérèse-U-M/dp/1695360907/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_fr_FR=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&dchild=1&keywords=Le+Cerveau+et+son+fonctionnement+I&qid=1595160754&quartzVehicle=77-946&replacementKeywords=le+cerveau+et+son+fonctionnement&sr=8-1

I also have the general impression that the current version of Affinity Publisher is not suitable for long technical documents. Of the 18 books mentioned above, which represent a course in psychology and neurology, each volume has about 120 pages. If someone wants to write a technical book with several hundred pages, which contains a lot of diagrams and figures, as well as a detailed index, I have the impression that AP is too slow.

I understand that you don't want to talk publicly about your plans. But I can't wait very long because I have to edit the books mentioned. What do you think I should do? Test Adobe FramMaker?

[Problems with charset]

OK, that works. Thank your for your help !

[Problems with charset]

My system is Windows 10 64bit
Processor Intel Core i7 3930K CPU
The only font I have installed in addition to the existing fonts is Lato.
Before installing .221, I never had this problem.

[Problems with charset]

[Problems with charset]

Since 1.7.0.221 I have problems with charset (description below). My keyboard layout is Swiss French.

[Affinity Publisher Public Beta - 1.7.0.221]

Since 1.7.0.221 I have problems with charset. My keyboard layout is Swiss French. Please see in the attached file.

AP-problem-charset.pdf

[Accute E (É) in and "exotic" Keyboard like Swiss-french]

On my keyboard with layout Swiss French, when I tap
"AltGr" + "´" followed by "E", the result is :

´´E

But the resulting character should be :

É

The correct result is only possible with "alt" +
(numeric keyboard) "0201".

[Replace with nothing possible ??]

I try to replace in a large amount of text some fake signs due to an error in OCR.

Find ¬ and replace with nothing in AP is obviously not possible. (In PPX9 it is possible to do this way).

Please se enclosed file.

Error report find and replace.pdf

[Book publishing]

3 hours ago, αℓƒяє∂ said:

When @Wosven wrote “we use a no breaking small space between number, not a quote”, she meant “we French speakers”.

Merci pour l'info !

[Book publishing]

10 hours ago, Wosven said:

You can do this using "Next style" in the styles and "Apply xxx and Next Style" (but I don't understant yet why it's sometime unavalaible, if it's because the applied style of the selection is the same, it should be available too), and "Decorations".

test_alternance.afpub

 

NB. I don't understand why you wrote 293'130 mots (we use a no breaking small space between number, not a quote), and for the back cover, it's better to keep articles with their name "la pathologie", "la gynécologie", "de la médecine", etc. Oups ! I shouldn't work here…

Thank you for your highly appreciated answer. Your file is a great help for me!

Concerning your remark "space between number’. Thank you for your remark. In French and German the usage is quote ( ' ). This lead me to some confusions I have to correct, thank you !

http://www.dicoklein.ch

[Book publishing]

I guess I am on the same bandwagon. I published via amazon the following dictionaries: https://www.amazon.com/Dicoklein-lexique-medical-Vol-1-DICOKLEIN/dp/1539985415/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1535978840&sr=8-7&keywords=dicoklein

Please click on ‘Look inside’ and go to page 7 to have look what I mean. Total number of pages is around 600 per volume. All the titles and text around the content is made in Serif PP. The content itself (translations, lines that are alternately gray/white is importede to PP from PDF-files. I think actually with APublisher this is not possible to produce).

[Antidote Integration]

I totally agree with this. I work daily with Antidote.

[capital e-acute on a swiss-french keyboard]

taping "AltGr" + ´ should result in É.

This is still not possible on Affinity Designer. Instead I must use decimal code: alt + 0201.

Thank you
Thomas

 

keyboard-problem with É.pdf

[Writing "É" with swiss-keyboard]

I have Windows 10pro, french version. The keyboard-layout is swiss-french.

 

When writing "´" + E ("Acute accent" + capital "E") the result should be: É

 

In Affinity, the result looks like this: ´´E

 

Possible to change?

Thank you Thomas