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Wilx

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Everything posted by Wilx

  1. Just a quick update, as I little available time at the moment. The latest beta version of Publisher has resolved most issues with the table of contents. I’m seeing odd behavior when changing the formatting of ToC entries, and I’m seeing odd behavior when adding a second ToC in the same section (first ToC is sections, second ToC is tables). Unfortunately, when I attempt to add a new index, the program hangs (previously it would crash). Maybe this is an improvement? I will make videos of these failures hopefully by early next week. Mark
  2. @MikeTO, @walt.farrell, @Pauls, @natecombsmedia I've just finished testing Affinity Publisher 2 Beta (v2.1.0.1706), and I was unable to get the book Table of Contents. After the Table of Contents failed, I did not continue in my plan to test a book Index. Here's what I did: I went through every chapter file (16 total) and deleted all Index Topics and all Index Marks. This had the added effect of breaking the chapter file's link to the book file (which I what I wanted). I also discovered that through synchronizing, multiple copies of my master page templates existed in each chapter file (as many as 5 copies in one chapter). I deleted all the extra copies of the master pages, so that only one copy of each master page existed. I then deleted the book file. I then created a new book file and added all 16 chapter to it. With this new book file, I was able to export a PDF copy of the book (with no Table of Contents nor Index). Next, In the first chapter file, I went to my Table of Contents section. I created a new Table of Contents. This worked well, and the only ToC entry in that chapter file appeared. Unfortunately, when I switched from a "Document" ToC to a "Book" ToC, the program crashed. I tested the same process 5 times with the same results happening each time. I captured this on video, which I've attached. Mark Affinity2BetaCrash-1.mov
  3. @walt.farrell, @MikeTO, @Pauls, @natecombsmedia: I'm not sure who is in which time zone on the good Earth, so I'll provide an incremental report now. I really appreciate your efforts to help, but progress is very slow and is presently uncertain. I ran the same operations on Affinity Publisher 2 Beta v2.1.0.1706 as I did on Affinity Publisher 2 v2.0.4. The behavior was the same. Specifically, in the Beta, I tried opening my book. Any time I performed any operations to build the index or export the file to PDF, the program would have a hard crash. I tried creating a new book file, and adding my chapters to it. I could add the first chapter, but the program would crash when I added the second chapter. The first chapter (which is just the title page and foreword) does not have any index markers in it. It only had index topics, which I think it inherited from the book file. The second chapter has both the index topics as well as index markers. This made me think the problem was related to the index markers but not to index topics. I deleted all the index markers (none in the first chapter, a couple dozen in the second). The behavior was the same, and Publisher crashed. I then deleted all the index markers from both chapters (again, these seemed to be inherited from the book file). When I deleted them from each chapter file, I received a warning message that doing so would break the association with the book file. I was pleased that I could break this association and did so. After deleting the index topics and the index markers from the first two chapter files, I was able to build a new book file. It did not crash. That was progress. Tomorrow, I'll go through all my chapter files, delete all the index topics and the index markers (which will break the association to the old book file). I'll then try building a new book, without any indices. From there I'll try building the ToC and will then trying build a very, very small index. I'll update next I work on this. Mark
  4. For those following this thread, you can join the Affinity Beta Software Program that @walt.farrellmentions by going to this link: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/affinity-beta-program/ I'm going to try out Affinity Publisher 2.1.0 for macOS and will report back here on how it goes -- probably by Saturday evening (U.S. Mountain time). Mark
  5. @MikeTO I'd love to give the beta a try. Almost anything is less painful than going back to InDesign Where can I download the beta? I've searched the Affinity website. The only downloads I can find are for my licenses and for released production copies of the suite. Thanks for the heads-up on this. Mark
  6. @natecombsmediaI appreciate your input on this thread. I'm seeing repeated crashes and hangs to the point where I can no longer work on my document. I can say for certain the instability is directly related to book creation and my sense is that it is tied to Table of Contents and Index creation, as there is a strong correlation between these features and the program crashes and hangs. @Pauls never responded to my message. I must assume that Affinity cannot protect my company's intellectual property so I will not be sending them my data files. It has been a long time since I posted on this thread, as I was hoping the next update would fix this bug. I updated to Affinity Publisher 2 version 2.0.4. According to the updater, this is the most recent version as of today. This did nothing to fix the instability. I'm seeing fewer hangs, but crashes are frequent and dramatic. The program is stable when working with individual chapter files, but nothing about book files is stable. Affinity Publisher 2 has brought our production to a complete standstill. All 16 chapter files are laid out, proofed, and have passed our quality checks -- except for the Table of Contents and the Index. I'm going to give Serif another week to directly address this issue or we'll be moving back to Adobe InDesign (as much as it pains me), and I will make this reversion back to InDesign as public as I possibly can. Affinity Publisher 2 is the most unstable commercial software I've encountered since the early 1990s. I'll continue to recommend Photo 2 and Designer 2 as solid alternatives to Photoshop and Illustrator, but Publisher 2 is rubbish. Mark
  7. I'd be glad to help out. However, these are not test files. These files are a business product that includes my company's intellectual property as well as intellectual properties that we've licensed. I need your assurance that: my data will be protected; that my data will only be used by Affinity for the sole purpose of improving your product, and that these files will be deleted from your servers after you're done using them (or 3 months, whichever is shorter); that my data will only be used by Affinity direct employees located in the UK or the USA; that my data will not be transmitted to contractors or other personnel in any other legal jurisdiction. China, India, and Ukraine, for example, are countries that often contract programming services, yet these countries do not provide adequate protection of intellectual property (see https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2019_Special_301_Report.pdf). As soon as I've received these assurances, I'll package up my data and get it sent to you. Thanks, Mark
  8. I upgraded to Affinity Publisher 2.0.3 (thanks for making me aware of that, @Pauls). I've run several tests. I do not see a noticeable improvement in the stability. The index functionality remains unusable. Here are some screen captures. Affinity-IndexCrash-1 -- I open the book-file, update the numbering in the chapter-files, open the chapter-file where the index will be saved, then attempt to create the index. The program crashes. Affinity-IndexCrash-2 -- I open the book-file, update the numbering in the chapter-files, then open the chapter-file where the Table of Contents is saved. The program crashes. Affinity-IndexCrash-3 -- I open the book-file, I do not update the numbering in the chapter-files, then open the chapter-file where the Table of Contents is saved. The file opens on a master page. I change to the first page in the document. After that, I'm unable to change to a different spread (specifically the one with the Table of Contents). I then attempt to close the chapter-file, and the program hangs. Affinity-IndexCrash-4 -- I open the book-file, I update the numbering in the chapter-files, then open the chapter-file where the Table of Contents is saved. I change to a different spread. The program crashes. Affinity-IndexCrash-5 -- I do not open the book-file. I open the chapter-file where the Table of Contents is saved. I delete the Table of Contents, then save, and close the chapter-file. I then open the book-file. I do not update the numbering in the chapter-files. I open the chapter-file where the Table of Contents is saved. I insert a new Table of Contents. No entries appear. I then update the numbering in the chapter-files. I then return the Table of Contents. When I click the button to update the Table of Contents, the program crashes. I'm trying to find a work-around to get the Table of Contents and Index inserted into my publication. I've not yet found a method that works. Indeed, I seem to be moving backward. Under v2.0.0, I was able to get the ToC working, but not the index. Now I don't appear to be able to do either. It's late. I'll work on it more tomorrow. I hope the videos I've supplied will help you find and smash these bugs. Thanks, Mark Affinity-IndexCrash-1.mov Affinity-IndexCrash-2.mov Affinity-IndexCrash-3.mov Affinity-IndexCrash-4.mov Affinity-IndexCrash-5.mov
  9. I missed the updates. I'll do the update and report back.
  10. Greetings: First as a disclaimer, let me state that I am very supportive of your business. I've been buying your products (even some I've not needed) to support your competition with Adobe. I want to see you succeed. With that said, Publisher 2's functionality surrounding Books (I feature I requested and was very excited to see) was not ready to be released. It is the most unstable software I've used since Windows 3.1. I've chased down some bugs and hope this will help you fix your product. My Hardware & Project: Affinity Publisher v2.0.0; macOS Ventura 13.1; Mac mini M1, 2000. I am working with a Publisher book that has 16 chapter-files. The book is just under 100 pages in trade (6" x9") format and is rich in illustrations and tables. It includes a Table of Contents and will contain an Index when that functionality becomes workable. Terminology: "Crash" means that a program unexpectedly closes. "Hang" means that a program becomes unresponsive, cannot self-terminate, and must be terminated by the operating system (i.e. "Force Quit"). By profession, I am a software engineer. I'm attaching several videos that were recorded in chronological order. This behavior is repeatable. Affinity-01 -- I open the book-file. I open the chapter-file that contains the Table of Contents. I close the chapter file that contains the Table of Contents. The program hangs. Affinity-02 -- I open the book-file. I update the numbering in all chapter-files of the book. I open the chapter-file that contains the Table of Contents. The program crashes. Affinity-03 -- I do not open the book-file. I open the chapter-file that contains the Table of Contents. The program crashes. Affinity-04 -- I open the book-file. I open the chapter-file that contains the Table of Contents. This demonstrates that the file can be opened from within the book (but not from without the book) without it crashing. I then update the Table of Contents. I'm then able to save and close the chapter-file without the program hanging. Summary: I believe instability in the Book features of Publisher 2 are strongly related to the handling of the Table of Contents. When I work on chapter-files with the book-file closed, I do not experience these problems. With the book-file open, I experience frequent problems with the chapter-files. Additional Observations: II'm transitioning this product from InDesign with new files. While I'm copying elements from IDML files, the work started with a new Affinity Pub 2 template. I got as far as brining in all the material, formatting it, and building the table of contents. I am unable to build the Index. After creating the index markers of three of the chapter-files, I attempted to create the index. Not only did this result in crashes as I attempted to build the index multiple times, but the index markers from those three saved chapter-files have been removed. I'm concerned that the file structure's integrity may have been damaged as Publisher tried to build the index. As you work this problem, I'd appreciate being kept updated. Again, I wish your company continued success. Best Regards, Mark Affinity-01.mov Affinity-02.mov Affinity-03.mov Screen Recording 2022-12-20 at 09.39.44.mov
  11. Thanks @MikeTO. I was hoping I could make the row heights static in the template. I guess that's not to be. I followed your suggestion. I create the table (from the template), enter my data, then manually set the heights of the rows. It's a workable solution for now. Best, Mark
  12. Greetings: I'm running Affinity Publisher 2.0.0 under macOS 12.6.1 on a Mac mini with an Apple M1 chip. I've searched the forum for this topic and was unable to find it. I've reviewed "creating custom tables" in the online manual (https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Panels/tableFormatsPanel.html?title=Table Formats panel) and was unable to find an answer to this question. How do I configure a table format in the "Edit Table Format" dialogue, so that table rows have a fixed height? Here's a screen shot of the problem (ignore the blue frame border on the left table). As you'll note, these two tables have the same number of rows and columns, but the rows have differing heights. I'll have many tables in my publication and I want them to have a uniform appearance. Varying row heights will create a non-uniform appearance. Here's a screen shot of my Edit Table Format dialogue for these two tables. If it is possible to fix the row height, I assume it must be done under the "Vertical Position" section of the above dialogue. Under Vertical Position, there are three variables: Alignment, Initial advance, and Minimum. Only Alignment is documented in the online manual (referenced above), and its purpose is self-evident. "Initial advance" has the following options in the pull-down: Default, Leading, Pointsize, Ascent, Cap Height, X Height, and Fixed. Is this, maybe, the white space between the top of the cell and the top of the text in the cell? You'll also note the tooltip, when hovering over "Minimum" says "Max Paragraph Space." So is this the minimum height of the cell, the maximum height of the cell, or something else? I assume that if it is possible to fix the row height in a table format, then it must be done by manipulating these three variables. Any guidance from the community would be appreciated. Thank you in advance. Best, Mark
  13. I agree with @MikeSB. I'm very pleased with Affinity's V2 apps. They are very well done. I'm particularly pleased the ability to build documents (books) from several file (chapters) was added. This will allow me to migrate all my projects from InDesign to Publisher. However, adding a section name as well as a section prefix is very important in large reference books, which is what I have. I'm attaching a spread from a draft of one of our books. As you can see, on the bottom margin, we include the section name (Aptitudes), and we use a section prefix (1.6.) before the page number. Each section begins on page 1. I would appreciate the addition of a section number prefix, as @MikeSB requests. Thanks, Mark
  14. Looks like it. I was hoping Affinity would at least acknowledge the need and add it to their wish list of future features. I’m disappointed that they’ve been silent on this.
  15. I have a book that is currently in rough draft. It is currently in InDesign (the old creative suite), and I would like to migrate it to Affinity Publisher. It's presently a hobby, but I'd like to turn into a small business when I retire in several years. I've purchased Publisher, and really like it so far. Udemy.com has a good course that teaches the Affinity suite. My book is about 650 pages, has about 300 illustrations (some vector and some raster), and about 150 tables. In InDesign, it is broken up into about 20 chapters, which are separate files. These separate files make it easier to manage illustration links, the sections of text, and the index that spans the whole book. Plus, I can imagine that trying to edit a single file that big would bring any program to its knees -- whether it is an Adobe or Affinity product! I work in a team, but the text and artwork are all done separately before they get to page layout. Separate files for working as a team isn't a major interest for me, but I expect it is for others. For these reasons, I add my voice to the above and request that Affinity add to Publisher the ability to create a book from multiple chapter files -- including managing a Table of Contents and an Index across the individual chapter files. Affinity makes great products, and I appreciate all the work you're doing to make a better product at a great price! Best Regards, Mark
  16. I'm really enjoying Publisher Beta so far. I was very pleased to see detailed table layout tools. I would really like tables inside text frames also. I observe also that it currently seems graphics cannot be placed in text frames either. I suspect that the ability to put tables and graphics into text frames as in-line with text will be a forthcoming feature. Serif ... would appreciate you commenting on this. Thanks, Mark
  17. MEB: I appreciate the information about Linked files. I recently purchased Designer to evaluate it. This is a very important feature for me, and I'm glad to hear it will be included in Publisher (which I eagerly await) and in Designer. Regards, Wilx
  18. Thanks everybody for letting Serif know we need this feature. I'm trying to solve a problem with my layout and it sure would be nice to see the hard returns and soft returns. I'd really like to have the ability to view the non-printing characters that others have mentioned. Mark
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