thetasig

I created my document/book from scratch within AFPUB. I don't use Word (or Windows) and I'm not that familiar with HTML. I have Mac computers. For printing a paper book, the AFPUB exported PDF works fine. My foray into Calibre and Sigil territory met with mostly non-fixed pages and little of my original presentation seemed to be respected in the epub output. I am very novice at the whole topic just now. Many thanks for any help you could provide - steps to take from AFPUB to epub and tips-n-tricks and would be a big help. I suppose it would be useful to be pointed to a good primer aimed at artists, not programmers :oP I hope to be able to publish the epub version at the latest in 2023. I agree that it is a sorely needed feature of AFPUB and hoping for the best from Serif.

I found that using master "facing" pages with margins set verso and recto (wide gutter) that I can drag all objects on a page at once and they will automatically center on the margin when you get near - that's why you might see at least two green vertical lines of "centering" - one is the page center and the other is the margin center. Once you get used to that, it's fairly easy to center all the page objects on the margin width.

Thanks RC-R - Justified Center often leaves large spaces between words. For this particular document, I am using captions for photographs and using Centre Align. The captions are 'short and sweet' and rarely extend past a single paragraph. Because the document is dense with photos, the text captions need to be positioned close to the photo (sometimes underneath, sometimes above, or to the right or left). In each case, it is desirable to position the caption a (mostly) fixed distance from the photo frame. It is notable that the text itself (not the text frame) should be at that distance. This usually means "squeezing" the text box manually until some text row inside just touches the frame edges left and right. For some time, I was able to just double click one of the edge buttons and the frame adjusted itself exactly as I wished (no extra space was added). Now I see that the Text Frame Width value (which has a required/default 1 column) is changed when I double click the box edge. In the latest version of the document, this action defaults to adding empty space to the right and left of the text inside the Text Frame. It would be desirable to somehow suppress this default, i.e., do not add empty space before and after the text. See the four screen shots of the Text Frame settings and before (desirable) and after (not desirable) results of double-clicking the right edge button. In this specific case, the text frame and column width should be 1.726 inches. After the double-click the box expands to 1.88 inches to accommodate the extra space added right and left. Hopefully, there is a setting somewhere (I am obviously missing) that will get me back to this scenario - which I used to be able to rely on until I shrank my document and then had to re-do all of my text styles to match the object's new sizes (font size shrank, photos shrank). I used to be able to double click an edge and the box would fit the text precisely. It is interesting, but baffling that if "Hide overflow" is unchecked, the text is expanded into a single row with EXTRA (additional) space added left and right. I guess I would never have assumed that check box would affect this action so drastically (it seems to be doing more than just "hiding" overflow, i.e., "preventing" overflow.) Afterthought: It might be that the Text Frame "Columns" is interfering with my ideal - I don't really have any need for the concept in these captions. Thanks for any insight. first column: desirable (done manually); second column not desirable after double-click of edge.

I have recently discovered that one can auto-resize a frame text (box) to "fit" the text within. This seems to be dependent on the starting width of the frame, the starting height of the frame, etc. For example, I can double-click the center anchor ("button") on the right of the Frame. This often resizes the frame and text to "fit" BUT it usually will leave a "margin" on left and right (spacing between the text and the frame edges). As I am trying to move the text box just a certain distance away from another object, I also want the text itself to be in the same position (say, 1/8 inch from the object). When double-clicking the (left or right) center button, my frame text enlarges or shrinks and acquires an "inset" where the text has some space on left and right (not on top or bottom). The Studio Text Frame shows insets set to zero. My text is set to center both vertically and horizontally. The style of the text is controlled by a Text Style entry. The Paragraph section has the Decorations set to "none" - unchecked. It is as though some internal process is attempting to "balance" the text rows to be somewhat even/equal and adding that space around. In some cases where paragraphs are longer (more rows of text), the bottom-most row will often be shorter than the ones above. This makes the paragraph "stand out" and look a bit neater, but is a mystery how I can control that process. It it notable that a brand new document with a new Frame Text - does not exhibit this "problem". I have searched extensively but have not found the cause of this behaviour. I cannot find any tutorial material in the help sections of Affinity and I am hoping there is one out there to be seen. Example text included as screen shots. Text is centered horizontally and vertically. First one is how I want the box sized. The second one is after I double-click the right, center button - the text gets some unwanted space on left and right. This double-clicking also has other qualities, such as moving the right or left edge clicked to center and space the text. So click the right edge center button and only the right edge moves; click the left and only the left edge moves; you can also click top center or bottom center edge buttons and the Frame Text will shrink to allow the text to just fit Thanks for any insight you might have.

I have a document of a certain dimension - photo album. I decided to shrink it a bit to fit a printer's capabilities to print photo books. The process is easy - I "anchor to page" then "Rescale" "All Spreads. The document pages all shrink to the proper size and all objects are also shrunk down to accommodate the settings. Then I follow up with rescaling the Masters too. In my case, all of my text boxes' text are "controlled" by Text Styles. Upon examining the text boxes, I see that the text has automatically shrunk from 14 points to 13.2 points. This is good and what I expected. Then I checked the Text Style (still) associated with that text and it is still set to 14 points. I do not know the intent here, but it would seem that there *should* be an option during the Rescale to have controlling Text Styles optionally ALSO change to match the final text in the document itself (and, are there other features that should be made to be in sync in a similar vein too?). You can imagine the difficulty of manually having to go through all the text styles to change their Font size to match the now rescaled document text. I have not been able to come up with a rationale for keeping the Text Style font sizes as they were before the rescale was done. Thanks for some enlightenment on this issue.

I also need e-book export for fixed page books. I have photo books to publish and each page must remain separate and not "flow" as a text-only e-book does. Sure I can publish a printed photo book from a PDF, but it is currently not feasible to take the Affinity Publisher output and turn it into an e-book.

Thank you, this is the first I have heard/read of this suggestion. Sounds like a possibility - except that some documents are extremely large (especially when the Document Resource contains many, many photographs that are linked to the document. In one case, I have (currently) 6.28 GB of storage used for a single document. All of my Affinity documents stored on the NAS come to over 1 TB. This would be a strain on my Mac Laptop storage (currently max of 4 TB). Additionally, these are shared documents between a couple of users. Storing them locally may be a good suggestion for software compatibility / stability with the Operating System, but become a bit impractical when sharing in a virtual "office" environment (as you say PITA). Suggesting that you see what might be possible for the future of Affinity products. Just as a note, I have never had any corruption using the QNAP NAS with the Apple File Protocol (AFP), and my Mac systems. Another reason I use the NAS is that it is a mirror RAID environment that protects my data investment. Thank you for the tip.

I recently came back to use AFPUB (1.10.5) in earnest and was struggling with Catalina 10.15.7 (last version of Catalina, I believe) on a MacBook Pro 2019 (16"). I would open the saved project from an external NAS (where all my projects are stored for security and safety), wait a bit for it to load and "settle down" and then do the smallest things, e.g., selecting a Picture Frame (with photo) and CTRL-C copying it. It would take maybe 8 seconds for the spinning "busy" icon to stop. Then I would paste it to a new page. Wait... wait...check Mac Activity Monitor (3.75 GB used by AFPUB of 64 GB available on the machine) and eventually, nothing would happen or it might just crash outright if I tried to do something right after opening the project. If I waited long enough, it might eventually reach the stage where the "Force Quit" menu item would turn red. I did this for a couple of days, ("beating my head on the brick wall") then thought: "hey, I have the same AFPUB version running on my MAC PRO (2010) that is running High Sierra at 10.13.6. I should give that a try" Voila, no more waiting, more-or-less instant responses to actions, no freezes, no crashes, no more problems. In short, a delightful experience. At this point, I have no incentive to go back to Catalina (and would be loath to upgrade to the latest "Mac-Death" OS version). Just a note that everything else on Catalina seems to work quickly, reliably, without problems or crashing (including the other Affinity Applications).

Hi thomaso - I tried to create a style of one example frame that was set up as I wanted. But the style affected only the Stroke width and color, but did not use a 2% corner as the model had. I'd love to know more about how to do what you suggested. I did find a way to make it much faster though. I entered the Photo Persona and created and saved a macro to change the Stroke size and add a 2% rounded corner to a picture frame. Oddly, you cannot change the Stroke Color during the macro recording - but that is not a problem. Then I went back to the Publisher Persona and the process is to go to cursor mode (V) then click a picture frame to alter and double-click the macro. Repeat - going to cursor mode (V), click another Picture frame, double-click the macro. The Stroke Color is "remembered" after you make one change on one frame as Publisher automatically uses the same color for each frame you select. I had the whole lot done in about 10 minutes.

I have a large document with some 250 pictures inside Picture Frames. I have decided to change the look of all by adding a color Stroke, and a rounded corner set at 2%. Is there any way to make these hundreds of changes in "bulk" - with one command instead of doing each manually? That would save me many hours of work.

Oh My Gosh. All this time, I did not realize that it is possible to add Affinity Photo to the list of external editors provided in Lightroom (LR). I'm using LR 6, so this likely would apply to Lightroom Classic (sorry can't vouch for HOW to do it in the LR Classic version, but it might be similarly done). In LIghtroom 6, simply go to "File / Preferences / External Editing" - On that dialogue, look under "Additional External Editor / Application:" - then click the "Choose" button on the right of the dialogue. Navigate to the pixel editing application you want (Affinity Photo in this case) and choose it. Configure the setting (file type, color space, dpi, etc.) and then drop down the "Preset" under the Additional External Editor heading and choose to "Save Current Settings as New Preset" All the previous external editors are still available plus the new one(s) you add. The configuration information is stored in "lrtemplate" files and you can see those templates through "Preferences / Presets / Show LIghtroom Presets Folder". In my case, I have the NIK Collection of editors also available. Now I have my favored Affinity Photo in there. The reason this is so powerful is twofold - first, it's quick to enter the external editor (two clicks), second, while your photo is edited in Affinity Photo (or other external editor), when you save your editing work, that edited photo is placed into the LR catalogue automatically. It is my understanding that additional photo editors can also be added to flesh out the editors arsenal at your disposal. Just about any "pixel" editor could be added to LR in this manner. Now here is my request for additional features - please include more editing features into Affinity Photo (to name one, "Luminosity Mask" similar to the feature in LR Classic), but also other really helpful features found in other company's editors and suggestions in this forum. And here is one I would really love to see - a scratch and dust removal dialogue similar to one Polaroid provided years ago that saved hours of one-by-one dust speck removal from scanned old prints, slides, and negatives.

Sorry, this topic was covered in another post I made for AFPUB - seems it affects the Affinity range of products: Cursor and Notifications

This is a small nuisance and a suggestion. When I am using the Clone tool to retouch a photo, suddenly the cursor (circle for cloning) changes to a standard cursor (arrow) right after Mac OSX makes a visible Notification on the desktop (which it does for any number of cases: new email, receiving messages, calendar reminder, etc.). I think I have to re-click the clone tool (or click out of and then back into the tool) in order to get the clone circle back again. I think the MAC OS Notification simply places itself "on top" (or becomes the "foreground") of all objects on the Desktop and that may be why the cursor changes. I would hazard a guess that any application that wants to be "on top" and be seen "in front" of anything else might cause the same behaviour, though I have not checked it out.

Thanks, Walt for your tip on the View rotation. Very helpful!

AFPUB 1.9.2 Mac (all versions) I noted this and changed my preferences. However, IF you rotate the canvass using cmd+scroll wheel, you cannot Undo this - and - you cannot return to the "zero point" since the transform menu is not active for this type of movement - the edges of the canvass remain "pixelated" (not able to make edges straight lines again no matter how you try to rotate it). So... it seems that you have to close the document and start over.