AllanP

I've had some success now after some more experimenting and with some useful feedback from forum member Old Bruce. See this discussion:

@Old Bruce - Your comments/suggestions have been very helpful. Just to clarify - having used Serif's PagePlus on many projects over the years, I'm intending to transition to APublisher now that the Endnotes feature has been added to v2. One project is a newsletter/magazine with some fairly standard front matter and end matter sections each issue and a varying set of articles between the front and end sections each issue. Having read through the Affinity Help file on merging documents, I hoped it would be relatively straightforward to set up one document with the front and end matter, work on the intended articles in separate documents and then insert (using the "Add pages from File..." option) these articles into the front/end matter base document. This in conjunction with using the insertion of the section name field in the page headers. So, I agree that using linked text frames on the Master page(s) is the way to go (not sure why I don't set them up like that). Also, I see the benefits of naming the page elements - that's a good call. As you say, there needs to be re-linking of frames as the inserted article goes into the middle of a spread, coupled with using the Section Manager to "Continue page numbering" on the inserted section. It seems that regardless of inserting the section on a right hand or left hand page, the first inserted page's text frame is always blank, necessitating the re-link. (I guess I should experiment to see what happens if the inserted document starts on a right hand page...) At least now, thanks to your comments, I can see how to use this feature best. I guess my gripe is that the supplied information on merging documents lacks some clarity on what happens and what actions the user my need to take. The way the information is presented implies that specifying which section tio insert where is all that needs to be done, but in reality each publication may need some specific actions. In summary - Use linked text frames on master pages and name the layer elements for ease of use. When inserting sections from another document, ensure "ignore initial section" is unchecked. After the section has been inserted re-link the first 2 pages of the insertion and adjust the page numbering in Section Manager as required. Re-align any images as necessary. So, thank you Old Bruce for your feedback. That's helped me understand more clearly what was happening - I had probably got too close to the detail and needed to step back a bit. Keep up your great support of fellow Affinity users.

Old Bruce - Thanks very much for your feedback which I've just scanned through. That looks interesting and I'll take a deeper look tomorrow (when I'm a bit more awake!) Will be in touch.

I'd appreciate seeing some clarity on what can or cannot be done when it comes to merging documents if APub. Especially in relation to the "Add Pages from File..." under the Document menu. Using that option and having selected the file from which you wish to insert pages, you are given the option to add all pages, a range of pages, or a specified section from that file. Within the "receiving" document you have the option to insert the "incoming" pages before, after , or replacing a specified page or after the last page; or you can select to insert before, after, replacing or after the last page of a specified section within the receiving document. However, the process appears buggy. My test scenario - I have a "Sections Base Document" of 10 pages divided into sections with Section Manager. The document is set up with facing pages and has a simple Master (A) with a page header frame at the top and a page number frame at the bottom, populated by the section name and page number values from the References-> Fields panel. There are three single page sections in the middle of the document (named Placeholder 1/2/3). The concept being that each Placeholder page/section could be replaced with a separately produced document. So, I have a "Sections Insert Article" document with 4v pages of content and the same facing page/master page layout for the "Sections Base Document" as a single named section. My intention is to replace the Placeholder 1 section of the base document with the insert article. I use the "Add Page from File..." option on the base document, specifying that I want to add the single section from the "Sections Insert Article", replacing the "Placeholder 1" section of the base document. The results are mixed. The four pages are inserted. The page header of the inserted article is blank - while the frame is there (as seen in the Layers panel, it does not show any content. The inserted article section restarts the page numbering from 1 - OK, I can accept this, there is no way I can see of telling the section to continue the numbering, and it's easy to reset. The second and third pages of the inserted article have the correct section name in the page header, but the fourth does not - it has the section name of the section it replaced. The page after the inserted section now has two page header text frames! So not quite what was expected. See my attached test files of Base Document, Inserted Article ad resulting "Base plus Insert" My initial thoughts are that the use of facing master pages as in my test are not correctly catered for. I think it would be useful to have more information on how the merge documents facility is intended to work. My understanding is based on the information in the Help file, but does not seem to match up. Serif's video tutorial on the Section Manager only appears to deal with splitting a document into sections. Sections Base Document NMF.afpub Sections Base plus InsertedNMF.afpub Sections Insert Article NMF.afpub

Did you ever get a resolution to this? I'm experiencing similar problems with APub v2.0.3 (Windows). Document A is divided into Sections using Section Manager.. The master page for the document has a page number field at the bottom and a frame at the top of the page in which the section name is inserted using the section name from the References/Fields panel. There is a 1 page section in the middle of document A named "Placeholder" - name appears in feame at top of page. A second document has the same master page layout. It consists of 1 section named "Inserted Article". Open the first document and select Document-> Add Pages from File then specify the second document as the source of the pages to be added. Specify that the section "Inserted Article" from the second document is to replace "Placeholder" section in first document. Result is that pages from second document at are inserted, but: Page numbering is not automatically adjusted (OK that ca be fixed using Section Manager...) The heading frame on the first inserted page (where the section name is inserted) is empty - the frame exists (seen in layers panel) but the section name doesn't appear in it; the correct section name appears on the next 2 pages of the inserted section, bit not bon the last where it retains the "Plac3holder" section name. Then the "Placeholder" section name frame appears on top of the section name frame of the page following the inserted article overlapping the original document's section name frame... So it seems that while Section Manager allows the splitting od documents into namewd sextions, the ability to insert sections into other documents is something of a challenge. Would be good to see this workflow operating

I agree that is how APublisher behaves where the inner margins are wider than the outer ones. I had hoped there would be the ability for the repositioned pages to automatically reflect their new right/left - odd/even master page layout (which is what happens in Serif's legacy PagePlus program).

In a document where you have facing pages with wider inner margins to allow for binding, if you delete a s (or odd number of) pages, the text frames on the resulting subsequent pages do not align with the margins . I see that in the text frame panel you can specify the vertical alignment but there doesn't seem to be a method of getting the frames to align horizontally other than manually adjusting each page. It would be god if this feature could be added to allow improved page manipulation. As a long-time user of Serif's legacy PageP;lus, I was used to having this ability.

So I see, Walt. That's a pity. As a long-time user of Serif's legacy PagePlus DTP software, I had got used to the ability of deleting pages from a publication, and the text frames on the subsequent pages automatically realigning with the margins of a document where the inner and outer margins were different to allow die binding. I will have to raise it as a suggestion doer a future update.

Thanks for the response, Walt. I'll try that technique out in the morning. Basically 'm trying to merge two documents, both set up with wide inner margins (to allow fir binding) and I want the pages to run continuously with no blank page between sections/chapters, si that means the text frames need to adjust to the inner/outer margins. I had hoped the Section functionality would do this, but I'll take a look at the Book function and see if that solves my problem.

Using Affinity Publisher v2 I have two documents created with AsPub. They both use the same master page set up (facing p[ages), both starting on the right hand page. The layout od the pages in both documents has a wider inner margin to allow for binding when printed. so the text frames are positioned accordingly. I want to insert the second document after page 7 (i.e. a right hand page) of the first document. I use Document -> Add pages from file... The pages from the second document are inserted in the correct place starting on the left hand page 8. However, the text frames on those inserted pages remain aligned as they were in the document they came from which started on a left hand page, so the margins are wrong. Is there a way to insert pages from one document into another so that the inserted text frames are automatically aligned to the margins of the receiving document, rather than retaining the text frame position of the source?

Great! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I had been looking at the Paragraph and Text Style panels. Having been a PagePlus user for many years, I'm adjusting to doing things slightly differently in AfPub - which now that Footnotes/endnotes are available means that I can transition to AfPub fully.

Is there a way in AfPub v2 of selecting all the paragraphs with a specific style in a document, and then replacing them with a different paragraph style? e.g. I want to change all the paragraphs with a Heading-3 text style in my document to Heading-2 text styles...

There is some control over Justification available via the Paragraph panel allowing some configuration on the Justified Left, Justified Centre, Justified Right, and Justified Right options. Are these of any help? Minimum Word Spacing—sets the minimum gap allowed. Desired Word Spacing—sets the preferred gap between words. Maximum Word Spacing—sets the maximum gap allowed. Minimum Letter Spacing—sets the minimum tracking allowed. Desired Letter Spacing—sets the preferred tracking (spacing between letters) within words when a paragraph has a justified alignment. Maximum Letter Spacing—sets the maximum tracking allowed

The Online Help section for Accessibility includesL However, I cannot see the "Font UI Size" option when going to the indicated section of Preferences Please could that be fixed? (This is also not acailable in v2 Designer and Photo)

Glad my comments were useful. I'm looking forward to making more use of AfPub now that the footnotes/endnotes/side notes feature is implemented. Take a look at the Serif/Affinity YouTube channel videos for views of the new fearures.

I did a very quick test with placing a Word .docx file containing footnotes into a Afpub document and the foitnotes were transferred across. I did then have to make appropriate adjustments via the Notes panel to stop the numbering restarting on every page, etc. But it all went well. From what I've seen so far, I,'m very impressed and pleased with Affinity v2

Take a look at the Serif video tutorials on "Sections" - https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/337265458/ and "Merge documents" -https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/389996014/ Does that provide the functionality you are interested in?

I realise that the questions of the EPUB format are of valid interest to various people, but the discussion seems to have strayed away from its original topic - the availability of and Endnotes in Affinity Publisher. Is it possible for the EPUB discussion to be split off elsewhere as a separate topic? While this topic remains focussed on Footnotes/Endnotes. No disrespect intended to anyone, just feel things could be a little more specific.

Just another +1 for the inclusion of PDF Bookmark generation in a Affinity Publisher near-future release. (of course if there's a choice, footnotes/endnotes feature should take priority over this!)

+1 for including a feature to generate PDF bookmarks in Affinity Publisher when producing a PDF version of your document. I know the free Foxit PDF Reader allows you to create/edit/delete book,arks in a PDF document, but I haven;t had the opportunity to try it on a PDF generated by Affinity Publisher. It would be very desirable to do all the associated tasks with APub.

I agree with Rory Mole, In most of the projects I'm involved with, the authors' MS Word document manuscripts include footnotes. When I import them into my layout/publishing program I need those footnotes (together with their marks in the main body) to be imported, and then to be able to format them appropriately with style, etc. Like Rory, I don't want to have to manually insert footnotes. (Guess I'm just used to being able to do it in PagePlus)

Sounds like we share enthusiasm and praise for what Serif/Affinity have done to date. Given what they've achieved so far, we can hope that footnotes and end notes will be high in the priority list of future developments for APublisher. And if anyone can tie all the components together to deliver the functionality, it looks like the Affinity team are well placed.

Really? I would say that the handling of footnotes, especially ,is a complex task. Each footnote can vary in length; if you edit the main body text of an article that may move the position of a footnote mark - perhaps moving it to the next page, or the next column... If you add a footnote into an article that might impact the placement of any existing footnotes at the bottom of the page/column... If a footnote is lengthy, at what point should it automatically break/overflow to the next page/column? There's a lot of interaction between footnotes and main body text. [I've seen the challenges that footnotes can create when using PagePlus] I do really appreciate why footnotes/end notes didn't make it into the APublisher launch. I applaud Serif for delivering a working product as they have done. This dpesn't stop me from anticipating the inclusion of the footnotes/end notes feature in APub sooner than later, but. of course, all of us who are supporting the feature request will want Serif to deliver the feature in a solid working state. So, looking forward to a future release.

Thanks Bruce. I;ll look into that. As I've said elsewhere, you'll have to excuse these sorts of questions from me - I've used PagePlus for years and need to adjust to how to do what I've been used in Affinity Publisher...

Thanks for the suggestion, , Dave. I'll take a look and see how that works. You'll have to excuse me asking too many questions, I've used PagePlus for years and am not yet familiar with how some things that I'm used to doing now work in Affinity Publisher...