twave

That sounds likely. Thanks again for your help.

Thanks gdenby. Assuming you are seeing the same as me, in symbols studio there is a symbol with a black square in it? This is what has me confused. The symbol was created in the "Drawing Area" layer in this document. But when I made changes to this layer any new shapes (the red circle) did not appear in the symbol but changes to existing shapes do change in the symbol. I then tried editing one of the copies of the symbol that I dragged from symbol studio. I added the black square. This updated in all copies of the symbol including the one in symbol studio, but not the original in "Drawing Area" layer. I've just started a new document and the symbols are working as expected but this has happened several times now in different documents.

I'm evaluating Affinity Designer as a replacement for Illustrator and run into a couple of problems. The first is inconsistent results when I modify symbols. Not sure if this is a bug or me doing something wrong? I drew my design, grouped the layers, selected the group and created a symbol. Then populated the page with multiple copies of the symbol. If I draw a new object in the original design it does not appear in the symbols placed on the page. If I modify an existing object in the original design it is also modified in the symbols placed on the page. If I draw a new object in one of the symbols it appears in the other symbols but not the original design. If I modify an existing object in one of the symbols it is also modified in the symbols placed on the page and the original design. I have also had problems several times with everything disappearing from the screen so it looks like I've just created a new document. The only way to resolve this is to close AD and re-open the file and everything is visible again. Vertical Stripe 3.afdesign