Search the Community

I prefer to use alignment shortcuts but I found that any alignment shortcut is fixed to "selection bounds" behaviour, and "spread" if you choose only one object. like if I go to alignment menu and change behaviour to "last selected", then use the shortcut, it doesn't see the change. I really think that this shouldn't happen. heres the clip; I'll use the "align to center" shortcut but "last selected" option is enabled: this is an issue for All Affinity products release 2.1.1 happening in windows 11 HW acc ON

Hi everyone, I just spent half an hour to try and find a way to align text vertically in Publisher (V2.1). Then another half hour to find out about it in help and forums. I bought all of the V1 Progs as soon as they came out, then updated to V2 universal. I'm writing a textbook with many pictures right now and - of course - I use Publisher to "set it up" (is that the correct expression? - I'm German... ;-)) Anyway: I need vertical text on some pages - and I can't find it. That's really disappointing... Is it really true, that a Version 2+ of a Desktop Publishing Software can not do this??? I can't believe it. Thanks for any help.

Hey everyone, Update: Okay, apparently I completely missed the introduction of Key Objects somehow. Thanks for telling me it’s already there! 🤯 Firstly, however, part of my original subject was that key objects should work for any alignment – this includes the spacing operations »Space Vertical« and »Space Horizontal«. They currently work for the general alignment options such as top/bottom, left/right. From my logic it could/should work like this: If NO key object is selected, the last set »Align To:« option works as intended and expected. However, if a key object IS selected, the »Align To:« option should react and prioritise it by changing the »Align To: Key Object«. As soon as there’s no Key Object selected, it switches back to the previous item in the list, like »Last/First Selected«. Without checking, I think this is how it works in Illustrator as well. And I mean, it's just logical (at least to me): If a user actively selects a Key Object (and for Designer this can't be accidental, since you have to hold down an extra key on your keyboard), the user most likely wants to use it as such. So the Key Object should always have the highest priority in the list of alignment candidates/options. Secondly: They also only work from the Context toolbar – when I work with the toolbar popup and want to align (top/bottom, left/right, ...) it prioritises the selected »Align to:« option from the drop down. I think there's an item missing from this list for key objects to work in the toolbar popup as well, and I think that's the culprit. It's not at all obvious that »First Selected« equals »Key Object« in the »Align To:« dropdown in the Toolbar (not Context Toolbar). ––– I very dearly miss the ability to click on one of multiple selected shapes (especially in Designer and Publisher) in order to define it as some sort of »pivot« object, so to speak, around which all other alignments will happen since day one switching to Designer almost ten years ago. (Wow, Designer really turns 10 next year!) The »First/Last Selected« options in the »Align to:« dropdown come close to what I mean, but are not as intuitive, nor do they work for all alignment operations such as »Space Horizontal/Vertical«. Illustrator has solved this more elegantly and functionally by allowing you to mark one of the already selected objects as the »centre« by clicking on it, around which all further alignment operations will take place. They call it »Align to Key Object«. Here's a short clip of how it works. Here’s a video that explains its differences a little bit better compared to other alignment options present in Designer. Please please pleeease Affinity, I need this QOL back in my process and would love to see it and in the Affinity Suite. 🥲 Cheers Dennis

I need to lay out a book of poetry. Sometimes the left aligned lines (paragraphs in fact) are too long to fit the page and the customer wants the 'overflow' line to be right aligned. I've been looking to set a style for this. The option of Justify Last Line Right works if there is a first line (although it can look messy with big gaps) but if all the text fits on the line it is also the last line and so becomes right justified. Is there some way out of this? I.e. left aligned for the first line but right aligned for the second?

Hello, When deleting a page, the picture and text frames on other pages veer off the columns they were originally placed in. This was a blank page I'm removing, and adding it back, locks the frames in position within the columns but breaks the text, I believe this has to do with the inner and outer margins that are different. Is there a way to lock all these frames within the columns rather than following the margins or spine when deleting or adding pages? Thanks a lot for your help.

I have been doing some testing in stacking pictures I took of the Orion nebula. The pictures are good and the stars are pinpoints. The problem is that I tried all alignment parameters and the result is never aligned. I had high hopes for this function but it doesn't seem to be very good. Stacking is one of the main reasons I bought Affinity Photo, the other being to replace Photoshop Elements. I could always use Deep Sky Stacker but I had great hopes for affinity. I could always try to align manually but that's a lot of work. Anyone has ideas?

I see that all Alignment options are greyed out in version 1.8.1. In this case i'm trying to align the text to the margin.

Hi The spine awareness alignment tools are really useful, Align Away From Spine, Align Towards Spine. Unfortunately, for many text uses, Justify is the appropriate option, but the lack of a Towards and From Spine option limits this, or relies on manual hacks which can break things. Can we add a Justify Away From Spine and Justify Towards Spine option please? Thanks, Chris

Hello! I'm working with a document using inches, and when I move objects using the transform window it defaults to move by full inches (1" > 2"). In Adobe when you hit the up or down arrow in the transform window it will increase by (.0625") making small alignment easy. I am not asking about the nudge preferences, as I find moving that way to be imprecise, but I still like the increments of (.01") for very small adjustment. Screenshots attached. I apologize if this question has already been asked before.

Shot on a super sturdy tripod, Nikon Z7, VR/IBIS = OFF, Z 24-70 2.8 S @ f/8, @ 24mm. NEF (0, -2, +2 stops) directly loaded into "New HDR merge", Auto align images set to Perspective, no noise reduction, Tone Map unchecked, Auto remove ghost: tried both, no difference, this is kinda not aligned:

Two rectangles: a gray one on Layer1 (locked), and a reddish one on Layer2 (unlocked). Select Layer2 then select Layer1. Click Align, Align Right. What happens is that the gray rectangle on the locked layer moves to align with the red rectangle on the unlocked layer, and that shouldn't happen. layer_lock_bug.afdesign

This should be addressed to the Affinity Range. Dashed lines should not scale by length when adjusting the width, only the width should increase, as it stands, if you increase the width of a dashed line from say .5mm to 1mm the dashes increase in length knocking any phase adjusts you have made "out of whack" effectively destroying the phase setting. What should happen is the width of the dash should increase and the length of the dash should not, this means any phase adjustments you have applied will be retained. This leads me on to Alignment, there should be an alignment option to create a symmetrical dash, the corners would have a symmetrical L shaped dash and single lines would have a half dash at each end. See bottom image for an example. Affinity @ .5mm 12-6-0-0 Affinity @ 1mm 12-6-0-0 Dashes scale by length and go out of alignment. Adobe Illustrator @ .5mm 12-6-0-0 Adobe Illustrator @ 1mm 12-6-0-0 (No length scaling dash stays put) Adobe Illustrator with Alignment applied, makes a neat dashed line.

Howdy, Affinity Designer for iPad pals! I'm a brand new user, and so far the app is perfect for what I'm looking to do. Love it. I’m hoping you can help me with a an issue, where my non-standard grids do not evenly align nicely with my document. To troubleshoot I set up documents with round numbers (10x10-inch canvas) and corresponding grid intervals (1/2 or 1-inch), but still no luck. In the attached screenshot you'll notice that the edges of the grid don't align evenly with the bounds of document/canvas. I'm running into this with all non-square grids: isometric, oblique, triangular—the lot of them. So is there a way to at least center the grid to one axis of the document/canvas? I'm hoping this is just a simple document size vs. grid spacing math problem that I'm too dense to figure out. My workaround is to manually place guides on a larger-than-needed canvas to get full, but it's a pain—so any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance, friends!

I know this has been discussed a lot in previous posts but I'm asking for advice here rather than complaining about the shortcomings of this "feature". I've drafted the basic shapes for a design and used strokes with thickness and varying alignments (inside, centre and outside). Several elements start life as an ellipse. In removing the strokes that I don't require in the final design I often have to break the curves at intersection points. Doing so reverts the alignment to centre. This changes the design and the alignment of the graphic elements. I realise that this isn't going to be fixed so I was wondering if anyone has any advice about a workflow that avoids this issue. Clearly not using the alignment option on any curves used in a design that might be broken seems to me to be the only option. Any thoughts?

Ok, this is my first post here, and I'm quite new to Affinity Photo, so be easy on me. 15+ years of mastering Photoshop certainly helped alot with getting around in Affinity Photo/Designer interface, and I'm already starting to love this software. However, there is this ultra-basic thing that's driving me nuts, as I can't seem to get it done (the way I did that in Ps). So, if I'm designing something, something made out of several layers (logo for example), and I want to position it in center of the frame/background, in Photoshop it's enough to select desired layers in panel, and align them to selection however you want. All selected layers wil stay in locked position in relation to each other and align themselves as a group to background. In Affinity Photo, if I select multiple layers and try to align them to center+middle of the frame, they all individually align themselves to center, making it a mess of layers stacked upon each other in center of the frame. What I mean is even as a selection all layers align themselves separately, and not act as a group. You can solve this by grouping the layers and then align them as a group, in which case they stay locked in relation to each other and acting as a single object. Is there any way to align multiple selected layers together, without additional step of creating group each time you need to do that.

Hello. My TOC has got into a bit of a mess. I want all the page numbers to be right-aligned, not just the level 1 headings. I think it might also be good to have dotted lines between the entries and their page numbers. How do I do this?

Hey there! I use the tools in the Transform window and the tools in the Alignment window all the time, but I really dislike pressing the button that opens the Transform window in the hopes of it opening the right one upfront. This would be solved completely by having a seperate button for the alignment tools! Perhaps there is already a way to customize the buttons in the toolbar that I just haven't found yet? Adriaan

I have taken a set of shots from my window at different times of day. Mostly they are very similar - same distance settings etc., but I didn't use a tripod. Is it possible to trim the set slightly using Affinity Photo, so that I have a set of shots which are more or less accurately aligned? I think it might be possible to do this using a stack operation. I have used stacks for panoramas and HDR in the past, but this is a slightly different application. I want a series of individual shots, but all lined up within reasonably accurate tolerances.

When I want to align an object to the single page，But software is align to double spread！ Looking forward to your reply, waiting online！

hi there, I will preface this with saying I've just came to affinity photo from photoshop, I'm self-taught with PS so i can't even say I know much about that either! I'm a boardgame designer and I'm using affinity photo to create cards, which are a combination of text and icons. On PS when creating space at the end of a text line it would include the spaces as characters for centre alignment purposes, but I can't seem to give spaces any 'volume' in photo now that i've opened the PSD in affinity. I've tried using special characters and playing about with paragraph options but don't want to mess about with it too much, any ideas? The simpler the explanation the better, I'm a noob!

[ENG] Hello, I hope you can help me or give me a hint. In Affinity Designer I rely on forcing perfect alignments, which unfortunately doesn't work with the magnetic tools. In the example, element "red" is docked or anchored to element green. If I now use an extreme zoom level (3900000%) then you can see that there is a large distance to the "green" element, which I have to correct by hand. At the latest in the case of fine lines with a background, the distance during export is noticeable. How do I get the alignment better? The magnetic alignment is activated (tolerance 3; pixel perfect) Do you have an idea? Thank you very much! [DE] ich hoffe ihr könnt mir helfen oder einen Hinweis geben. Ich bin in Affinity Designer darauf angewiesen perfekte Ausrichtungen zu erzwingen, was leider mit den magnetischen Hilfsmitteln nicht funktioniert. Im Beispiel ist Element "rot" an Element grün angedockt beziehungsweise verankert. Wenn ich jetzt eine extreme Zoomstufe verwende (3900000%) dann sieht man, dass ein großer Abstand zum Element "grün" vorhanden ist, den ich von Hand korrigieren muss. Spätestens bei feinen Linien mit Hintergrund, fällt hier der Abstand beim Export auf. Wie bekomme ich die Ausrichtung besser hin? Die magnetische Ausrichtung ist aktiviert (Toleranz 3; pixel perfekt) Habt ihr eine Idee? Vielen Dank!

For some reason today, my brush and pen will not align and is off axis (see photo). I am using a basic mouse). I do not recall what may have occurred to start this but it was working fine until today. I even tried updating to the new version 1.9.0.932 hoping that would correct the issue but it did not. Also, it appears that the brush is locked on some sort of "virtual" center point. For example at a point in the document, the brush aligns as normal, but the further away the brush is moved from that fixed point, the further away the brush becomes aligned with its marker, including direction. For example if I start at the point of alignment and move my brush marker north, the ACTUAL brush starts to move south of the brush marker. Conversely if I move the brush marker south, the actual brush starts to move north of the brush marker. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I've had Affinity for about a week now and as an /affordable/ piece of software, I am loving it. Also bringing back memories of work experience several years ago at Wilford industrial estate... ;) but anyway, on to the problem.... Having a little bit of trouble with the full justify option - it just doesn't do anything attractive for my layout at all. Expecting it to space out my words nicely stretching across the full width of the frame and instead it's just adding a massive gap between the last two in the text frame! Not sure if there are settings to correct this or if the tool simply doesn't work as expected. Can anyone clarify what's going on with this one? Thanks.

Hi, Potentially a defect but more than happy to eat humble pie if I'm mistaken. When I print the attached Published document, scan of print also attached, the font alignment and sizing is way off what was shown on screen. Is it me or is there a problem here? Thanks, Jon C WW2_Great_Grandad.afpub

Issue/situation: In Publisher I've created a bullet list, but I am not sure how to keep a multi-line bullet-point indent so it aligns with the other entries. Question: Which settings do I need to change to make a multiline entry align with the other entries? Screenshots: See attached screenshot of the issue and my bullet point settings. Operating system: OSX Catalina 10.15.6 Affinity Photo: Version 1.8.4 Unusual hardware: Wacom tablet Intuos pro Any help or input on this matter is much appreciated. Thank you in advance. PS: if this post is in the wrong forum, then please let me know, and I will submit it in another.