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Editing underline features


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Dear Affinity team,

I really like the software, the Publisher really has the opportunity to replace the Adobe package in typesetting and graphic design. I've already started making youtube tutorials for friends in Slovakia to make their transition to AP as easy as possible. On the other hand, I would like to ask about the availability of some features (or if you plan to add them in the near future).

The text underlining is currently limited to functionality that is not absolutely usable for typesetting (crossing out decenders/loops, different line width comparing to stroke etc.). Adjustment of the offset and line thickness are missing. Typically, the typographer will simply set them up to avoid these visual problems. Since these are essential requirements for using this tool, do you plan adding them?

Screenshot.png

marekmati.com

[MAC OS 12.2, MacBook Pro  2017, 15-inch, 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon Pro 560, Intel HD Graphics 630, 500GB SSD + Philips Monitor 4K/60fps 10bit color via DisplayPort to USB-C cable]

Affinity Publisher 1.10.5, Affinity Designer 1.10.5, Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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I agree with this request, as I discussed in a similar post:

 

 

This was the only official response:

On 9/9/2018 at 5:24 AM, Dave Harris said:

I'm afraid not. We get the width and position of the underline and stroke from the font metrics, so they are determined by the designer of the font and there is no way to override them.

That was very early in the public beta phase. Also, although we were confused by the statement that "there is no way to override them," since both InDesign and Quark are able to do that, I now assume the meaning was that there was then no way to override these attributes in Publisher as it currently existed.

I am not aware of whether the developers have ever stated that it is something they would like to implement in the future.

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  • 1 month later...

In InDesign, in the Paragraph panel, you can add a rule above or below the text and offset it. Using this attribute, it is possible to put a bar of color behind white text. I have uploaded a PDF showing both effects. This is a separate attribute from the underline feature that comes with a font. I am attempting to recreate an InDesign document in Publisher, and came up with a workaround, but it is very kludgy.

 

Paragraph rules.pdf

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/30/2019 at 5:21 PM, garrettm30 said:

@LRStrand That strikes me as a perfect example of when to use paragraph decorations (ie. borders and fills of paragraphs). Attached is a quick example. I have made the paragraph styles Heading 1 and Heading 2 to partially mimic what I see in your PDF.

paragraph_decorations_example.afpub

Yeah, that is a great example of how it should work, thanks for that. Anyway, it would be great to have an similar option on a word selection level. Since this is in a paragraph styling option, I can't select only one word in a paragraph and use this kind of an underline. Still, I don't understand, why it is possible in the paragraph styling, yet not possible to do in the character styling options.

marekmati.com

[MAC OS 12.2, MacBook Pro  2017, 15-inch, 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon Pro 560, Intel HD Graphics 630, 500GB SSD + Philips Monitor 4K/60fps 10bit color via DisplayPort to USB-C cable]

Affinity Publisher 1.10.5, Affinity Designer 1.10.5, Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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On 1/3/2020 at 12:07 PM, MarekGFX said:

Yeah, that is a great example of how it should work, thanks for that. Anyway, it would be great to have an similar option on a word selection level. Since this is in a paragraph styling option, I can't select only one word in a paragraph and use this kind of an underline. Still, I don't understand, why it is possible in the paragraph styling, yet not possible to do in the character styling options.

You can set the text background colour from the Character panel. It's next to the Font style and colour.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/7/2020 at 3:48 PM, Dave Harris said:

You can set the text background colour from the Character panel. It's next to the Font style and colour.

Hello. :) 

Yes, I am aware of that, but that is also not the topic of this thread. Or maybe I did not understand you well.
What I am talking about is the underline option of the word / selection and the possibility of tweaking its parameters (stroke, offset etc.).

Anyway, thanks for the response :) 

marekmati.com

[MAC OS 12.2, MacBook Pro  2017, 15-inch, 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon Pro 560, Intel HD Graphics 630, 500GB SSD + Philips Monitor 4K/60fps 10bit color via DisplayPort to USB-C cable]

Affinity Publisher 1.10.5, Affinity Designer 1.10.5, Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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  • 7 months later...
  • 7 months later...
On 2/4/2020 at 8:51 PM, MarekGFX said:

What I am talking about is the underline option of the word / selection and the possibility of tweaking its parameters (stroke, offset etc.).

That would be exactly what I would like to be addressed by Serif as soon as possible! It looks like that it has been confused by others here in this discussion with "decorations" on the paragraph level, which are significantly more advanced in the Affinity apps as of now (v1.9).

On the character level, however, where "Underline", "Strikethrough" etc. live, there's still almost no way to customize any of those lines. More often than not the default provided by the program looks quite awkward in connection with the actual font in use.

I think that just anybody who cares for decent typography absolutely needs to be able to tweak underline options on a character style level. So please, Serif, add this in version 2 – it will be highly appreciated!

If I could ask for even more, I'd love to have the option(!) to have an underline applied "intelligently" by the program – i.e. skipping characters with descenders and so avoiding ugly "strikethroughs" of (just the) descenders. I guess there must be a way to automate such a behaviour as I recently saw underlined links on a webpage featuring the look I'm speaking of (see attachment). I don't really think this has been done by hand for each of the characters with no visible underline (g, comma, parentheses). You'd think: if this can be done for web by CSS or Javascript (or whatever), it should be possible for a desktop design app as well...

 

example_underline_web.png

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See also:

… including a couple of workarounds by yours truly.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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  • 6 months later...
On 11/30/2021 at 12:44 PM, rumo said:

+1. Came across this today. This is a basic typography feature, not something worth some kind of workaround. Looks like the more I use Publisher, the more I ran into those "missing basic typography features".

Yep, same here. My breaking point was discovery of missing multiline composing of paragraphs. Ragged lines at the end of the paragraph looks horrible. Do not get me wrong, I love the concept of Affinity products and I consider myself as fan, but Publisher is so not ready for the professional typesetting. 

marekmati.com

[MAC OS 12.2, MacBook Pro  2017, 15-inch, 2.9 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon Pro 560, Intel HD Graphics 630, 500GB SSD + Philips Monitor 4K/60fps 10bit color via DisplayPort to USB-C cable]

Affinity Publisher 1.10.5, Affinity Designer 1.10.5, Affinity Photo 1.10.5

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17 minutes ago, MarekGFX said:

Publisher is so not ready for the professional typesetting

So, QuarkXPress 3 apparently wasn't ready for "professional typesetting" either, right?
And yet, thousands of professionals have been using it professionally for a whole decade, including yours truly… ;) (Not to speak of thousands of wannabe professionals who never bothered to change QXP's abysmal default settings…)

In other words:
While APu lacks some of the automatic tools we've been used to from InDesign, and which I, for one, am missing as well, it's got a plenty of manual tools to fix the most of any typographic issues if needed. All it requires is the eye of a professional designer to recognize those issues in the first place.

In other other words:
APu may not be the best tool for every job, but it is ready if you're ready.

That all said…
Serif, please give us the advanced word underline features already!

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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  • 1 year later...

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