Highlighting Text in Affinity Publisher

[BlueSailing]

Is there a simple way to highlight text in APub?

[Joachim_L]

Have a look at the Character panel, there you can define the background colour. If you want to re-use the highlighting, make a character text style for it.

[lacerto]

(...)

[GarryP]

As far as I know there is no way at the moment to format the character background other than giving it a simple rectangle of colour which is bound to the shape/size of the text. You could create a shape and then pin it into the text frame but you need to use a different Blend Mode (to make the text ‘come through’ the shape) and position it manually, see attached GIF.

Also, as far as I know, there’s no way to format an Underline, other than giving it a colour. If your text is wholly contained in a Paragraph then you could use a Decoration to underline it (see same attached GIF where it says “Decoration”), but you can’t use this for characters within a paragraph unless your text won’t move within the frame (see attached GIF where it says “congue”).

I’ve also attached the document I used just in case it’s helpful to anyone.

highlight-and-underline.afpub

[Lorox]

On 1/24/2020 at 9:11 PM, Lagarto said:

On the other hand, the InDesign kind of "workaround" is very flexible (allowing specify underline thickness, offset and style, e.g. dashes, color, etc., and similarly allowing attaching this to a character style). Is there something like this available also in Affinity apps (e.g., ability to adjust how character background is applied, other than just using the whole leading / character box height); or is it possible to customize underline style also in Affinity apps, similarly as in InDesign?

Almost one and a half year later there obviously still isn't a way in the Affinity apps to style underlines (on the character level). More often than not you'll find that the (only) default style you can assign (i.e. by just choosing the "Underline" text style) just hasn't the line thickness you'd like for that particular font and neither does it have the offset you'd prefer for a typographically satisfying effect.

The options InDesign has been providing for more than 10 years by now certainly set the mark for what a decent professional desktop publishing app should offer in terms of typography and I REALLY hope Serif will take care of that with v2 of their apps. Otherwise it will be big disappointment...

Edited May 14, 2021 by Lorox
typo