Frame Text Ruler - Missing MIA

[DanaCP]

I am attempting to create some custom tab measurements in a document. I found this great tutorial: https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/tutorials/publisher/desktop/video/337313448/ 

However, My "Frame Text Ruler" is completely MIA?!? I have it selected to appear (screen cap included), however all I see is the little "fi" typography button... nothing more to the right.

Running: Mac OS Catalina Vers. 10.15.2, Affinity Publisher 1.7.3

Thank you for any assistance you can provide.

I did discover that I can add/adjust tabs in the Paragraph panel under "Tab Stops." However, the functionality of the ruler would be awesome. 

[carl123]

You have Art Text selected, the Text Ruler only works on Frame Text

[DanaCP]

Ahhhhh, I see now. Thank you! The video made it a little confusing as it showed text much like I already had text. It just showed highlighting the text and selecting "frame text tool." Which is what I did... but, when I try to create a new text box with "frame text tool" selected, then I see the ruler. I must have created the original text with "art text" selected.  

[gary danang]

Text Ruler is missing for me.. have read all the user comments,, tried all the suggestions - ZERO Success

Really am reconsidering Afiinity Products - How can I set out paragraph text without this basic tool

Does not even show up in the Views Menu!

UPDATE - did a windows Repair and still no TEXT RULER

Turned off my external monitor and still no TEXT RULER

 

Edited February 5, 2020 by gary danang
Update

[GarryP]

“Rulers” does not include the Text Ruler, that’s handled differently.
Also, the Text Ruler is only available in Publisher because it’s only for Text Frames – your screen-grab looks like it is from Designer.

Edited February 5, 2020 by GarryP
Made a mistake.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, GarryP said:

Also, the Text Ruler is only available in Publisher because it’s only for Text Frames

<pedantic>
Both Designer and Publisher have Frame Text, and Frame Text occurs within a Text Frame.

However, Publisher has additional capabilities for its Text Frames, with one of those new capabilities being the Text Ruler
</pedantic>

[GarryP]

Oops, yeah, sorry, I was in a rush.
I’ve fixed the post above.
If we could get a full-screen screen-grab it might be easier to see what’s going on but I’m fairly sure that the application isn’t Publisher; e.g. there’s no “Show Text Flow” or “Preview Mode” items in the menu either.

[Warren McAlister]

Hi there,   I may be late to this Text Ruler party .... But just wanted to add my discovery ... Printing to pdf or physical printer will subsequently kill the Text Ruler EVERY TIME on my system.

Would love to know if there has been any progress on this matter.  It's painful ! 

 

[Warren McAlister]

Oh yeah ....  MacOS 10.13.6     Publisher 1.10.1

 

Also ... Post print .. I need to close Publisher totally ( not just the current document )

Then reopen  Publisher  .....  all is good .... Text rulers 'a plenty .... until any print ..... poof !    No you see 'em  now you don't .. Bye bye Text Ruler

etc

Cheers

Warren

 

[PaulEC]

I can confirm this, although if you hide the text ruler before printing you can show it again afterwards.

[Warren McAlister]

Thanks PaulEC.  Wont behave for me.  Even if I turn Text Ruler off before print it disappears until close & re-open.   Bugger !

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Warren McAlister said:

Hi there,   I may be late to this Text Ruler party .... But just wanted to add my discovery ... Printing to pdf or physical printer will subsequently kill the Text Ruler EVERY TIME on my system.

Would love to know if there has been any progress on this matter.  It's painful ! 

 

The original reported problem was a user error.

I recommend you create a new topic in the main Publisher bugs on Mac forum for your problem, so it gets tracked properly.

[Warren McAlister]

Thanks Walt.  Will do .  Cheers

 

[kevinmcsherry]

Very frustrating. No Frame Text Ruler for me either.

[walt.farrell]

41 minutes ago, kevinmcsherry said:

Very frustrating. No Frame Text Ruler for me either.

You're using Affinity Designer. The Text Ruler is an Affinity Publisher function.

[v_kyr]

On 4/7/2022 at 9:56 PM, walt.farrell said:

You're using Affinity Designer. The Text Ruler is an Affinity Publisher function.

Well, I show some prefs hack here how one could enable FrameText rulers for the other Affinity apps like APh & ADe then too. - I'll demonstrate that under MacOS here since that's what I have & run Affinity apps on. Further since I'm too lazy, I will show it only for APh here, but it should be equally for ADe too.

PRE-NOTE: On a MacOS system Affinity Preferences settings are stored in OS related binary "plist" files (aka binary representations of XML-files), so in order to read/write and perform changes to such binary "plist"-files, the right tools have to be used. Usually one would use Apple's Xcode in order to manipulate and change a binary "plist"-file, but there are also some easier to use third party editor tools available, which can showup and edit binary "plist"-files in an easier to use fashion (without the need of Xcode).

PRE-NOTE2: UnderWindows systems doing the same should be much easier, since there (on Win) you usually just deal with text based XML settings files, so no binary versions of those, which eases the overall changing process.

Ok let's start to enable FrameText rulers for APh under MacOS now.

1. On my MAS APh version the preferences "plist"-file to alter can be found under the path ...
   
   --> /Users/username/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist
   
   ... since we will modify that file, we will fill first make a backup of the original "com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist" file and work on a copy of that one.
    
2. We have to open and edit the above file copy with some binary format capable "plist"-file editor (aka Xcode or some third party editor)
   and look inside that file for a key/value pair which initially reads "ShowFrameTextRuler/NO", the value type is a boolean here, so ...
   
   Key = ShowFrameTextRuler   Type = Boolean   Value = NO
   
   ... which we will now just change into ...
   
   Key = ShowFrameTextRuler   Type = Boolean   Value = YES
   
   
   
   
    
3. Now after saving our changed "com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist" file, we copy that over to the original file location, namely ...
   
   --> /Users/username/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto/Data/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist
    
4. Finally we start APh and look what happens when we use any FrameText inside our APh documents ...

 

That's all to it folks!

 

 

[walt.farrell]

17 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

PRE-NOTE2: UnderWindows systems doing the same should be much easier, since there (on Win) you usually just deal with text based XML settings files, so no binary versions of those, which eases the overall changing process.

Or on Windows you may be dealing with binary .dat files with no possibility of converting them to human-readable forms like you an on Mac. Some files are .xml, but many are .dat.

I do not know for sure, for this one, whether it is a .xml file or a .dat file (but I think it is a .dat file if I remember prior experiments correctly).

In either case, Serif have previously mentioned that modifying the internal files this way is not an intended nor supported function.

[v_kyr]

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Or on Windows you may be dealing with binary .dat files with no possibility of converting them to human-readable forms like you an on Mac. Some files are .xml, but many are .dat.

I do not know for sure, for this one, whether it is a .xml file or a .dat file (but I think it is a .dat file if I remember prior experiments correctly).

If it is a binary .dat preference file for Win and has a magic number of "{{magic|00FF4B41}}" for the first 4 bytes (hex values) in it, then it is an Affinity file format based file. And of course it's also possible to read/alter/edit that file format, if you know how to do it. The Affinity apps themself do nothing else here, when you as a user toggle or change any of the apps pref options, the event will be triggered and the corresponding settings files will be updated too accordingly.

5 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

In either case, Serif have previously mentioned that modifying the internal files this way is not an intended nor supported function.

Take the above more as a proof of working concept here and thus, that the other apps (aka APh & ADe here) also do support and can (or could) handle frame text rulers (they even have and support the prefs option flag). - So the only thing missing for them is, a corresponding associated/connected menu entry for toggling on/off the frame text rulers. But who knows, maybe that menu option will be also added in future updated APh & ADe versions.

[kevinmcsherry]

On 4/7/2022 at 8:56 PM, walt.farrell said:

You're using Affinity Designer. The Text Ruler is an Affinity Publisher function.

Yes, you're right. Silly me. Thank you Walt.

[kenmcd]

12 hours ago, v_kyr said:

And of course it's also possible to read/alter/edit that file format, if you know how to do it.

How do you edit Windows .dat files? I have tried to do this in the past for another situation and could not find how to open/edit.

[v_kyr]

9 minutes ago, LibreTraining said:

How do you edit Windows .dat files?

Depends on the origin and used file format since a bunch of apps & services do use textual or binary .dat files. - See also:

• What Is a DAT File (and How Do I Open One)?

In case of an Affiniy file format related binary file here, those ones can be identified by a BOM/magic number of ...

• first 4 bytes of hex = 00FF4B41

... and you need specific routines (code) which can parse it's file structure then.

[kenmcd]

5 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Depends on the origin and used file format since a bunch of apps & services do use textual or binary .dat files. - See also:

• What Is a DAT File (and How Do I Open One)?

In case of an Affiniy file format related binary file here, those ones can be identified by a BOM/magic number of ...

• first 4 bytes of hex = 00FF4B41

... and you need specific routines (code) which can parse it's file structure then.

Thanks. Have done quite a few searches.
I have not been able to find a way to extract the .dat files now used in MS Office 2019+ ISOs.
That is other than just installing them in a VM.

[Patrick Connor]

Any modification of the installed files or any enabling of functionality that is not enablable using options within the application will invalidate any support Serif offer on your applications. Changes are made completely at the users risk.

[v_kyr]

On 4/13/2022 at 5:06 PM, Patrick Connor said:

Any modification of the installed files or any enabling of functionality that is not enablable using options within the application will invalidate any support Serif offer on your applications. Changes are made completely at the users risk.

Yes, usage is on an users own risk here and nothing which is supported or recommended by Serif at all (also not by using the "Apple defaults system" here then instead) . - People should be aware of that, especially unexperienced Mac users and the like shouldn't try out, or go that route at all!