Text wrap problem

[DarkClown]

Maybe the following problem is not seen as a bug by the developers - still it leads to problems or confusion. I'm designing a document that consists of a simple text and a frame the text is supposed to wrap around. Part of my "Design" is that the text consists of some sentences where the words are NOT seperated with spaces, comma or any kind of interpunction. So it's a continuous stream of letters. This text breaks nicely at the end of the text frame but will not wrap around other frames. When I start adding spaces and interpunction all works fine as expected. Any idea how to overcome this problem?

 

 

 

Cheers, Timo

[MikeW]

I would probably insert line breaks at an appropriate place in the text to allow lines the right length to appear beside the wrap object.

The screen show is in Q, but it'll work the same in APub.

[DarkClown]

That would work, but you can't move the frame after that any more without having to change all the line breaks again ... 

My current solution is to have 2 or 3 text boxes with floating text that spare out the box I want to wrap the text around .... 

 

[walt.farrell]

Text wrapping relies on spaces or breaks. If you don't want to add breaks you could add zero-width or thin spaces at appropriate spots. Yes, if you move the frame you may need to rework things, but you could simply leave the old spaces in place and add new ones where appropriate, which might be a simpler change.

[MikeW]

1 hour ago, DarkClown said:

My current solution is to have 2 or 3 text boxes with floating text that spare out the box I want to wrap the text around .... 

I assumed you wanted a single text frame. Wrong assumption. 

I would normally also use X number of text frames as well. 

[DarkClown]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Text wrapping relies on spaces or breaks. If you don't want to add breaks you could add zero-width or thin spaces at appropriate spots. Yes, if you move the frame you may need to rework things, but you could simply leave the old spaces in place and add new ones where appropriate, which might be a simpler change.

I realised that as well. Since my text has no spaces it would have been nice if breaking the text around a frame would work the same way as within the original textframe (here the text breaks perfectly anywhere). If I need zwero-width I would need to add one after each letter to get the desired effect.

@Mike: Yes, a single frame would have been the preferred solution. Now I have to simulate the text wrap by adding multiple frames and connecting them. Results in inconsisten line spacing between the frames.

[MikeW]

38 minutes ago, DarkClown said:

I realised that as well. Since my text has no spaces it would have been nice if breaking the text around a frame would work the same way as within the original textframe (here the text breaks perfectly anywhere). If I need zwero-width I would need to add one after each letter to get the desired effect.

@Mike: Yes, a single frame would have been the preferred solution. Now I have to simulate the text wrap by adding multiple frames and connecting them. Results in inconsisten line spacing between the frames.

The zero width character might be able to be inserted via grep. I'm still buried in Q as edits are coming in so cannot try.

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, MikeW said:

The zero width character might be able to be inserted via grep.

It can.

Find: (.)
Replace: \1#

where the # represents a zero-width space. Right-click in the replace field, and choose it from the pull-down.

[MikeW]

6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It can.

Find: (.)
Replace: \1#

where the # represents a zero-width space. Right-click in the replace field, and choose it from the pull-down.

Hah. Never got back to trying it. Thanks, Walt!

[Gitta]

Herr Timo Bierbaum,

zwei beigefügte Dateien für Sie zum »Schnuppern«, eine Afpub- und eine PDF-Datei, die Sie nach etwaiger Einsichtnahme freilich im Papierkorb versenken können. 

Grüße, Gitta

ScriptioContinua.afpub (16,7 KiB)

ScriptioContinua.pdf (23,3 KiB)

[DarkClown]

@Walt: Sorry to ask, but I have no experience with GREP ... And since GREP is not available on windows I hope I'll manage to replace the functionality with findstr .... (supposed to be quite close to GREP) or I'll try the replace function in Notepad++ since it allows regular expressions. I do understand that (.) stands for every character in the search option. But than I have to first add this character in the "Replace" field plus adding the "zero-width space" code for Publisher (what I don't know)? Since you seem to be quite familiar with RegEx can you help me out here?

@Gitta,

Ich halte es für besser weiter Englisch zu schreiben, damit andere die Diskussion mitverfolgen können

thanks for the interesting example! Seems like you added a zero-width space after each word. As Walt described above it must be possible to automate this action with grep (never tired that before). The result is impressive and the behaviour is mostly as hoped for. If you turn of hyphentation and add <zwsp> between each letter that might lead to the desired result.  In that case even left justified text should look OK.

Thx for the effort!
Cheers, Timo

[MikeW]

Windows version also can do grep.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, DarkClown said:

Sorry to ask, but I have no experience with GREP ... And since GREP is not available on windows I hope I'll manage to replace the functionality with findstr .... (supposed to be quite close to GREP) or I'll try the replace function in Notepad++ since it allows regular expressions. I do understand that (.) stands for every character in the search option. But than I have to first add this character in the "Replace" field plus adding the "zero-width space" code for Publisher (what I don't know)? Since you seem to be quite familiar with RegEx can you help me out here?

Regular expression processing is available in Publisher for both Mac and Windows, Timo.

A command processor named grep is also available outside of Publisher if you've installed/activated the Windows Subsystem for Linux, but just stay on Publisher

In the Find and Replace plan select Regular Expression from the options.

In the Find field, (.) matches any printable character, and captures whatever character it matched.

in the Replace field, \1 or $1 will substitute the character that matched. Then you right-click on the Replace field Then, you click on the Replace pulldown and insert a zero-width space from the context menu choices you're given.

Edited March 24, 2020 by walt.farrell
Sorry; it wasn't a right-click but a click on the pulldown.

[DarkClown]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Regular expression processing is available in Publisher for both Mac and Windows, Timo.

A command processor named grep is also available outside of Publisher if you've installed/activated the Windows Subsystem for Linux, but just stay on Publisher

In the Find and Replace plan select Regular Expression from the options.

In the Find field, (.) matches any printable character, and captures whatever character it matched.

in the Replace field, \1 or $1 will substitute the character that matched. Then you right-click on the Replace field and insert a zero-width space from the context menu choices you're given.

Uups, sorry, my mistake ... I wasn't aware publisher had it build in ... great!!
And now things behave exactly as I expected it to be.
Once you got it it's not such a rocket science any more. On the other hand I wouldn't have figured that out that easily myself.
So thanks for your sound input - very much appreciated!

@Mike: I checked again and indeed found a grepWIN version!

Cheers, Timo

 

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome, Timo.