Publisher - Guides not showing & Ratio seems off

[Casey WH Chen]

Apologies if these were answered in the FAQ and I missed them.

I am trying to set up column guides that are evenly spaced through Guides Manager. I have tried entering various numbers into columns and rows, changed the gutter value, tried outline and filled for the styles, and tried a variety of colors for each and I still cannot see them. I've toggled Show Guides on and off multiple times and tried restarting Publisher, but no luck. I've checked the tutorial and it seems like I'm doing it right. Drawing guides from rulers show just fine though. Is this just as issue because I'm on the trial version?

Also, the ratio of my page seems off. I'm working on an 5.5"x8.5" document and have held up both a folded sheet of paper and a ruler to the screen, matching it up so that the width is 5.5". However, the height is shorter than 8.5". I have a rather wide monitor, so I don't know if that's the problem. Is there any way to fix this?

[Joachim_L]

50 minutes ago, Casey WH Chen said:

I've toggled Show Guides

And what about View -> Show Column Guides?

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums.
The answer above should fix the problem with Column Guides, however the page ratio is a completely different issue.
I’ve never seen this before so I don’t know what could be wrong.
When you say you are holding a folded sheet of paper up to the screen, are you sure that the folded sheet is the correct ratio?
When you fold a sheet of paper in two the resultant folded size (when rotated) does not always have the same ratio as the original sheet, see attached video.

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, Casey WH Chen said:

Also, the ratio of my page seems off. I'm working on an 5.5"x8.5" document and have held up both a folded sheet of paper and a ruler to the screen, matching it up so that the width is 5.5". However, the height is shorter than 8.5". I have a rather wide monitor, so I don't know if that's the problem. Is there any way to fix this?

Without seeing a screenshot (and, ideally, a sample .afpub file) I'm not sure what the problem is, either.

However, the only time the image on the screen should match the size of the physical sheet of paper is if you've chosen View > Zoom > Actual Size.

[Casey WH Chen]

On 4/1/2020 at 2:16 AM, Joachim_L said:

And what about View -> Show Column Guides?

Thanks, I guess I missed that. 

On 4/1/2020 at 4:14 AM, GarryP said:

Welcome to the forums.
The answer above should fix the problem with Column Guides, however the page ratio is a completely different issue.
I’ve never seen this before so I don’t know what could be wrong.
When you say you are holding a folded sheet of paper up to the screen, are you sure that the folded sheet is the correct ratio?
When you fold a sheet of paper in two the resultant folded size (when rotated) does not always have the same ratio as the original sheet, see attached video.

So I'm working on a 8.5x5.5 in page, which is why I folded an 8.5x11 sheet in half to simulate that size. When I do that AND when I hold up a ruler to my screen, the width matches up but the length is slightly shorter (by about quarter inch). The zoom actually has to be set to 98% to be a perfect match, so I'm not sure if that's part of the issue as well. 

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Casey WH Chen said:

The zoom actually has to be set to 98% to be a perfect match, so I'm not sure if that's part of the issue as well. 

Try View > Zoom > Actual Size. It is not the same thing as 100%.

[Casey WH Chen]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Try View > Zoom > Actual Size. It is not the same thing as 100%.

It puts it at 100%, where now the height of the document is 8.5", but the width is now longer than 5.5". It's like my screen is stretching everything horizontally. My screen resolution is set on the recommended settings though.

 

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, Casey WH Chen said:

It puts it at 100%, where now the height of the document is 8.5", but the width is now longer than 5.5". It's like my screen is stretching everything horizontally. My screen resolution is set on the recommended settings though.

 

I wonder if your screen has pixels that are rectangular rather than square?

That might make it impossible to show both dimensions accurately.

What happens if you rotate the canvas 90 degrees?

[Casey WH Chen]

2 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I wonder if your screen has pixels that are rectangular rather than square?

That might make it impossible to show both dimensions accurately.

What happens if you rotate the canvas 90 degrees?

Same thing, where the height is accurate (5.5 in this time), but the width is longer. Just tried it with Adobe InDesign too and same thing happens, so it seems like it is something with my monitor. I'm assuming there isn't a way to change Affinity's display settings to compensate for this distortion? 

[Old Bruce]

10 minutes ago, Casey WH Chen said:

Same thing, where the height is accurate (5.5 in this time), but the width is longer. Just tried it with Adobe InDesign too and same thing happens, so it seems like it is something with my monitor. I'm assuming there isn't a way to change Affinity's display settings to compensate for this distortion? 

Not to my knowledge, I would go to the monitor manufacturer's website and check for answers there.

[thomaso]

Might your computers OS have a screen resolution set for this monitor which doesn't fit to the monitors hardware ratio?

If you can't judge by the setting you can measure the screen area of your monitor with a physical ruler to calculate its ratio (horizontally / vertically = ratio). The selected screen resolution in your OS should have the same ratio to avoid any stretching.

Instead using a specific format and paper it might be easier to check if the screen view is stretched by drawing a square of any size in Affinity and measure with a physical ruler if a horizontal and a vertical edge have the same lengths.