Publisher: How To? Sequence of consecutive frames pinned to a body text location.

[sfriedberg]

I have a rude technique for inserting several consecutive display frames, where the beginning of the sequence is pinned to a position in the body text.  I am looking for 1) a more convenient workflow, and 2) a more reliable way of breaking at the end of a body text frame.

Working on a document with lots of display equations.  For each display equation I am using a floating text frame with text wrap set to jump, pinned to the appropriate line of body text.  Inside the display equation frame, I have pinned an SVG image to the equation number text contained in the floating text frame.

To get a sequence of display equation frames to break, I introduce empty paragraphs, pinning 2nd and subsequent frames to successive empty paragraphs.  Working with empty paragraphs is painful.  Working with all-but-invisibly small empty paragraphs in the absence of a story editor is far worse.  I do have a style applied so I can quickly enlarge them.  I am unable to get paragraphs of true zero height, even when leading, space before and space after are all set to zero, as AffPub's minimum font size is 1pt.  So I have small gaps between my frames, but it's acceptable in this case.

Now, one reason I had to introduce empty paragraphs is that text wrap jump frames only exclude each other on the basis of the text, not any nested images.  As the only text inside the display equation frames is the equation number, when you simply put the pins in the same location the frames overlap substantially.  It makes no difference if I set the nested image to text wrap square or leave it at text wrap none.  (Square to allow the equation number to display properly.) Apparently the text wrap property of the nested image only affects the content inside the frame (which is sensible).

The defect in my rude technique is that if there is room for the equation number AffPub places the display equation frame, regardless of what the image might overlap.  Indeed, it frequently runs over the end of the body text frame and overlaps the footer frame.  I've attached a one page example of this problem.  Both the footnote and the footer are in separate text frames from the main body text frame, which definitely ends higher on the page than the footnote frame.

So, I am looking for 1) a more convenient workflow, and 2) a more reliable way of breaking at the end of a body text frame and flowing to the next linked body text frame.

frame_break_example.pdf

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[sfriedberg]

Not sure if this is what you wanted, but here's a zip archive of unformatted text and a bunch of images from the example.  The text is just from the linked body text frames; the footnote content, etc., isn't included.

TR1_content.zip

[lacerto]

Thanks, sorry, I meant a pageful of Affinity Publisher publication!

[sfriedberg]

I don't know how to separate out just one page (other than printing it out as in frame_break_example.pdf attached above).  So here's the whole affpub.

TR1_stripped_down.afpub

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[Wosven]

Nice, I had the same approach but was stuck trying to get the equation to the same level as the numbers (x). Modifying the numbers was it! (and the pining offset and borders)

Using this trick, it's possible to keep text on the grid. A full exercice would be to do full chapters, but I'll keep the idea for a really boring and annoying day

TR1_stripped_down_alternate2.afpub

[sfriedberg]

Oh, thank you, Lagarto.  A substantially different workflow is exactly what I was after, so this is quite useful!

And Wosven, I will be comparing your approach with Lagarto's to see what more I can learn.

[Wosven]

I just modified @Lagarto's file, since it was less messed up than mine (another main difference is that the second tabulation I used was a right indent tab), but didn't add it in his file.

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[sfriedberg]

I have been a long-time Ventura Publisher user, limping with Ventura 10 along since Corel abandoned it.  I formerly created equations in VenPub's internal equation editor or with external equation setting tools.

I have LibreOffice, but don't use it for long-format documents for the same reasons I didn't use Microsoft Word. Regarding LibreOffice Math specifically, I don't like their internal equation language, v6.4.1 won't import MathML files containing just a <math> element properly ("general I/O error") and won't export image files of any sort, so I've not bothered to use it seriously.

It's purely happenstance that I never picked up LaTex in the last 35 years.  Recently I have been re-tempted to learn it, due to the potential of MathJax integration.  (When MathJax processes a web page, it recognizes inline LaTex escape sequences similar to PHP escapes, but not MathML which must be in explicit <math> elements.)  I've either used old-school Unix document prep tools (anyone remember troff, bib, eqn, tbl, pic, and so on?), or various WYSIWYG interactive tools for equation setting.  Because I am quite comfortable with XML-structured documents, I also hand-edit MathML even though it's regarded as a "write-only" file format.

[Added in edit] While equations are a big part of some of my documents, I work on a bunch of other things with no equations at all, but lots and lots of frames.  I don't know if you are at all familiar with table-top role-playing games, but a typical page in an RPG rule book is positively encrusted.  I've attached a simple example without sidebars or inserted artwork.  This is not my work, showing it under copyright fair use doctrine as it's the subject of this discussion.  You need a real layout program for stuff like this, not a word processor.

Still new to AffPub, so my workflow is "what I can get to work".  As you saw, not everything I try is satisfactory.

As I've said elsewhere on these forums, I don't think I've ever been involved with a long format project that didn't involve at least 10% text changes.  So I am not a big fan of the "never start layout until you have the final text" philosophy.  The guys over at Scribus take it far too rigorously, to the point of excusing pitiful pinning and anchoring capabilities as "unnecessary because you will only lay it out once, front to back, then you're done."

Preparing to move over to AffPub, I went looking at various MathML based tools that could be evaluated without paying an arm or a leg.  There are many.  MathType is clearly the commercial gorilla, but I don't like their subscription model nor their prices. I tried out MathMagic, MathCast and MathML Weaver Formulator.  For my purposes, MathCast was a dud, and Formulator was clearly the best of the three, but I still have to go in and hand-edit the MathML occasionally when the WYSIWYG doesn't DWIW (the built-in text editor is nice, but could be improved), and I dearly wish it exposed the typographic adjustments that MathMagic does.

I export SVG from Formulator.  Despite setting the same font and point size in Formulator as I'm using for body text in AffPub, I have to reduce imported SVG images to 75% to get character heights to match. Formulator doesn't set viewBox, so the <svg> element width and height attributes are the only sizing available for import.  Changing the zoom level in Formulator changes the SVG image size!  But there is no zoom level in Formulator that corresponds to actual font size!!!  (Aside: Many, many SVG generation tools are either very confused, very opaque, or very inflexible about how they deal with the SVG viewBox attribute.)

Sord_Pf_sample_page.pdf

[sfriedberg]

Well, it looks like trying to extract a sample page broke Acrobat!  Will try to find another example.

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[MikeW]

@Lagarto

i cannot start APub at the moment. Does APub have the ability to set the alignment of a paragraph to top/middle/bottom of the baseline?

When I do equations in Q, I use Middle for the equation graphics and then the sequence number also aligns to the middle of the equation automatically. 

If not, it would make a good request. 

Ok, back to cleaning and cooking...

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[MikeW]

1 minute ago, Lagarto said:

I have not noticed and could not find it when I now checked, might just have missed it. A convenient feature, I wonder if I have missed in InDesign, as well!

From memory, ID can as well. I haven't used ID for math book since 2012, though, so I could be mistaken. 

[Wosven]

Hi,

This is my file (my brain loves problems while having coffee… sometimes it gives good results, sometimes it mess everything)

TR1_stripped_down2.afpub

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[sfriedberg]

Nearly a year later, I have a tip to relate.  This technique was not working for me on a particular document.  Specifically, adjacent paragraphs with pinned tables and/or diagrams were overlapping.  I tracked it down to setting a Exactly leading on the paragraph style.  When paragraph leading is set to either Default or "At least" the intended leading, then things behave properly, at least with baseline grid set to the intended leading.  Presumably an Exactly leading disregards the height of all objects in the paragraph.  Knowing about this could save some time and frustration.

More detail:  I had a group of paragraph styles with font size 12pt and leading Exactly 15pt.  The paragraph style in question inherited both properties from the group.