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Converting between Artistic Text and Frame Text is not a function that is offered by Affinity. The menu item you're trying to use lets you convert shapes (rectangles, etc.) into text frames.

To convert Artistic Text to Frame Text you'll need to select it, Cut, draw your text frame, then paste.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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You're welcome.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...

Just for the devs: This is a major stumbling block to new users. 

  • It's easy to make an Art Text box instead of a Text Frame because they both use the same keyboard shortcut, `t` (same as InDesign's text box). 
  • The signifiers that differentiate the Artistic Text and Frame Text tools aren't strong enough. Same goes for the layer icons. Compare the Artistic Text 'A' to Microsoft Word's WordArt icon. Now that's differentiated! 
  • The only thing that differentiates the boxes on the page is a single dot.
  • The two behave the same until you try to resize them. 
  • If you use the wrong one, the only way to fix it is to remake it. There's no conversion tool.

I just made masters, precise layouts (Bringhurst's golden section grid on ISO), running headings, page numbers, sections, table of contents, and columns for a 46-page prospectus only to find out (once I started putting in real content) that I used the wrong kind of text box. This is not the kind of initial experience you want users to have. 

It'd be good for everyone if there were an easy way to convert Art Text boxes to Frame Text boxes.

Edited by Merchako
grammar typo
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16 hours ago, Merchako said:

It's easy to make an Art Text box instead of a Text Frame because they both use the same keyboard shortcut, `t` (same as InDesign's text box). 

Are you aware that you can change that? Open the Affinity app preferences to Keyboard Shortcuts; select "Tools" in the second popup; & change one or both of the shortcuts to something else; or just remove the "T" shortcut for one or the other of them.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 2 months later...
On 5/18/2020 at 4:34 AM, walt.farrell said:

Converting between Artistic Text and Frame Text is not a function that is offered by Affinity. The menu item you're trying to use lets you convert shapes (rectangles, etc.) into text frames.

To convert Artistic Text to Frame Text you'll need to select it, Cut, draw your text frame, then paste.

I'm with Boroji on this! Virtually all of my text input is, well, text, and I very often need to change the size of the text frame without affecting the text size. I'm kind of amazed that Designer's efficiencies don't include a toggle or similarly efficient way to do this.

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18 minutes ago, Ant Rhonda said:

I'm with Boroji on this! Virtually all of my text input is, well, text, and I very often need to change the size of the text frame without affecting the text size

Then why not use Frame Text, which allows both behaviors, depending on which handle you use to resize the frame?

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Then why not use Frame Text, which allows both behaviors, depending on which handle you use to resize the frame?

Because the older version of AI I use doesn't HAVE anything resembling "Artistic" text, only positional variations and the abiity to draw a text frame. "A" is the Designer default  and I was caught flatfooted. Never occurred to me that the > mark would show me anything but path, vertical, etc variations. When I had to make logos I used a combination of a graphic and path text.

A "Designer for Dummies" or "Design Traps for AI Emigrants" manual might be useful. The (too simple to be obvious) Designer way of handling artboards gave me some trouble too.

 

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4 minutes ago, Ant Rhonda said:

Never occurred to me that the > mark would show me anything but path, vertical, etc variations.

If you mean the triangle at the bottom right of some of the tool icons in the Tools panel, note that if you just click & hold on one of them briefly, a menu pops up showing you all the tools in that group so you can select any of them. The selection is 'sticky,' meaning that tool will remain the one selected in that group until you change it.

You can also customize the Tools panel so if you want, you can have separate icons for the Frame Tool & Artistic Text Tool, (& for any other tools that by default are grouped) & increase the number of columns in the panel.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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This is a design failure, and no amount of training will be sufficient to fix it. The pitfalls of modes are well-understood, and Frame Text vs Artistic Text is a second-order mode. @R C-R is offering advice that beginners will never see, and @walt.farrell is blaming users for the product's shortcomings. 

Quote

Modes can cause a range of usability problems, including mode slips (occurring when the user is not aware of the currently active mode) and low discoverability of mode-specific features.

Mode slips happen because the system doesn’t clearly indicate its status to the user, violating the very first of the 10 usability heuristics.  Mode errors have been a longstanding problem in our discipline, and, especially in complex systems, can have deadly consequences.  Famously, in 1991, a plane crashed into a mountain due to a mode error — in different modes, the same control could be used for either the degree or the speed of descent, but it was not sufficiently clear which mode was currently active.  Tragically, the pilot’s intention of a 3.3-degree descent angle was interpreted by the system as a negative vertical descent of 3,300 feet per minute — all because the same control was used to enter these numbers and the dashboard didn’t have a clear mode indicator. 

Modes in User Interfaces: When They Help and When They Hurt Users, Nielsen Norman Group

Sure, Adobe Creative Suite has similar second-order modes with their cursor tools, but that doesn't mean it's a good decision. Affinity has an opportunity to be free from the we've-always-done-it-this-way impasse of Adobe. I hope they'll take it.

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15 minutes ago, Merchako said:

This is a design failure, and no amount of training will be sufficient to fix it. The pitfalls of modes are well-understood, and Frame Text vs Artistic Text is a second-order mode. @R C-R is offering advice that beginners will never see, and @walt.farrell is blaming users for the product's shortcomings. 

I agree that Affinity should have a feature to convert artistic text to frame text but the bigger challenge for those coming from InDesign isn't the lack of a conversion feature, it's that frameless text is a new concept given that InDesign lacks this feature entirely. The first time you accidentally create artistic text in Affinity it can feel like you fell down a rabbit hole, and it's really easy to switch tools without meaning to.

Those familiar with Illustrator and Photoshop won't be blindsided since they have this feature (called Point Text) but those apps let you convert between types if you mess up. Also, Adobe's approach in those apps is a bit different than Affinity - they have a single tool so you click to create Point Text or drag to create Paragraph Text. Affinity has separate tools because if you drag to create Artistic Text it will create text at that size rather than using the current default text size. Both approaches have their pros and cons and I don't think either is necessarily superior. But as you pointed out, a conversion feature would be helpful, at least from artistic to frame text. It would be difficult to convert frame text to artistic text in a publishing app. It works in Illustrator and Photoshop only because they have such limited frame text features - imagine if a user tried to convert a 3-column frame that was linked to previous and following frames.

For now it's easy to work around if you start with the wrong type. Just copy the text as Walt suggested and draw a new frame. And I second RCR's suggestion - if you don't use Artistic Text regularly, remove the two extra T shortcuts (for Artistic Text and Table) to prevent accidents.

RCR also suggested customizing Tools (View > Customise Tools) which is a great idea. By default there are separate Frame Text and Artistic Text tools. You can remove Artistic Text entirely if you never want to see it again, or you can remove both and substitute the fly-out combo tool. I highlighted the combo tool in this screenshot, it's the A with the little arrow in the corner. While this combo tool defaults to Artistic Text when you first add it to Tools, it's sticky so once you choose Frame Text from the fly-out it will stay there, even if you quit the program and restart. (Note: If you've previously used this combo tool it may be a T icon with an arrow, the combo tool icon reflects the last-used state even if it's no longer in Tools. Even the Reset button won't change it back to the factory default A with an arrow.)

image.png.24cc96676c54703fe4ddfdc9c84e80a4.png

Download a free manual for Publisher 2.4 from this forum - expanded 300-page PDF

My system: Affinity 2.4.0 for macOS Sonoma 14.4, MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro)

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3 hours ago, Merchako said:

@walt.farrell is blaming users for the product's shortcomings. 

Is it not the users' shortcomings if they do not learn what tools are available and how the tools work in a new app they purchased?

 

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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10 hours ago, Merchako said:

and @walt.farrell is blaming users for the product's shortcomings. 

No, I'm not blaming anyone. I just believe that it's appropriate to have some knowledge of the applications that one is using, and the tools available.

Some users (Note: I am not meaning anyone specific here) I have met over my long career in computers and software design seem to feel that everything must work like everything else, or that everything must be entirely intuitive and self-explanatory. They react with horror at the idea of needing to use tooltips to figure out what something is, or Help to figure out how something works, or to read the manual (when one is available).

I don't.

I started my experiences with the Affinity applications by watching all the basic tutorials. And when I want to use a tool that is new to me, I read its Help, or watch some more tutorials. And so I know the difference between Artistic Text and Frame Text, and when to use which of them, even though my prior applications did not have those tools.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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15 hours ago, Merchako said:

@R C-R is offering advice that beginners will never see...

Once, we all were beginners, myself included. I discovered how the Tools panel works on the first day I tested the trial version of AD. All it took was wondering why some of the tool icons had small triangles & others did not, so after a few experimental clicks, it became obvious that the triangles indicated several tools were sharing the same spot on the Tools panel. Shortly after that, I noticed the "Customize Tools..." item in the View menu, so I tried it & discovered all the choices that gave me.

It's more or less the same for a lot of other features of this & other software. Often, all it takes is a little experimentation to see what a few UI elements do to get a general idea of how many of them work.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

No, I'm not blaming anyone. I just believe that it's appropriate to have some knowledge of the applications that one is using, and the tools available.

Some users (Note: I am not meaning anyone specific here) I have met over my long career in computers and software design seem to feel that everything must work like everything else, or that everything must be entirely intuitive and self-explanatory. They react with horror at the idea of needing to use tooltips to figure out what something is, or Help to figure out how something works, or to read the manual (when one is available).

I don't.

I started my experiences with the Affinity applications by watching all the basic tutorials. And when I want to use a tool that is new to me, I read its Help, or watch some more tutorials. And so I know the difference between Artistic Text and Frame Text, and when to use which of them, even though my prior applications did not have those tools.

 

Being a compulsive studier of manuals (and jar labels and ingredient statistics and.. and...), I've spent some hours with the help manual/utility and didn't find it all that useful (for instance is it possible to permanently uncheck "auto distribute?" No info.), nor have the video tutorials touched on my particular problems (so far).  And why spend a half hour (or 5 minutes) watching a video tutorial that covers about 20 seconds of reading? Especially if the instructions were like Merchako's posts: concise, accurate, invariably useful not just for the current problem but in understanding how Affinity works.

I hesitated for quite some time before deciding that despite Affinity's gaudiness (as in the space-consuming and not very informative gaudy squares, circles, triangles on the top toolbar) we could work together. Like many if not all of us I dearly hope to free myself from Adobe's greedy tyranny forever, starting with Design and Photo. So far, the differences between the two programs have been overwhelmingly in Affinity's favor despite a few glitches. Especially with the informed and helpful forum members here to help!

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  • 9 months later...
  • 1 month later...
5 hours ago, mstr said:

Ridiculous, it works for Publisher but not for Designer...

It does work in Designer on macOS but the command is only in the Layer menu, not the context menu. I can't speak to the iPad version.

 

Download a free manual for Publisher 2.4 from this forum - expanded 300-page PDF

My system: Affinity 2.4.0 for macOS Sonoma 14.4, MacBook Pro 14" (M1 Pro)

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1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

can't speak to the iPad

I can't see it in the iPad version. Neither in the Help, nor in the layer menus nor context menus.
One workaround is to open the document in Publisher and do the conversion there. Which seems to imply they simply forgot to put the menu point into Designer.

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1 minute ago, Dybkjær said:

Which seems to imply they simply forgot to put the menu point into Designer.

Or that they intentionally want this to be a feature only available in the iPad version of APub, in much the same way that certain other features are only available in one or two of the apps.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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41 minutes ago, Dybkjær said:

I'm currently mostly using Publisher, and am somewhat unsure for which purposes Designer would be better/needed.

Some users may need only the features available in AD V2 for iPad & would not want to have to buy any other version.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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