Table functions not yet usable with page layout

[Ulderico]

First of all, I am a mostly content user of your complete product suite and I am glad, that there is finally an alternative to the overprized competition products. So, thanks for the great wok so far.

But yesterday I tried to use the table feature in APub and was really disappointed.

As the first one thing currently it is not possible to use the tables within a text frame. I usually edit a table as part of the normal text flow. If I have a longer table, which spreads more than one page I would expect, that APub supports me with page breaks. But sadly there is not text wrapping support at the end of each page (or text frame). So, I have to cut the table in pieces and insert the pieces in the text manually. After some editing or designing in preceding pages, the work begins again … Perhaps not a bug, but a real impediment for professional usage of the table feature. I hope this feature advancement is part of the product backlock yet.

A real bug is the behaviour of the table, when in the underlaying page or text frame the baseline grid is enabled. The table rows strictly uses the baseline grid, which is fine, but the table does not care about the row ends and crosses out the rows randomly (s. screenshot 1& 2).

According, the result of the function „Zeile automatisch an Inhalt anpassen“ (something like „adjust the row height automatically“?) is mostly unpredictable and sometimes jumbles the text lines (s. screenshot 3 & 4).

With baseline grid switched off the text in the table ignores most of the paragraph properties at the beginning and at end of each row (notably the distance to the next paragraph). So, as far as I am now with APub feature research, there is no chance to get a professional layout for the table text at all – except maybe complete manual layout of each text line … but seriously? (s. screenshot 5)

Edited June 14, 2020 by Ulderico

[Gabe]

Hi @Ulderico,

There's no bug here. You're using the "global" Document baseline grid and not the Baseline Grid inside the Text frame option: https://affinity.help/publisher/de.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Panels/textFramePanel.html?title=Das Panel "Textrahmen"

[Ulderico]

Hi @Gabe,

thanks for the fast answer and sorry for my quitness, I had to finish the project, before I could check your answer in detail.

First of all: There are no distinctions between different kinds of baseline grids in the documentation, at least in the german version. Thanks to your hint I did understand now, that I can combine as many different baseline grids as I want for different overlapping objects - for which purpose ever.

But IMHO the main purpose of the baseline grid is, to keep all the text lines in sync in the whole document including e.g. table rows and except specific lines, where I switch the baseline grid explicitly off (for example for picture captions).

As you can see in the screenshots I added the baseline grid and the table functions interfere with each other in a non consitent manner: The row border does not reflect the end of the line, crosses the text and ignores other paragraph details. This is getting worse, when I use more than one baseline grid. I only could get the text flow to work, when I fully switched off the grid and defined the line alignment manually - than I do not need the baseline grid at all in tables.

So, if the bevahiour is technically spoken no bug, because it perhaps works as designed, the behaviour is futile and hindering this way. Than please think about redesigning it.

Thanks, Ulderico

 

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Ulderico said:

First of all: There are no distinctions between different kinds of baseline grids in the documentation, at least in the german version.

You find it in @Gabe's link in both the screenshot + in the description (last topic on this page)

Whereas the Table Panel has its own Baseline Grid section and settings:

... which is in the Help for the Table Panel's screenshot unfortunately collapsed but mentioned in the text description, too.
 

@Gabe, @Pauls, @Patrick Connor,

In the online Help is an issue in the URL for 'Table Panel', German version:
• The 'correct' URL jumps to the Help start page:
https://affinity.help/publisher/de.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Panels/tablePanel.html
• The wanted page (TablePanel) gets a link to a different topic (TextFramePanel):
https://affinity.help/publisher/de.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Panels/textFramePanel.html?title=Das Panel "Textrahmen"

Also you might consider to unfold the "Baseline Grid" section in the Table Panel screenshot (English, too).

[sfriedberg]

I want to return to Ulderico's original point, which is that tables do not play well with the global baseline, rather than critique the documentation.  I agree with his point completely, to the point where I usually set tables to ignore baselines (global or from the surrounding text frame) because the results are terribly erratic, and simply live with table rows not being uniformly aligned with the body text.  There may be a successful recipe that involves setting table cell insets to zero, or something like that, but so far I have not had both the time and the inclination concurrently to search it out.

So the point is that the "out of box" experience is frustrating, ugly and to be avoided.

[thomaso]

11 hours ago, sfriedberg said:

I usually set tables to ignore baselines (global or from the surrounding text frame) because the results are terribly erratic, and simply live with table rows not being uniformly aligned with the body text. (...) So the point is that the "out of box" experience is frustrating, ugly and to be avoided.

I don't now a recipe either but it seems to help understanding what's influencing what if you consider the total number of six possible properties which may even contradict each other, and to inspect their actions one by one.

So it appears to be best, at least as a start, not to use/activate/set all of them but to choose the relevant to achieve a wanted design. Since the baseline grid does override the other settings it may be wise not to use it unless necessary.

I occasionally experience redraw issues while adjusting table properties, so it also may be useful in case of an unexpected occurrence to slightly move the zoom wheel to force a redraw. I am not aware whether this was reported already in the bugs forum. – See redraw issues at 0:33–0:37 min and 1:00–1:04 min in this video: