Working with single pages AND facing pages

[boffey69]

I have just migrated from Quark to the Affinity publisher. In quark I used to work with facing pages (at least I used facing page masters), but had the ability to separate some spreads into single pages when needed. Is there a way of doing this in Publisher? I used to simply drop Master-A on the the rh side - either next to the LH page or on the row beneath (see attached) which is what Im looking to do here.. I'd often work with a run of left hand pages (with the occasional spread) in the earlier stages of production before copying and pasting into the final document - the reason being our adverts go on the rh page.

[MEB]

Hi boffey69,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
There's no way to do the same in Affinity Publisher currently. I've moved this thread to the Feedback for Affinity Publisher on Desktop section.

[Petar Petrenko]

On 6/22/2020 at 1:46 PM, boffey69 said:

In quark I used to work with facing pages (at least I used facing page masters), but had the ability to separate some spreads into single pages

I'm just curious. What is the purpose of rearanging the pages in Quark like this?

[fde101]

2 hours ago, Petar Petrenko said:

What is the purpose of rearanging the pages in Quark like this?

Yeah, I don't quite get that either.

 

On 6/22/2020 at 7:46 AM, boffey69 said:

the reason being our adverts go on the rh page.

If all you are trying to do is apply a different master to one side or the other, you can do that in Publisher without separating the spreads.  Simply drop a master on one side or the other of the spread in the Pages panel instead of dropping it in the middle.  Watch the outline around the page you are dropping onto to see what is being targeted.

[Bobbob]

I'm with the OP on this. It can be useful, if not strictly necessary, to go backwards and forwards between single/double spreads. This is an area that Publisher doesn't handle well imho. 

And no, I wouldn't arrange pages out like that in Quark either, but I would appreciate the freedom to be able to do so.

[Rob Luxford]

I have had to do this for printing pages on different stocks, for designing single page separator pages in books, for work in progress document structure design, for document separation.  There are quite a few uses for it. Currently I have very deep website pages 2000px by 10,000 px which I want to view side by side but not have as left right "spreads". Which is why I arrived here. 

[fde101]

On 4/25/2021 at 10:23 PM, Rob Luxford said:

I have had to do this for printing pages on different stocks

A bit lost here.  How would this make any difference given that you would still typically export as individual pages into the PDF which goes to the printer, meaning that whether the pages are split or together in the layout arrangement they would still export the same way?

Asking mostly because this is new to me and wondering what I am missing in my understanding of how this would be done...

[Petar Petrenko]

On 6/22/2020 at 1:46 PM, boffey69 said:

I have just migrated from Quark to the Affinity publisher.

I'm just currious. If yours master "B" is totally empty, why don't you use master page "None", instead? It would be more obvious which pages are empty.

[Rob Luxford]

15 hours ago, fde101 said:

A bit lost here.  How would this make any difference given that you would still typically export as individual pages into the PDF which goes to the printer, meaning that whether the pages are split or together in the layout arrangement they would still export the same way?

Asking mostly because this is new to me and wondering what I am missing in my understanding of how this would be done...

Hi fde101. It's an interesting aspect of our relationship to these tools and our own work practices and the tools we have for production. And the more capable the software the more creative ways we invent to use the software. So while I can totally relate to what you wrote and in the most part you would be right there's always going to be someone who asks us for something fabulously unique. 

So in the instance I mentioned regarding pages on different stock for a training manual. Some pages, like say stiff fold out dividers, may be printed directly from the software to an in house printer. The book pages exported to PDF as singles to view for out of house printing. Do I want to cut the document up into separate parts or would I prefer to keep it in one file. I like the one file. Visually I want to see those breaks represented in the document for my own peace of mind.

I'm currently designing websites using ridiculously long pages (don't ask why, its a client and developer relationship with special needs). If I can slam the pages side by side I can cross check the information/design across the site/pages. Then go back to single pages for editing and client export/presentation. I also do tiny perfume labels 20mm x 15mm in runs of 6 kinds by 20 copies only. Have found the multiple up export feature with manual crop marks an absolute boon for imposing onto the A4 vinyl stock my digital printer has. 

Now I'm not saying everyone follow me but the muted cry I hear through this thread is that we require as much flexibility as possible. 

I think there are lots of deficiencies in the layout palette. Try moving pages around in a 250 page document. Ouch. Why not multiple columns of thumbs? Many things in the pages palette I do like. So I imagine over time there will be improvements to the palette and I am hoping the shuffling of pages to side by side will come. 

 

[dominik]

6 hours ago, Rob Luxford said:

Why not multiple columns of thumbs? 

Hi @Rob Luxford,

simply try to make the page thumbnail panel wider by dragging with the mouse its right end to the right.

Page thumbnails flow in multiple columns and rows.

d.

[Wosven]

On 7/2/2020 at 6:26 PM, Petar Petrenko said:

I'm just curious. What is the purpose of rearanging the pages in Quark like this?

In 2020 I would have asked the same question.

But recently I had to resize a document made by others, and they spaced the pages to have only one halve left or right facing pages.

It was done so because each page use a lot of objects, a lot of going behond the page's area, left and right, and this way it was easier to move them (objects and/or pages). Some pages were independent single pages, but others when constructed as double pages, with items flowing from the left to the right page. (Those were more difficult when needing to move items at the same position when they flow on the left and right pages, but are separated.)

Since some pages were independent in design (nothing flowing to the next one), they could be moved around to be ordered differently if it was the client's wish.

This structure was good for creating the document, at least the single and independent pages. Since the objects can be moved around without problem, and overflow what should have been the next page area.

Once exported, you get a regular PDF.

Done in AP it would look like this (without the objects):

[Petar Petrenko]

9 minutes ago, Wosven said:

It was done so because each page use a lot of objects, a lot of going behond the page's area, left and right, and this way it was easier to move them (objects and/or pages).

Wouldn't it be easier if the document was set up as single pages, not facing ones?

[Wosven]

1 minute ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Wouldn't it be easier if the document was set up as single pages, not facing ones?

Wouldn't the PDF be a single pages document instead of a facing pages document?

And this way, it was easier to clip the grouped elements inside a rectangle of the page size, add/remove bleed inside the facing pages to put them side by side and adjust the objects perfectly (since there was lot of them, it wasn't possible to just paste them in the other page to get them at the same position, too many objects above or under... I didn't have time to spend hours moving and checking that everything was in the right order in a layout I didn't created and know enough).

[Petar Petrenko]

36 minutes ago, Wosven said:

Wouldn't the PDF be a single pages document instead of a facing pages document?

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I meant Quark document, not PDF.

[Wosven]

55 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I meant Quark document, not PDF.

I would have gain nothing with non facing pages, having them visible help when working.

And in ID and QXP, you can move pages around to have them facing. I needed this at some point to align objects.

Notice that a PDF exported from a single pages document won't display pages as in a book, and since the feature exist, I tend to use it for my document when needing the PDF to display correctly, for the client and my own viewing.