Pinned graphics distort when copied with text to another document

[Bob Grahame]

I am working on a book and have been practicing layout using APub. The practice document contains reference graphics gather from the web. I pinned them into the text. Along the way I decided to make a different document to try a few things. I copied the text with pinned graphics into a text box in the new document. The images distorted into vertical coloured lines. Next I tried copying the text box containing the text and the pinned graphics. The results were the same. This happens with all the graphics in the document.

MacBook Pro 15 (upgrade RAM, SSD, etc.)

MacOS X 10.15.5

APub 1.8.3

[Jon P]

Hi @Bob Grahame,

Are the images embedded in the document? If so can you upload them here?

Thanks

[Bob Grahame]

Attached is a three page sample document. I copied the contents of the pages from the main document. As I mentioned, these are images from various sources on the web for reference only.

Pinned_Images_copied_test.afpub

[Jon P]

I can definitely see what you mean in that file, but I'm struggling to reproduce this from scratch, I'm curious if you create a new document and perform the steps in your OP if you get the same behavior every time?

[carl123]

For what it's worth if you change the document format to RGB all the images appear and they are maintained when you change it back to CMYK.

This also occurs if you just change the CMYK colour profile and change it back

@Bob Grahame Was the original document also created with CMYK and the associated default colour profile?

 

[Bob Grahame]

That is interesting. I changed the color and the images came back. I also was unable to reproduce the problem in two new documents, so I'm not sure what happened. I guess if it can't be replicated, the problem can't be fixed.

It has been a number or years since I last did any serious document construction. Even back in the old days with QuarkXPress, I seem to remember that a document could have various images which would get flagged at preflight. I'm guessing that when I export to PDF (Press Ready) in APub, I can choose CMYK and select Covert Image Color Spaces.

I'm doing a book in print and eBook. I'm not entirely sure how to create one from the other and which to construct first. My attempt here was to come up with a design, get myself acquainted with how to layout the book, and get get more familiar with APub. So I actually hadn't paid much attention to the images, since some may be replaced with original illustrations. At this point, I'm not sure if the book will have any color, so the eBook would be RGB and the book would be greyscale.

[Jon P]

Quote

I guess if it can't be replicated, the problem can't be fixed.

This is indeed the case, although it's not the first time I've seen images render like this. Carls observation about the colour mode fixing it is interesting, but I've poked around this area and not been able to reproduce anything at all. If you see it again let us know.

Quote

I'm guessing that when I export to PDF (Press Ready) in APub, I can choose CMYK and select Covert Image Color Spaces.

You can indeed do this

[thomaso]

On 6/30/2020 at 2:28 PM, Jon P said:

I can definitely see what you mean in that file, but I'm struggling to reproduce this from scratch, I'm curious if you create a new document and perform the steps in your OP if you get the same behavior every time?

I seem to able to reproduce this occurrence with a new document:

1. New .afpub > RGB + Prefer Embed
2. Link two text frames on two pages
3. Place + Pin images
4. Select on 1 page the text frame > copy/paste to different .afpub (CMYK)
5. Select on the other page the text frame and copy/paste

It seems to be related to (caused by?) the linked text frames (text flow) on 2 different pages (one can select objects of 1 page only at a time). It did not occur with just a single text frame and pinned items. I could fix this weird image look again by Carl's trick of switching from CMYK to RGB. I did not test with other or same color spaces for both documents. Possibly the cmyk/rgb switch simply forces a special kind of redrawing the images, while the color spaces aren't actually involved in the issue?

The basic document, with selection for the 1st copy/paste action:

v183 pinned RGB.afpub

The pasted result, with the 2nd pasted object selected:
 

 

 

[Jon P]

Thanks @thomaso, 

Good investigative work! I didn't think linked frames would play a part in it, but I can reproduce the issue following that recipe.

I've logged this now

[thomaso]

Here an additional screenshot with layer panel after 2nd paste action (here: right page). Note that the first paste did paste its pinned 3 images only, whereas the 2nd paste did place all 4 images (the 3 first another time):

This again makes me think the culprit are the linked text frames, not the images at all. Also interesting: the 4th image (the one of page 2) gets pasted with its layer set to invisible, though this image here should be the only visible one.

[Lorox]

I, too, just encountered problems with pinned objects: in my case the pinned objects were just snippets of "artistic text“ (a simple "www" and an opening quotation mark set in 60 pt and 120pt respectively).

No problems at first: the pinned objects flowed with the text correctly – no matter if I added or deleted the odd line or a chunk of text for testing. Just as it should. Then, however, after having decided to set my text to align with the baseline grid I had to adjust the height of my textframes and as a result my "floating" (as opposed to "inline") pinned objects became visibly distorted. As these objects definitely float outside the text frame – while pinned, however, to some character inside – I find this quite surprising (and annoying, actually). Why do they become affected in terms of scaling, when another object which they are only connected to in terms of position is modified?

Any ideas about how to understand /avoid this behaviour?

_

Affinity Publisher 1.9.3 on Mac (Mojave 10.14.6)