Text [box] styling

[Peter Tucker]

Hi Everyone

I've been a book designer [Penguin Books] since I care not to remember suffice it to say I had to specify type for hot metal compositing and have progressed through the early-day horrors of Linotype cold metal through PageMaker, QuarkXpress, InDesign and now Affinity Publisher, a sterling job has been done, but there are a number of missing features I just cannot bend Publisher to my will!!

I have problems creating a text box to contain a "Pull-Quote" I want a 1pt rule above the text and a 2pt rule below the centered text. That was possible ...

That results in the rule above and below to conform to the width of the associated text lines. What I cannot do it to force the rules to extend to the edge of the containing frame.

[walt.farrell]

Assuming you're using Paragraph Decorations, just set the Left and Right values to Column rather than the default of Text:

[Joachim_L]

If you need a different stroke width for top and bottom you cannot do this with a single paragraph as there can only be one stroke width defined per paragraph. In the attached example I used a second paragraph.

[MikeW]

7 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

If you need a different stroke width for top and bottom you cannot do this with a single paragraph as there can only be one stroke width defined per paragraph. ...

Probably misunderstanding you.

24 minutes ago, Peter Tucker said:

...

I have problems creating a text box to contain a "Pull-Quote" I want a 1pt rule above the text and a 2pt rule below the centered text. That was possible ...

That results in the rule above and below to conform to the width of the associated text lines. What I cannot do it to force the rules to extend to the edge of the containing frame.

I've attached a sample.

pull-quote.afpub

[walt.farrell]

18 minutes ago, Joachim_L said:

If you need a different stroke width for top and bottom you cannot do this with a single paragraph as there can only be one stroke width defined per paragraph. In the attached example I used a second paragraph.

You can define multiple decorations. Just use one for the top, and a second decoration for the bottom, and you can then specify different weights for the rules.

[Peter Tucker]

Thanks for the replies, i worked out you can have two different weights one for top and one for bottom by adding a second decoration.

What I cannot do is to extend the rule decoration to the extremity of the containing frame. It will conform to the actual width of the text.

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, Peter Tucker said:

Thanks for the replies, i worked out you can have two different weights one for top and one for bottom by adding a second decoration.

What I cannot do is to extend the rule decoration to the extremity of the containing frame. It will conform to the actual width of the text.

Try this... make the Pull Quote's text frame wider and make the Pull Quote's Paragraph Style to have a text offset on the left and right.

[MikeW]

23 minutes ago, Peter Tucker said:

Thanks for the replies, i worked out you can have two different weights one for top and one for bottom by adding a second decoration.

What I cannot do is to extend the rule decoration to the extremity of the containing frame. It will conform to the actual width of the text.

Did you look at the sample APub doc above?

These are the setting for Dec 1, same with Dec 2...

[Peter Tucker]

Hi MikeW,

Many thanks, I must admit I'd assumed the Left and Right were referring  to the vertical decorations. I was lost in Translation!!

Now working perfectly.

P

[Peter Tucker]

Thanks too to Walt Farrell and Joachim_L for your input, really helpful.

I feel more confident with all your support. Watch out for more questions!

[MikeW]

48 minutes ago, Peter Tucker said:

...Now working perfectly.

P

You're most welcome. Glad it's sorted out. 

[Joachim_L]

Thanks to everybody and I have to apologize for being wrong. Yes, multiple Decorations with different settings are possible. At first I was only thinking of them as independent sets not applyable to the same paragraph. Nice effects can be done here, like double lines or dotted lines on a different background to name a few.

If you want to stack the lines, Decoration 1 is the bottom decoration, Decoration 2 next one higher and so on. Is there a limit for decorations? After 237 decorations I lost interest.

 

[Peter Tucker]

I have an additional question to this, I have tried a search but not found an answer.

A text box, with 2 columns containing captions for pic below I want a fine box rule above extending to full box width  to separate the captions from the main body text.

I've mocked up using a horizontal rule in the screen grab ...

 

[walt.farrell]

22 minutes ago, Peter Tucker said:

I have an additional question to this, I have tried a search but not found an answer.

A text box, with 2 columns containing captions for pic below I want a fine box rule above extending to full box width  to separate the captions from the main body text.

I've mocked up using a horizontal rule in the screen grab ...

I'm not sure if the strikethrough indicates you've figured out the answer, or if it was a mistake in formatting your post

In any case, I think you will need to draw a line (horizontal rule) to accomplish that. Note that once drawn, you can adjust its position and then Pin it to your text (Or, perhaps, Group it with the Text Frame) to make sure it stays with the text if things move around.

 

[Peter Tucker]

Hi Walt, thanks yes the strikethrough was an error!

Yup the grouping of horizontal rule with the text box was my bodge, but it will work ...

[Joachim_L]

Doing it with decorations: Let's say each column has 50 mm and the gap 5 mm. So the left indent has to be 0 mm (column) and the right indent has to be -55 mm (column).