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Automation on Affinity Publisher


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Hello, 

I have not bought a copy of Affinity Publisher yet. I wish to know if there's a way to automate task or import a csv into the software. I wish to layout notebooks of around 100 pages, each page is identical, except for: eg. A different quote (or a different clipart) at the exact placement with the same font and format. Can this task be automated or coded (I just learned some basic Python) in Affinity Publisher? 

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3 minutes ago, Foundx said:

Hello, 

I have not bought a copy of Affinity Publisher yet. I wish to know if there's a way to automate task or import a csv into the software. I wish to layout notebooks of around 100 pages, each page is identical, except for: eg. A different quote (or a different clipart) at the exact placement with the same font and format. Can this task be automated or coded (I just learned some basic Python) in Affinity Publisher? 

Some of what you want is simple using Master Pages with the correct placement of text frames and the use of Paragraph Styles and then the Quotes can be placed by using a single text file but the images would need to placed by hand.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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33 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Some of what you want is simple using Master Pages with the correct placement of text frames and the use of Paragraph Styles and then the Quotes can be placed by using a single text file but the images would need to placed by hand.

Thanks Bruce. Do you mean I can import a single text file with 100 rows of quotes and name of the person, and it can be split into 100 pages in the master page format?

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1 minute ago, Foundx said:

Thanks Bruce. Do you mean I can import a single text file with 100 rows of quotes and name of the person, and it can be split into 100 pages in the master page format?

For example, if I set the master page to look like this, can I easily import a list of quotes and a list of famous people who said that quote and they can appear correctly on each page?

Screenshot_20200824-020437_Chrome.jpg

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I am going to watch this topic as I want to do something very similar and would love to have titles for all these photographs I want to lay out in a book, one per page, auto populated to a text field beneath each image. I hope someone can explain if this is possible and if so how (in layman's terms!)

Thanks!

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20 hours ago, Foundx said:

For example, if I set the master page to look like this, can I easily import a list of quotes and a list of famous people who said that quote and they can appear correctly on each page?

You would set up a Paragraph style (I would name it) The Quote one of the attributes must be to start in a new frame and another must be that the Next Style is Author and one of the attributes of that is that the next style must be The Quote. This works for two paragraphs per page. You have "You can change the world by being yourself" and "Yoko Ono" as your two paragraphs.

A text file with the format of 

Quote

Person

Different Quote

Name

... etc.

is generated by what ever software, your original question of importing a coma separated values file would need to be fixed so instead of comas there are paragraph returns. The text file in imported into the Publisher document and all the text is selected and now for the fun part you select The Quote in the Styles by right clicking on It and choose Apply "The Quote" then next style from the context menu.

882202532_ScreenShot2020-08-24at8_04_18AM.png.5df6a6aabbacc9fb4c2ea6b38196ad63.png

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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2 hours ago, Phil_rose said:

Oy vey, that looks hard but I'll give it a try. Thanks!

The above example only really works for text files with two (2) paragraphs per page/column/frame. If you have some where you need more than 2 Paragraphs you need the same number of styles and they all have to follow one another. 

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If you have some where you need more than 2 Paragraphs you need the same number of styles and they all have to follow one another. 

Perhaps you could use tags at the start of each paragraph, and then use Find and Replace to assign the actual Paragraph Text Styles?

-- 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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46 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Perhaps you could use tags at the start of each paragraph, and then use Find and Replace to assign the actual Paragraph Text Styles?

That is my preferred way of working with average text but I think for a bulk import of text from a CSV file this is easier. Different cat so to speak.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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3 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

That is my preferred way of working with average text but I think for a bulk import of text from a CSV file this is easier. Different cat so to speak.

It just seemed that if one is getting into multiple text styles, with the need to set them up for "apply x then next style" as you mentioned, that things start becoming complex in the style definitions. (I like your solution, by the way.)

Tagging might alleviate some of the setup issues, and substituting a few Find/Replace operations with a (perhaps) smaller set of text styles might be worth the experiment.

-- 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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