paragraph style bug?

[LindaYVR]

I am having issues with paragraph styles. I expected them to work like inDesign or Word -- to click on text and apply the style, or update the style. Click on another button to erase formatting. 

When I place my insertion point at the beginning of the first line of a paragraph in body style, and enter delete, I expect the line to move up and close the gap from the paragraph above. But no, it acts like I hit return, and body style changes to no style. 

Similarly when I delete a line of bullied or numbered points I am unable to close the gap by hitting delete. I have to convert to Body, then convert again to the list.

When I copy bullet points from one section and add them to another paragraph, then change the bullet points to Body, the space between paragraphs is not maintained, and it's a real hassle to get the 6pt space to work that is part of Body style.

When I copy text from a Quarkxpress 2018 generated PDF, the text has huge leading, and does not conform to the style I select in body, or bulleted list. It has taken 8 hours to format a doc that should have taken 1 hour. 

[sfriedberg]

6 minutes ago, LindaYVR said:

When I place my insertion point at the beginning of the first line of a paragraph in body style, and enter delete, I expect the line to move up and close the gap from the paragraph above.

Really?  I would expect that to simply delete the first character of the paragraph.

Now, if you meant place the insertion point at the begining of the first line of a paragraph and enter backspace, then I would expect the previous paragraph and the one where you placed the cursor to be merged into a single paragraph, with the style and properties of the one where you placed the cursor.  The reason being that backspacing from the beginning of a paragraph will erase the paragraph mark/break of the preceding paragraph.

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, sfriedberg said:

with the style and properties of the one where you placed the cursor.

I would have expected it all to have the style and properties of the paragraph above the one where the cursor was placed.

But I agree that one would use Backspace, not Delete.

Or, one would put the cursor at the end of the prior paragraph and press Delete.

[LindaYVR]

I should have mentioned I use a Mac. We don't have a backspace.

[walt.farrell]

Just now, LindaYVR said:

I should have mentioned I use a Mac. We don't have a backspace.

Well, you did post it in a Mac forum, but some of us may not know all the fine points that might imply.

But to be clear, if you put the cursor between the b and the c in abcd, and press Delete, the b would be deleted?

[LindaYVR]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Or, one would put the cursor at the end of the prior paragraph and press Delete.

Okay I get it. That works. Thanks Walt.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[sfriedberg]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

I would have expected it all to have the style and properties of the paragraph above the one where the cursor was placed.

I swear I've had it happen the other way several times, but I just did a very quick and dirty test.  Two consecutive paragraphs with different styles, and deleted the paragraph break at the end of the 1st paragraph.  The behavior is as you say, not as I said.

There are some quirks to styling in Aff Publisher I have not completely sorted out.  In particular, there are occasions where the paragraph style gets removed but matching character overrides get applied, making it appear the paragraph style is still present.  I have been baffled at least a half-dozen times by this, usually when I go to apply a new paragraph style and nothing changes (due to the overrides).

[LindaYVR]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

But to be clear, if you put the cursor between the b and the c in abcd, and press Delete, the b would be deleted?

A
B
C

If I put cursor after A and select B, it deletesI If I put the curser on C to delete B I get a big gap. If I put the curser on the gap and press delete it acts like a return and I get a bigger gap. If I keep clicking delete on the gap it closes and the style changes. Definitely not used to working this way.

Sfriedberg or Walt do you know how to deal with my other issue? When I copy text from a Quarkxpress 2018 generated PDF, the text has huge leading, and does not conform to the style I select in body, or bulleted list.

[LindaYVR]

9 minutes ago, sfriedberg said:

I have been baffled at least a half-dozen times by this, usually when I go to apply a new paragraph style and nothing changes (due to the overrides).

What is the solution? Remove all overrides?

[sfriedberg]

That's what I end up doing, yes.  Then applying the new paragraph style again.

Sorry, I don't have a lot of experience with bringing in pre-formatted text from other apps.  I usually bring in raw, dumb, unformatted keystrokes.

[LindaYVR]

I have formatting problems even when copying a perfectly formatted page in a Publisher doc (imported from Quark PDF), to another Publisher doc. The new doc does not keep the formatting.   Ridiculous.

[walt.farrell]

12 hours ago, LindaYVR said:

do you know how to deal with my other issue? When I copy text from a Quarkxpress 2018 generated PDF, the text has huge leading, and does not conform to the style I select in body, or bulleted list.

If you'd care to provide the PDF, and tell us what text you're copying, we could do some experiments. The .afpub file after the copy but before you do anything else could also help.

[walt.farrell]

13 hours ago, LindaYVR said:

A
B
C

If I put cursor after A and select B, it deletesI If I put the curser on C to delete B I get a big gap. If I put the curser on the gap and press delete it acts like a return and I get a bigger gap. If I keep clicking delete on the gap it closes and the style changes. Definitely not used to working this way.

That's not what I asked

I asked about putting the cursor between b and c in abcd (just that string; not separate paragraphs as you tried). I was attempting to confirm whether Delete deletes the character before or the character after the cursor for you. It should (I think) always delete the character after the cursor. Also, don't select anything; just place the cursor, and press Delete.

What you need to be doing, for what you want to accomplish, is deleting the paragraph break. On Windows that requires either:

• deleting the character after B (in your example), which would involving positioning the cursor after B and pressing Delete,  or
• the character before C, which would involve positioning the cursor before C and using Backspace.

[garrettm30]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I asked about putting the cursor between b and c in abcd (just that string; not separate paragraphs as you tried). I was attempting to confirm whether Delete deletes the character before or the character after the cursor for you. It should (I think) always delete the character after the cursor.

For some clarification to help, what is called "backspace" on many Windows keyboards is instead called simply "delete" on many Mac keyboards, but it does exactly what you would expect the typical backspace key to do. Extended keyboards on Macs also have a delete key as you are used to near the page down key (but the exact position is not necessarily the same). This other delete key on Mac is properly called "forward delete" in the Mac ecosystem, and it is often styled with the "erase to the right" (unicode U+2326) character: ⌦

Here is a helpful image of a Mac keyboard (just like the one in front of me) that calls attention to some notable differences in Mac vs. PC.

Source: the image is linked from this article (which I did not read, by the way): https://www.look4ward.co.uk/technology/11-important-differences-macs-pcs/

Edited October 8, 2020 by garrettm30
Added image source

[LindaYVR]

On 10/8/2020 at 5:10 AM, walt.farrell said:

If you'd care to provide the PDF, and tell us what text you're copying, we could do some experiments. The .afpub file after the copy but before you do anything else could also help.

HI Walt, thanks for offering to look into this issue. As it turns out my problem with leading and styling isn't specific Quark. They also occur when I make edits to an IDML file. When I copy and paste new text, it does not obey style rules. 

CAW import from Quark PDF.afpub Affinity typography problems.afpub

[Gabe]

Hi all,

Issue now logged. 

[Gabe]

We don't have quark here, but if you say the problem appears when you copy/paste from Quark, it's most likely related to the RTF import. Can Quark export RTF files? If so, can you export a file you know for a fact has the issue? 

[LindaYVR]

My problem occurs when I copy and paste from other docs, including Word and PDFs, not just Quark. Quark does not export RTF files. Did you look at the example files I uploaded previously?.

[loukash]

On 1/15/2021 at 10:18 PM, LindaYVR said:

When I copy and paste new text, it does not obey style rules. 

CAW import from Quark PDF.afpub 65.62 kB · 1 download Affinity typography problems.afpub 99.94 kB · 2 downloads

There's apparently a font issue, but there's no such thing as a "-webkit-standard" font that could be activated for Affinity apps, or any other app for that matter:

However, a very quick DuckDuckSearch immediately reveals that it could be a Word issue:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q="-webkit-standard"+"copy"+"paste"

 

[Gabe]

Do you use any clipboard managers? 

[LindaYVR]

I use the Macbook Pro clipboard. I believe I have solved my problem re style rules : specifically leading issues. Somewhere online I learned to turn off "Baseline grid" which had set the leading at 12pt, and now I can control my leading. The weird font "? -webkit-standard" (I am guessing Quark produced it) wasn't the issue. I can change the leading now. 

I had no idea about the Baseline grid setting and since it overrides leading in paragraph styles, I think the Baseline grid option should appear in styles. In other words, put everything related to a paragraph style in one place. Thanks.