paste style scaling

[Tokamak]

I'm having a problem with styles and the artistic text tool. When I paste a style, it is trying to be clever and scale the style, but that is not the expected or desired behavior.

Example: 

* Make artistic text object at 12pt, apply 2 pixel border

* Copy to clipboard

* Make new artistic text object at 24pt

* Paste FX

The new object now has a border of 4 pixels. But I hecking said 2 pixels and I meant 2 pixels. XD

 

There is the same issue with other objects. I'm using embedded images as comic panels, and they all need to have the same width border. But I can't use copy-paste FX, because it will automatically scale the border based on whatever the scaling of the image object is. I don't mean if I scale afterwards. That I would at least understand. But it just goes ahead and scales it based on whether the image is set to 100% or 75% or whatever, so I have to manually adjust the styles for each one, one at a time, so the borders are all the same actual width.

 

There has got to be some way around this; to get styles to paste as I set them, not at whatever scale affinity guesses I'm going to want. Am I missing something?

[prophet]

Can we ask what application you are using?

[Tokamak]

Whoops! Sorry, that's key information. I'm using Affinity Designer for Windows.

[lepr]

This broken program behaviour affects all current Affinity apps and it has been acknowledged by Serif representatives for many years. It would not be difficult to fix, but there appears to be a ceaseless stream of other things that are given higher priority by the management, and so I'll not be surprised if there never is a fix.

 

[prophet]

Seems to work as expected for me, but I'm on the Mac. Maybe should move this to the Windows-specific bugs section of the forum.

 

[Andy05]

28 minutes ago, prophet said:

Seems to work as expected for me, but I'm on the Mac. Maybe should move this to the Windows-specific bugs section of the forum.

 

Screen_Recording_2020-12-15_at_4_22.30_PM.mov

You didn't paste the fx, you pasted the style. Hence, your text is no longer 24pt. 

Hence, I can confirm: the bug persists on Windows if you copy'n'paste the FX (not the style, which is something completely different).

[prophet]

Ah, I see now. What the OP means is they used Outline from the Effects menu, not the Stroke width, to apply the border.

I can also confirm that the Outline effect scales up with the new, larger Artistic text (weirdly my 2px outline on 12pt text scaled up to 6.2px on 24pt text. I would have expected it to be 4px)

[Tokamak]

1 minute ago, prophet said:

Ah, I see now. What the OP means is they used Outline from the Effects menu, not the Stroke width, to apply the border.

I can also confirm that the Outline effect scales up with the new, larger Artistic text (weirdly my 2px outline on 12pt text scaled up to 6.2px on 24pt text. I would have expected it to be 4px)

That is correct. I am using the "Effects" menu to set "Outline"

[prophet]

Different strokes (pun intended). Is there a particular reason to use the Effect rather than the stroke? I'm a vector guy and have never had much call for a raster outline, but would be interested in hearing a use case.

[Tokamak]

14 minutes ago, prophet said:

Different strokes (pun intended). Is there a particular reason to use the Effect rather than the stroke? I'm a vector guy and have never had much call for a raster outline, but would be interested in hearing a use case.

In this case I am taking images made elsewhere and using them as comic panels, not vectors. And with the text, there is no "stroke" option.

[prophet]

Hmmm, maybe I'm not visualizing well, but I can put strokes on images, vector clips, picture frames and artistic text. Which gives the added benefit (and what you seem to be looking for) of copy/paste styles easily across as many objects as I want.

[Tokamak]

... I did not know you could do that. AFAIK in photoshop (which is what I came from) you have to use the "effects" menu.

 

Since I'm only using outline, and not any of the other effects, I believe that does solve my problem. Thank you!

[prophet]

Well, you've come from Photoshop to Affinity's "Illustrator equivalent" Designer, so you've got some extra vector options.

Happy to help.

Bonus tip: while there is no apparent Stroke panel in Affinity Photo, you can use the context toolbar to achieve a "vector" stroke on a placed image or shape. Vector in quotes, since it behaves like the regular Stroke in Designer or Pub, but will obviously be rasterized.