[Affinity Publisher] How do we update or auto update text frames from docs?

[CoreyHickson]

I have my text frame, and I've added text into it based off of a RTF file.

I did some layout, but then made some updates to my original text document. Now, my Publisher is out of date, but it's not automatically updating like pictures do when I go through the resource manager. What's the best way to update text after I've made changes to it in the source document?

Thanks!

[thomaso]

Text files cannot currently be used as linked in Affinity apps. They are therefore not displayed in APub's resource manager and cannot be updated like linked images or PDF or Affinity documents.

So the best only way to update text is either to reload (place/paste) the text + format it once more or to type the changes to the text within APub, maintaining the formatting.

The current APub beta has a new feature Data Merge which loads text as linked files but it would require a cumbersome workflow to use this feature as a substitute for just one text. It is rather meant for semi-automatic generation of repeated layout patterns, filled with content snippets from a data sheet like .xlsx or .csv.

[cyberlizard]

This is a major drawback of using Publisher.  While Publisher is good for layout and short form text, it's not so good when you have very long documents which may be amended over time.  In its current form, Publisher requires importing of the underlying text for text frames from scratch, which in turn requires re-working styles and layout.

What we really need is some form of linked text files in the same way we make use of linked graphics.  change the file, the system automatically updates the Publisher document.

(I suppose unless you are working with long documents (+20,000 words) you may not need such a feature, but it's a missing feature for many users.))

[connie7671]

I have to echo cyberlizard's comment. I've been combing through the internet trying to figure out how to do what I assumed Publisher could do, now to come across this. 

Often I'm assembling documents (response to RFP for example) where I'm gathering information and content from other project collaborators, who don't have publisher. Ideally they could just develop the text content and at the end I wouldn't have to worry about subtle hard to catch content revisions and just focus on layout, sections headers etc.

[Alex Voss]

Was just looking for this as well. I am hoping to integrate Affinity Publisher into a Docs-as-Code workflow and automated updates of text that has changed are essential. The whole idea of Docs-as-Code is to work in small increments and having to place all text elements again is a real blocker. Since Docs-as-Code favors smaller source documents, the number of text docs that would need to be placed each time would be significant.