Selecting text frames

[rjav]

I'm new to Affinity Publisher after decades with Pagemaker/InDesign and approached it with enthusiasm but it is driving me mad. The latest frustration is selecting a text frame. I have nearly finished a 16 page two-column publication and needed to make a text correction. However, I could not select either the text or the text frame. Usually the frames are highlighted in blue but the two frames on this page were red. I looked at Lock and Unlock All but that made no difference. I was able to delete the frames, then drew new ones and reflowed the text. Now, when I try to select text in the lefthand column, text in the righthand column is highlighted. As I said, it's driving me mad. Can anyone suggest what is going wrong?

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Possibly:

 

[rjav]

First of all, thank you for the responses. I understand I am back at the beginning of the learning curve (which, after decades of experience, is deeply frustrating) and so I have to come to grips with a new program and the Forum is reassuring.  I am still using v1.8.5.703: I decided not to upgrade to 1.9 until I got this document finished.

Yes, some of the text frames had a stroke applied. I don't know how this happened because other frames don't have a stroke but I did start with an InDesign template from a previous publication and so this might be a factor. 

That seemed to fix the problem and I was able to make the text correction I needed to. However, when I returned to the document a few hours later, nothing seems to have changed. In the screen grab (Affpub grab 1), you can see the text box at lower right is selected (big blue dots in the midpoints and corners); however, what I have clicked on is the text box (column) at the left. I then held down the Alt key and clicked again on the lefthand column: the small text box to the left was selected. I clicked again on the same  lefthand textbox (still holding down the Alt key) and this time the lefthand text box was selected. The same three steps enabled me to select the second text box on the left so I could adjust the paragraph spacing.

(I also don't know why the screen grab I first saved came in at 15 Mb: the upload failed and I'm sorry but I don't know how to delete it from this form. There's no "remove attachment" icon.)

Being able to select the page element you want rather than letting the program choose one for you seems to be pretty fundamental and so I need to get to the bottom of it.

[rjav]

Looks like the failed upload took care of itself

[carl123]

5 minutes ago, rjav said:

you can see the text box at lower right is selected

Recheck that text box to see if the text has a stroke on it. This bug can occur many times in a document

Also, be advised that this bug has already been fixed in 1.9.1 but I understand your reluctance to upgrade until you finish the document

[rjav]

Yes, you're right -- despite the fact that I fixed that earlier today (I'm in Adelaide, South Australia, where it is 7:55 pm summer time).

And there's the reason to not delay the upgrade!

Thank you.

My next enquiry will concern ensuring all grayscale pages have no colour on them -- in other words, how can you check CMYK separations before sending a PDF to a printer. 

[rjav]

I have upgraded to 1.9.1.979 and the selection of page elements is now better behaved

And the answer to my other question appears to be that the only way to check CMYK separations is to use the Output Preview in Acrobat Pro -- something the Serf people might like to think about