Linking text on paths

[chyno]

Hi! Please, is it possible to create links between texts on paths in Publisher/Designer? I plan to use it for larger chunks of text so I'm trying to make the workflow effective.

Thanks!

[loukash]

You mean text flowing from one text path to another?
Not as if you would be linking text frames, but "visually" it's possible:

1. create multiple curves as you see fit
2. Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves – to make them one object
3. Artistic Text Tool > convert the merge curves object to text path

You will need to experiment how to manage the text flow then…

[chyno]

47 minutes ago, loukash said:

You mean text flowing from one text path to another?
Not as if you would be linking text frames, but "visually" it's possible:

1. create multiple curves as you see fit
2. Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves – to make them one object
3. Artistic Text Tool > convert the merge curves object to text path

You will need to experiment how to manage the text flow then…

Thanks, that actually looks promising! And don't you know how to disable double-sided text on a path? I know that one can move the text boundaries but that can get quite annoying with a lot of paths.

[loukash]

10 hours ago, chyno said:

how to disable double-sided text on a path?

Insert line breaks.

[chyno]

Thanks! Not an ideal solution, but still more usable.
I must say I really appreciate responsive community around affinity. 🖤

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, chyno said:

Not an ideal solution, but still more usable.

Yeah. I don't remember when InDesign got the feature to link text on paths, but CS5.5 can do it. I've used it a few times, every now and then, together with a crazy little script called "Humane Type" from beetroot.gr that will convert text frames into individual lines of text, each line on a path. Brilliant! No idea if it's still available for download somewhere, though.

[chyno]

28 minutes ago, loukash said:

Yeah. I don't remember when InDesign got the feature to link text on paths, but CS5.5 can do it. I've used it a few times, every now and then, together with a crazy little script called "Humane Type" from beetroot.gr that will convert text frames into individual lines of text, each line on a path. Brilliant! No idea if it's still available for download somewhere, though.

Great suggestion! I didn't know about them.
It's still available and works nicely: https://labs.beetrootdesign.com/?pro=humane
Sorry about promoting adobe-related products here, I still like affinity though, but one has to choose the right tools to get the job done.

[loukash]

56 minutes ago, chyno said:

one has to choose the right tools to get the job done

Definitely!
As I have already posted elsewhere just recently, I wouldn't use Affinity for any print jobs if I still didn't have a working installation of Acrobat (and the rest of my old CS bunch) to double check any PDF/X coming out of Affinity.

That said, I just had in idea, and… that's pretty weird:

1. create "humane text" in InDesign
2. export IDML
3. open IDML in Publisher
4. the paths are linked!

WTF?!

[chyno]

Hm, interesting, it's there -- just hiding... so it might be just a matter of time until the devs build up an interface around it. 👍

[loukash]

Yes. The feature is there in Affinity, but no UI to access it.
Not sure if this is a bug or just a "lazy omission".

For what it's worth, the current "ugly workaround" would be to create a "template" of linked text paths in InDesign, save as IDML, import to Publisher and save as an asset "template" for future use. Make sure to create enough linked paths in advance because you can always remove them later but you can't add/link more in Affinity.

So… here's a quick'n'dirty IDML A4 template with straight lines to get us going. You can always alter or hide any of the curves in Affinity as you see fit using the Text Frame panel, as well as style any text to your liking.

linked_text_on_path.idml

[chyno]

25 minutes ago, loukash said:

Yes. The feature is there in Affinity, but no UI to access it.
Not sure if this is a bug or just a "lazy omission".

For what it's worth, the current "ugly workaround" would be to create a "template" of linked text paths in InDesign, save as IDML, import to Publisher and save as an asset "template" for future use. Make sure to create enough linked paths in advance because you can always remove them later but you can't add/link more in Affinity.

So… here's a quick'n'dirty IDML A4 template with straight lines to get us going. You can always alter or hide any of the curves in Affinity as you see fit using the Text Frame panel, as well as style any text to your liking.

linked_text_on_path.idml 58.51 kB · 1 download

That's great, thanks! I really appreciate your help!

[Dan C]

21 hours ago, loukash said:

Yes. The feature is there in Affinity, but no UI to access it.
Not sure if this is a bug or just a "lazy omission".

I'm logging this with our developers, as far as I'm aware we don't directly support this feature so it's certainly interesting to see the IDML parser is able to create these - I'm not 100% certain if you should be able to create linked path texts in Publisher and this is a bug, or if our developers chose not to implement this as a feature and instead allows .IDML imports to retain these as otherwise it could import a document that looks far from the original InDesign file.

I'll be sure to follow up here with any feedback I receive from the devs regarding this

[loukash]

12 minutes ago, Dan C said:

if our developers chose not to implement this as a feature

If so, why would they?
It obviously works – literally, haha – out of the box. All it needs is the clickable "flow text" triangle on the object bounding box as with any other text frame.

And even if there were any stability (?) "issues" that may go with it, come on: we've been through worse, and we're still eagerly and (not so) patiently waiting for many of those other issues to be fixed, right? (Boolean operations, anyone?)

12 minutes ago, Dan C said:

'll be sure to follow up here with any feedback I receive from the devs regarding this

Thanks!

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, loukash said:

And even if there were any stability (?) "issues" that may go with it, come on ...

I think for all but the most casual users, stability is the single most important 'feature' the apps should have because without it, it is too easy to lose work.

So no, please do not add this or anything else until/unless it does not have any adverse effect on stability!

[loukash]

1 minute ago, R C-R said:

do not add this or anything else until/unless it does not have any adverse effect on stability!

If they would follow this advice to the letter, we may just as well end up using TextEdit and Preview…

[R C-R]

5 minutes ago, loukash said:

If they would follow this advice to the letter, we may just as well end up using TextEdit and Preview…

It is nowhere near that bad. If it was, nobody would use the Affinity apps for anything other than for the most trivial, least important projects.

[Dan C]

Unfortunately I have been informed we have no plans to implement this as a user feature currently, though I was not provided more information than this at this time.

[sfriedberg]

Well, 👍 for giving us the news, 😒 for the news itself.

[loukash]

18 hours ago, Dan C said:

"we have no plans to implement this as a user feature currently"

That sounds as if this is supposed to be the "big feature" for v2.0 then.

Oh well.
Enjoy my IDML template, folks:  linked_text_on_path.idml