Ungrouping, sort of

[Phil P]

I am using Publisher 1.9. I put a rectangle in an image and then drew a text box inside it and added some text.  Now I want to separate the text from the rectangle in order to do some spacing of the text within the text frame, but I don't know how to do that. It seems like the text box with text and the object are now grouped.  How do I ungroup them? Also, the object (rectangle) has 2  little triangles one on the left and one on the right side. What the heck are they? Looks like little handcuffs when I click on them.

[firstdefence]

Welcome to the forum @Phil P

It looks like you have converted the rectangle into a text frame. the triangles are for text flow into other text frames.

https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Text/flowingText.html

[Phil P]

Oh, OK. How did I convert it, and how do I un-convert it?

Thanks!

[firstdefence]

You probably clicked on the rectangle with the text tool,  this is the cursor that will show when you have the text tool selected and you mouse over a rectangle...

as far as I am aware, you cannot revert it back to a rectangle. You can go back in the history panel to the point it was a rectangle.

[Phil P]

Yes, I wanted to insert a text box inside the rectangle. (I wanted to write text in the rectangle). I thought that was how it was supposed to be done. Oh, for a manual.

Can it be undone, and what is the correct way to type text onto an object? Or do I have to delete the whole thing and start over?

Thanks!

 

[firstdefence]

Text frames are quite powerful they can have backgrounds and borders and many other parameters...
https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Text/frameText.html

[firstdefence]

As an unasked for criticism, I would change the text to white, blue text on a reddish background is an assault on the eyes, white text will look cleaner and sharper.

[Phil P]

2 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

As an unasked for criticism, I would change the text to white, blue text on a reddish background is an assault on the eyes, white text will look cleaner and sharper.

I appreciate the tip. Thanks.

[Phil P]

16 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Text frames are quite powerful they can have backgrounds and borders and many other parameters...
https://affinity.help/publisher/English.lproj/pages/Text/frameText.html

I see. Thank you. So...can I undo what I've done, or just delete and start over?

[firstdefence]

Just now, Phil P said:

I see. Thank you. So...can I undo what I've done, or just delete and start over?

Yes. 

 

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Phil P said:

Now I want to separate the text from the rectangle in order to do some spacing of the text within the text frame

There’s no need to separate the text from the rectangle. As shown in the screenshot that @firstdefence posted, the ‘Positioning and Transform’ section of the Character panel has all the controls you need to adjust the line and character spacing.

[Wosven]

I would.follow @firstdefence
advice, but keeping lines of text together (= less spacing between lines so they would appear as a paragraph, not independant lines, and more spaces on top and bottom of this paragraph).

Perhaps using a larger font for the title/header (picnic...), little bit smaller for secondary info (hour and location), and a third size for the everything else, to hierarchy the informations.

[bici]

i think i am asking this in the right topic. How do i ungroup these two texts which are grouped into one text frame? I want to move them separately not as one unit (frame). I note that each text can be edited, but not moved separately. 

[R C-R]

30 minutes ago, bici said:

How do i ungroup these two texts which are grouped into one text frame?

Just guessing but I suspect what you have is a text frame with 2 different styles of text in it. So it can't really be "ungrouped" but what you could do is duplicate it & in one frame delete the text with one style & do the opposite in the other, so you have 2 separate text frame objects.

[bici]

13 hours ago, R C-R said:

Just guessing but I suspect what you have is a text frame with 2 different styles of text in it. So it can't really be "ungrouped" but what you could do is duplicate it & in one frame delete the text with one style & do the opposite in the other, so you have 2 separate text frame objects.

Thanks, that is indeed a very good solution. As you surmised those are two different text styles but grouped together. It came in one of the Affinity Tutorial packages: spotlight-mag-afpub-workbook. I have never come across this kind of grouping of texts before. I assume that perhaps this is common with professional magazine designers. i'll have to ruminate on that as a possibility in my setup. For example we currently always have a Title and below that.  By Name Surname. or Name Surname

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, bici said:

As you surmised those are two different text styles but grouped together.

Hm? To me @R C-R did literally assume this is 1 frame with 2 styles, nothing to ungroup – and thus not grouped.

It is actually the usual way to have several text styles within one frame when one style should follow another, especially useful when character styles get applied to certain text selections only.

1 hour ago, bici said:

For example we currently always have a Title and below that.  By Name Surname. or Name Surname

For this, the Next Style option may be desirable. It automatically assigns the next defined style after a paragraph break (e.g. Title > Author) and then again (Author > Intro), (Intro > Story) etc all with just 1 click if wanted.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, bici said:

For example we currently always have a Title and below that.  By Name Surname. or Name Surname

It sounds like you are either using 2 separate Text Frames, or that you're using the Art Text Tool and have two separate text objects.

That is certainly one way of doing things, but not the only way

[thomaso]

36 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

It sounds like you are either using 2 separate Text Frames, or that you're using the Art Text Tool and have two separate text objects.

... whereas also in an Art Text text object several styles can get assigned and @bici's screenshot shows definitely a Frame Text text object.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, thomaso said:

and @bici's screenshot shows definitely a Frame Text text object.

I was referring to what they say they usually do, not the specific example that generated this thread.

[bici]

Just to be clear. The image I posted and this one below is a Text Frame consisting of two Text Styles:   -SP- Slug Italic 1  and -SP- Head x4 Bold 1  .

I am going to try and figure out how to do this as i think it will be easier to have such a Text Frame for my Titles of articles by regular columnists.

[thomaso]

7 minutes ago, bici said:

I am going to try and figure out how to do this as i think it will be easier to have such a Text Frame for my Titles of articles by regular columnists.

This post shows a video with "Next Style" in use:

Since with Next Style a paragraph break is used to cause a style switch you have to consider double paragraph breaks ('empty lines') or can use them to kind of skip a style. – In Nov 2020 there still was a bug caused by double paragraph breaks after an unknown number of paragraphs. (didn't check if it still happens in the current version of APub):

[bici]

On 10/27/2022 at 1:04 PM, thomaso said:

This post shows a video with "Next Style" in use:

Since with Next Style a paragraph break is used to cause a style switch you have to consider double paragraph breaks ('empty lines') or can use them to kind of skip a style. – In Nov 2020 there still was a bug caused by double paragraph breaks after an unknown number of paragraphs. (didn't check if it still happens in the current version of APub😞

Thank-you @Thomaso very cool and looks relatively easy to setup. I am learning a lot!   By the beginning of the month i should be ready to do my first 30page mag in Publisher. And kick ID out of my life