How can I keep paragraphs/text together in Affinity publisher?

[Edina]

Dear all,

 

I'm compiling a magazine and I'm placing text in there delivered in Word format. Placing the text in the text frame and adjusting the typography goes well, but than I don't seem to be able to find a solution for big spaces falling  in the middle of paragraphs, leaving needless empty spaces on a page (see attached screenshot for an example) As a solution I've tried to cut and paste part of the latter half of the paragraph right beneath the first half, but that doesn't work; on the contrary, part of the text disappears and it becomes a mess. I have also tried selecting the flow option "keep paragraph together"  in the paragraph panel, and the result was that the whole paragraph was places on the next page leaving even a bigger empty space. Dragging the text frame down a bit to allow more text in doesn't work either, i't either too much or too few lines of text.

Can you imagine how time consuming and frustrating this is? Can you help me get rid of this recurring problem for good?😬

[walt.farrell]

You might try Text > Show Special Characters so you can see if there is a character there causing the break.

But if you've been playing with the Flow options make sure you haven't done something with the Widows or Orphans settings, or the "Keep with next" setting.

If you can upload a sample document that illustrates the problem we should be able to say what it is for sure.

[Old Bruce]

26 minutes ago, Edina said:

Placing the text in the text frame and adjusting the typography goes well,

Adjusting. Does that mean applying Text Styles (in particular Paragraph Styles for all or each magazine article) you have made in Publisher? Or are you selecting the text and applying a font / size / leading etc ?

If the latter then you will be beset with problems for as long as you work that way.

Odds are there is some attribute brought over from the Word document which is giving this result. Some thing is being interpreted as Keep together/Keep with Next/Previous You will have to replace the Word Styles with Publisher Styles.

[Catshill]

Invariably I find importing as plain text is the best option and reapplying styles post import actually cleaner and quicker in the long run. YMMV of course.

[Edina]

17 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Adjusting. Does that mean applying Text Styles (in particular Paragraph Styles for all or each magazine article) you have made in Publisher? Or are you selecting the text and applying a font / size / leading etc ?

If the latter then you will be beset with problems for as long as you work that way.

Odds are there is some attribute brought over from the Word document which is giving this result. Some thing is being interpreted as Keep together/Keep with Next/Previous You will have to replace the Word Styles with Publisher Styles.

I apply the text styles I have made in Publisher for heads, paragraphs etc. Contributors to the magazine usually deliver their articles in word-format and mostly they apply several text styles. How do I turn these articles into plain text before importing them?

[Edina]

I've  saved a copy of the original Word-document in plain text (txt) and it is going better now. Still not ideal, for I have to remove/replace some strange symbols and have to delete hard returns. But this is something to remember doing from now on to spare me time.🙂

[Catshill]

I tend to either paste as plain text or import via Notepad.

[Andy05]

1 hour ago, Catshill said:

I tend to either paste as plain text or import via Notepad.

Wouldn't the feature ">Edit>Paste without format" or ">Edit>Paste Special... / Unicode Text" in publisher be quicker as it should provide the same results?

[Lefthand]

I am trying to produce a 192 page book (text only, no illustrations) in Affinity Publisher.

At the moment I am having a lot of trouble with text breaking onto a new page at at random points, exactly as detailed above by Edina.

Using the ‘Flow Options’ in the text styles I have set for ‘First paragraph’ and ‘Running text’ as ‘Keep paragraphs together’, ‘Keep with previous paragraph’ and also ‘Keep with next’ at 1 line initially this seems to work. However as soon as you make any alterations to the tracking - to remove orphaned/widowed words or to improve the look of a paragraph (no paragraph composer or similar) - the flow falls apart.

Checking in the Flow Options in the paragraph pane still shows them as detailed above. Undoing then re-doing the ‘Keep with’ etc appears to correct this partially, although sometimes it will break other paragraphs further on.

Compounding this is a screen re-draw problem that doesn’t show the changes unless I zoom out or in to change the view

This is making a 192 page book somewhat of a trial….

It's a problem I have never encountered before when using InDesign, even as old as CS3, importing straight from a Word doc.

PS The inability to set some items as ‘Non-printing’ is a bit of a nuisance when doing book production.

Mac OS10.13.6, Affinity Publisher 1.10.1 Quad Core Mac Pro 32Gb RAM, 3Gb Graphics

[Lefthand]

Just to follow up, I've tried the 'Paste without format' method and it hasn't made any difference, except that I now don't have the authors formatting showing where he wanted to use italics etc. So just doubling the problems!

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Lefthand said:

Using the ‘Flow Options’ in the text styles I have set for ‘First paragraph’ and ‘Running text’ as ‘Keep paragraphs together’, ‘Keep with previous paragraph’ and also ‘Keep with next’ at 1 line initially this seems to work.

The machine is trying to keep all the paragraphs in one text frame. Try using First Paragraph with Keep Paragraph together and Keep with next line and set Running text to Keep Paragraph together on its own. Your Paragraphs won't break in their middles, the first Paragraph will be forced onto a new frame/page it it and the following won't fit in the current frame.

[Lefthand]

 "the first Paragraph will be forced onto a new frame/page if it and the following won't fit in the current frame."

 

Forcing the First Paragraph onto another page most likely would not work as this would break the flow of a book. Within a chapter there will often be section breaks (usually using a small dingbat-style character, centred in the column) following which there is a 'First paragraph'. This is quite often in the middle of a column and forcing this over to another page would leave gaps.

[Old Bruce]

What are you trying to achieve with the current Flow options you have set? 

[Lefthand]

A stable contiguous flow of text over 190+ pages with only page breaks at the end of chapters. Then to be able to format via paragraph styles and also adjust tracking etc without it random breaks occuring.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Lefthand said:

without it random breaks occuring.

Avoiding random breaks is, I think, incompatible with using the "keep together" or "keep with next" settings. Those will require dropping a complete paragraph to the next page, leaving a gap, at random places. You will then need to manually change tracking, or adjust other settings to get a more acceptable layout, or edit the text itself.

[Catshill]

On 8/26/2021 at 8:58 AM, Andy05 said:

Wouldn't the feature ">Edit>Paste without format" or ">Edit>Paste Special... / Unicode Text" in publisher be quicker as it should provide the same results?

Yes but sometimes I need to “see” or edit what I am about to post.

[Old Bruce]

On 9/9/2021 at 2:32 AM, Lefthand said:

A stable contiguous flow of text over 190+ pages with only page breaks at the end of chapters. Then to be able to format via paragraph styles and also adjust tracking etc without it random breaks occuring.

What I do is have the text be just text, no page breaks in it. Then I set the Chapter title's Paragraph Style to use a Start on Next Page in the Flow section of that Paragraph Style.

[geoffstilwell]

I am struggling to understand the Paragraph Flow options in Affinity Publisher. I am used to Keep with Next and Keep Together in MS Word but I can't get Publisher to behave in the same way, especially with Keep with next referring to a specific number of lines. Each of the buttons in this dialog panel seems to have three states. . What do each of these mean? They seem to have dramatic results if I change them. I'm not sure what the the Start: drop-down list does. Is there a tutorial on this specific topic?

Thank you

Geoff Stilwell

 

[walt.farrell]

First, @geoffstilwell, it may be easier to figure this out using the Paragraph panel, rather than Text Styles.

But, specifically for your question, the three states (top to bottom) are Off, On, and "Unchanged from (i.e., inherited from) parent text style".