vertical justification only working on first page for Publisher

[Faustus]

I'm new to Affinity Publisher and getting used to everything is a little overwhelming but I'm enjoying it.

I'm laying out a bilingual edition of a text in which one language uses fewer words (by a lot) than the other, so when text fills the right page and there's a lot less text on the left page, I want to vertically justify the left page. This is working beautifully on the first page created from the relevant master, but for the rest of the pages when I select "vertical justification" nothing happens and when I check again, "top justification” is selected.

If it matters, most of the pages to be justified end with page breaks. But this is also a problem on the pages that don't.

Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Faustus

[R C-R]

How are your text frames in your pages set to flow from page to page?

[Faustus]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

How are your text frames in your pages set to flow from page to page?

Each left-side page flows to the next left-side page and each right-side to the next right-side. So p. 2 flows to 4 flows to 6, etc., and 3 flows to 5 flows to 7, etc.

[Faustus]

Further exploration reveals that on the pages where vertical justification isn't working, the vertical justification button in the Context Tab is grayed out. What gives?

[walt.farrell]

If you can create a sample document that shows the problem, diagnosis will be easier if you share that .afpub file with us.

[Faustus]

I solved it, though the solution is a little clunky. 

It turns out that, apparently, vertical justification is set in the master page and can't be changed from one page to the next. The first page was vertically justified because it was based on a different master page. So I just edited the post-first-page master page so it justified vertically and then, for the few cases where the text needs to be NOT justified, created another master page. It seems like an odd choice, but software designers have certainly made much odder, and I'm delighted that the text looks great now.

[MEB]

Hi @Faustus,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
If you need to edit a specific  object belonging to a master page in a regular page, go to the regular page, right-click the Master page layer there in the Layers panel and select Edit Detached. Make the changes you need an press the Finish button on the orange bar on the top of the document area to accept the changes. That object will no longer be affected by the changes made to the master page assigned to that page.

[Faustus]

5 minutes ago, MEB said:

Welcome to Affinity Forums

Thank you so much for the explanation! That makes a lot of sense.