Paragraph spacing in text boxes

[Lincoln44]

I'm a new user to Affinity Designer and while there are some features that I like, it seems like the software has a mind of its own occasionally. 

I've been struggling to figure out the paragraph spacing between lines of text in text boxes. Most of the time, I'm able to select the text box or the text within and easily change the spacing between the lines so that it's not too cramped, but some of the time the text in the box is just completely unresponsive to changes in paragraph spacing. The only workaround I've figured out is that I can type into Word first and then paste into affinity and I usually don't have the same spacing issues. I had another situation where the text in the box was grey, but for some reason was registering as black, and there was nothing I could do to change it to black except copy the text into another text box where the text was black. 

I get that this program isn't necessarily created for writing a lot of text, but I'm frustrated that I can't accomplish incredibly simple tasks and I'm wasting tons of time trying to figure out how to resolve these issues. Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing the text in boxes to do this. I'm using MacOS High Sierra, if that helps. Thanks. 

[Joachim_L]

Welcome to the Affinity forums @Lincoln44!

11 minutes ago, Lincoln44 said:

Does anyone have any ideas about what might be causing the text in boxes to do this.

If I could guess, then I would say that there is a Leading Override applied to your paragraph. You find Leading Override in the Character panel.

[PaulEC]

29 minutes ago, Lincoln44 said:

I had another situation where the text in the box was grey, but for some reason was registering as black,

Is it possible that you had accidently changed the opacity?

If odd things are happening with text, it sometimes helps to hit the "Revert defaults" button!

[walt.farrell]

38 minutes ago, Lincoln44 said:

Most of the time, I'm able to select the text box or the text within and easily change the spacing between the lines so that it's not too cramped, but some of the time the text in the box is just completely unresponsive to changes in paragraph spacing.

Which application are you using? There is an additional possibility in Publisher (Baseline Grid), for example, that may also affect this area.

Beyone that, you need to consider Leading (Paragraph panel), Leading Override (Character panel), and spacing between/before/after paragraphs (Paragraph panel). The latter is important if you happen to be ending your lines with paragraph breaks, rather than letting the text flow naturally from line to line. In Publisher, it may help to enable Text > Show Special Characters to make this easily observable.

If you can provide a sample document (.afpub, .afdesign, or .afphoto) that exhibits the problem we can probably provide further information.

[Old Bruce]

Select all the text in the text frame and then go to Text > Reapply Base Styles.