Adding curlicues to chapter headings

[Mark Baker]

I'm formatting a novel and I would like to add those little curlicues or decorations that you sometimes see above or below the chapter title. In a perfect world I would like to add this to the heading style, but I don't see a way to do that. Can anybody suggest the best and most reliable method for getting this done?

Thank you. 

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums @Mark Baker,

By curlicues do you mean Flourish? Do you already have some ready to use? If not you can find numerous doing a search..

Graphic Flourish

I apologize, I don't use Publisher, if that's the Affinity App you're using, so can't provide any meaningful help there. If not Publisher, which one?

[GarryP]

Here’s one example of using Bullets and Numbering to get an ornament above the heading.
Use a Character Style to format the ornament to the correct font and give it a Space After.
Add two Line Breaks in the Text field of the Bullets formatting after you have added the ornament.
There may be other (better?) ways.
I’m not sure if there is a way to get the symbol below the heading.

[Mark Baker]

7 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Welcome to the forums @Mark Baker,

By curlicues do you mean Flourish? Do you already have some ready to use? If not you can find numerous doing a search..

Graphic Flourish

I apologize, I don't use Publisher, if that's the Affinity App you're using, so can't provide any meaningful help there. If not Publisher, which one?

Yes! Knowing what to call them is half the battle. Thanks!

[Ron P.]

Your Welcome

 

[Mark Baker]

7 hours ago, GarryP said:

Here’s one example of using Bullets and Numbering to get an ornament above the heading.
Use a Character Style to format the ornament to the correct font and give it a Space After.
Add two Line Breaks in the Text field of the Bullets formatting after you have added the ornament.
There may be other (better?) ways.
I’m not sure if there is a way to get the symbol below the heading.

Thank you! That does most of what I want. The only restriction seems to be that the deconation has to come from a font. If only there were a way to use a graphic as a bullet.

[GarryP]

Unless things have changed recently I don’t think you can do bullet points with anything other than font glyphs.
See this thread: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/154693-af-publisher-–-use-own-graphic-as-bullet-point/
If you can give us a mock-up of the sort of thing you want – as close to what you want as you can get it, also mentioning which parts are the most important to you – then someone might be able to come up with some kind of ‘workaround’ but it might not be ideal.

[firstdefence]

16 hours ago, Mark Baker said:

If only there were a way to use a graphic as a bullet.

You could always look into making your own font.

[PaulEC]

... or just import a graphic image and place it where you want in the document. (If you always want it in the same position on a page you could use a Master Page to add it to each chapter heading.)

[Mark Baker]

This is what I am trying to achieve. Here I did it simply by inserting the graphic into the text flow. I have found that while the process for getting a graphic into the text flow in the first place is non-intuitive (to me, anyway), once it is there you can just cut and paste it into the text flow in each chapter heading. This is easy enough to do, so I might just stick with it.

The master page idea is interesting. I probably should make a chapter heading master page anyway, because the chapter heading page should not have a running header. But I think that means I will have to set the master manually on each chapter heading page because I can't see a way to say: apply master X on every page that contains paragraph style Y. (If there is, please tell me, because that would be cool.) If I do that, It would make sense to add the graphic to the chapter master to avoid pasting it into every chapter head.

Making my own font is interesting too. I once created a font of office phone keys when I was documenting phone systems. That saved a ton of time. But it's probably more work than doing it manually for just this book. 

The last page-layout program I used extensively was Frame Maker, which is all about long document flows and lets you freely edit the document and have everything just flow into the right place. I am starting to see that Affinity has a more static layout model, closer to PageMaker. Or maybe it is somewhere between the two. (I haven't used InDesign.) Anyway, I need to get my head around the Affinity way of doing things. 

Thanks all for your suggestions. And if any of my analysis above is incorrect, please set me straight!

[GarryP]

I would be tempted – if there aren’t too many chapters – to use a Floating Pinned Image – see attached video.
You can set one up to be just as you like it and then copy/paste as needed.
Unless you are going to be changing where the chapters begin and end a lot then it’s mostly a one-off thing.
If you think you might need to change the ornament then use an Embedded Document – as I have done – and you only need to change it once.

[Mark Baker]

Oh, that's a cool feature. It would make a lot of sense if I was adjusting the text frame, but I don't think I will be doing that in this book. Definitely something to keep in mind, though.

What it does make me think is that if I do a Chapter master page then maybe I should start the text frame lower and remove the space above from the Heading style. 

[GarryP]

One thing that you may want to keep in mind, if you go down the ‘chapter master page’ route, is that if your text flow changes considerably – more/fewer pages needed, illustrations are added, chapters move to start on different sides of the spread, etc. – then you will probably need to start re-applying master pages.

Probably best to create your master page and apply it once at the start of the first chapter to get it looking right, then leave it until you are almost finished, then apply it to the other chapters once you are sure that things aren’t going to change much.

15 hours ago, Mark Baker said:

maybe I should start the text frame lower and remove the space above from the Heading style

Personally I would probably keep the text frames the same size/position and use the Spacing functionality to bring the chapter headings down the page. Using the same spacing in a Paragraph Style will allow you to keep a good consistency across all similar pages, rather than hoping that you resize the frames the same way all across the book.

That's entirely up to you though, whatever works best for you.

[Mark Baker]

Yes, I am aware of the reflow issue. Fortunately, I have no illustrations to place and the text was thoroughly edited in Word before placing it in Affinity. That doesn't mean there can't be reflow issues, but hopefully they will be minimal. 

Actually, my plan re the text frame on the chapter heading pages was to change the position of the text frame on the Chapter Master so that it would be consistent relative to the graphic, and I could adjust them there if needed. That's what I have done and so far it is working well. 

In a perfect world it would be nice to tie a master page to a text style, and generally to have master pages applied by rule. (Like, if there is no text on the page, apply the Blank Master. But there is always a trade-off between handling things by rules vs. adjusting them by hand. 

[GarryP]

If you’re happy with the way you are doing it then that’s fine by me.
There’s always the chance that what I wrote might be useful to someone reading this later.

Once you have finished the novel it might be nice to see some example pages in the Share Your Work section of the forums to give other people some inspiration.

[Mark Baker]

4 hours ago, GarryP said:

If you’re happy with the way you are doing it then that’s fine by me.
There’s always the chance that what I wrote might be useful to someone reading this later.

Once you have finished the novel it might be nice to see some example pages in the Share Your Work section of the forums to give other people some inspiration.

Absolutely. I was a technical writer for 30 years, so I always appreciate it when I find multiple solutions to a problem which could work for people in different situations. When I am sure that my solution works well for me, I will write it up and add it to this thread for anyone who reads it later. 

My reason for choosing the master page route is that a chapter heading requires a different master page anyway, since it has no running header. So I would have to reapply masters anyway if the text reflows. 

I wasn't aware of the Share Your Work section, but I will definitely post there when I am done. 

Thanks!

[Mark Baker]

So this is what I ended up doing:

I created a master page for chapter headings. 

I created a text frame on the chapter heading master page that started part way down the page. 

I remove the space above the chapter heading style so that it would start at the top of the reduced text frame. 

I placed the graphic file of the flourish on the chapter heading master page above the text frame. 

I then applied the chapter heading master to all the chapter heading pages. This put the flourish in place automatically. 

Pros and cons of this approach:

The con is that if the text reflows, the chapter headings might wrap onto a different page and I would then have to go through an re-apply masters to all the affected pages. However this is not so big of a con, because chapter heading pages require a different master page anyway, since there is no running header on a chapter heading page, and the running header comes from the master page. 

And that is the chief pro of this approach: I needed a separate master page anyway, so the flourish essentially gets a free ride. 

Another pro is that I can adjust the spacing of the chapter title and the flourish entirely on the master page. 

Because of the reflow problem, this might be something you want to leave until the text and layout are otherwise stable. You could use a space before on the chapter title style  definition to put the chapter title in the same place it would be using the text frame, then add the master with the flourish at the end and apply it to all the chapter heading pages.

Actually, I suppose you don't have to start the text frame on the master half way down the page, as leaving the space above on the chapter heading paragraph style would achieve the same thing. I'll probably do it that way next time. 

Anyway, that is what worked for me. Hopefully it helps someone else.