Erratic behaviour of paragraph text styles

[rjav]

I am going through the process of converting InDesign publications to Affinity Publisher. It's mostly going well but I have a persistent problem with the erratic behaviour of text styles. The basic text size is 10pt on 12 pt and has the style "Running Text" but, halfway through working on the document, I find the text on the next page is now 1.4 pt (see Text Frame 1). When I pull down the text frame on the first page, the text which is drawn in from the second page is the correct size; likewise, if I push up the text frame, the text which flows onto the second page is transformed into 1.4 pt. Last night, I went through the document and changed all the incorrect text to "No Style" and then to "Running Text". This morning, after working on a page, I noticed sections had changed themselves to 1.4 pt again. Not only that, but later the text changed itself to 84 pt! (See Text Frame 2.) I am using v1.10.5.1342 on a new laptop with a 6 core processor running Windows 11. However, I have had exactly the same problem with v1.9 on a laptop running windows 10 Pro and eventually had to create an entirely new document. I have a number of InDesign documents which I need to convert and I really don't want to have to start all over again. Can anyone shed any light?

[Catshill]

Have you tried selecting all the text, cutting it and then pasting without format? Then select all and apply a paragraph format.

I do this when incoming text has strange format characters which can sometimes be the case when imported from another application.

 I would also check that your frames do not have formatting applied to them. Revert to default can help here.

[Dan C]

Hi @rjav,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

The behaviour you have described can occur when text frames have 'scaling' applied, which happens when resizing text frames & text at the same time, using the additional disconnected tool handle at the bottom right of a text frame - 

Is this how you have been adjusting your text frames? If so, this scaling will be held by the text frame, meaning the best way to resolve this is to select the Text Frame Tool and navigate to Edit > Defaults > Factory Reset, then redraw the 2 affected frames and copy/paste the content from old frames to new.

I hope this helps

[rjav]

Thank you to Catshill and Dan C. I've now shut down for the night but I will try your suggestions tomorrow. Because I am working with an IDML file, all the styles and text frames have been imported. Maybe there's an issue in how AP handles this? In an ideal world, I would be able to reuse all of the formatting from InDesign but if I can salvage at least 50% that's better than having to start from scratch.

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know - if your text frames are being imported into the app from your IDML file and this is not something you're manually changing in APu after import then we'd certainly like a copy of this IDML file to investigate further, as I don't believe we should be importing any frame scaling.

Please attach a copy of the IDML file here when you can, alternatively if you'd like a private upload link for the file, please let me know

[rjav]

I've been working on other projects and have returned to the troublesome which is still behaving erratically. Just to try something different, I copied a piece of text that had been reduced in size to 1.4 pt into a word document where it appeared at normal size with the same font I was using in AP. I copied it back into AP and it looked okay. I then tried to fix another piece of text and this time all the following text was transformed into 84 pt! I tried reassigning text styles but it is out of control. Fortunately this is happening downstream of where I am working of the text: the first 24 pages which I had completed in InDesign are not affected but I am despairing of ever getting this finished if I have to constantly try to reverse this capricious text reformatting. Have you any insights into the problem and its cure? I'm still happy to send you the file if you provide the upload link.

[Dan C]

Hi @rjav,

I can confirm that text frames in Affinity Publisher can hold a hidden 'scale' metric, which can cause flowing text to appear at a smaller or larger size than expected.

Currently, to remove this scale we recommend deleting the text frame where this occurs, selecting the text frame tool and navigating to Edit > Defaults > Factory Reset, then drawing a new (linking if required) text frame.

Does this resolve the issue in your document please?

[rjav]

Dan, I reopened the document and started with this mess (Scr 1). I deleted the frame on page 27 (righthand side) which has a shape imported from InDesign, not a simple rectangle, and did the Reset. Scr 2 shows how the next two pages looked. I drew a new rectangular frame on page 27, applied the Paragraph Style "running text" and linked the text on page 26 to it, resulting in Scr 3. Noting that the Paragraph Style was now showing "running text +", I reset it to "running text" and got Scr 4.

I have to get on with this project and so I have set up a new document starting with a small frame at the bottom of what will be page 27, the point at which a new section of the chapter starts. Unless you can come up with a solution, I hope to be able to stitch the first 26 pages together with the new pages which complete the chapter.

My big concern is that I have six other chapters waiting as IDML files.

(By the way, I grabbed that button in the extreme bottom right of the text frame and moved it in and out: moving it in certainly reproduced the tiny text but the other distorted text was also transformed in the same proportion.)

 

[rjav]

I didn't realise the file names would not be displayed. Note that the order of images is Scr 1, Scr 2, Scr 4 and Scr 3 (ie, 3 and 4 are in the wrong order).

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response @rjav & many thanks for the further information/screenshots provided!

I'd like to request a copy of your document to test this further here & try and resolve the issue for you. Can you please upload this to below link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/d4yGg0gNZzqhXuc0SswH

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know

[rjav]

Thank you, Dan -- I appreciate the interest you are taking and the efforts you are making to help identify the cause and thereby resolve the problem.

I have included two versions of an AP file with erratic text plus the IDML file and the original InDesign file

In the meantime I am working in an entirely new AP document so that I can make some progress with this project

Regards

[Dan C]

No problem at all, many thanks for the files provided!

I'm logging these with our developers for further investigation, in the meantime I believe I have been able to repair these files and therefore will return them to you via Dropbox, using the email address associated with your Forum account.

Please be sure to check these files carefully, as I do not have your fonts in use etc and therefore I can't guarantee the accuracy of the repaired file.

I hope this helps

[rjav]

Thanks Dan

I deleted and redrew a couple of text boxes, one with the Pen tool, and it seems to be well behaved

To be on the safe side, I think I will finish the chapter in the new document first and then copy it back into yours as the new master

The fact that you "repaired" the files implies that there was something wrong with them -- should I have been able to find and fix the fault myself?

[Dan C]

No problem at all, more than happy to help!

On 5/25/2022 at 7:30 AM, rjav said:

The fact that you "repaired" the files implies that there was something wrong with them -- should I have been able to find and fix the fault myself?

Some of your text had very strange Paragraph Leading & Leading Override values. The text that overlapped with each other was set to almost 0pt, and other parts of your text were set to 100pt. Changing this to the default setting displayed your text as expected.

Equally, as previously mentioned, the frames with scaled text in were deleted and re-drawn, to remove the scale value

[rjav]

Thanks Dan

I think we've come full circle

You seem to be saying that it is just a matter of going backward and forwards over the text, resetting the values until AP stops changing them erratically and leaves them as they were supposed to be 

The "very strange Paragraph Leading & Leading Override values" is the problem which is being produced in the conversion from Adobe IDML to AP

It's going to take me a couple of weeks to finish the chapter in the new AP file and then I'll see how I go stitching it back into your repaired files

It will be interesting to see what your developers have to say about the root problem

My Windows 7 machine gave its last gasp yesterday and I will consign it to e-recycling along with all my Adobe software which means I am now fully committed to Affinity Publisher

Regards

 

[thomaso]

On 5/18/2022 at 1:17 PM, Dan C said:

I can confirm that text frames in Affinity Publisher can hold a hidden 'scale' metric, which can cause flowing text to appear at a smaller or larger size than expected.

On 5/24/2022 at 3:34 PM, Dan C said:

I'm logging these with our developers for further investigation,

@Dan C, in the attached .idml are two text frames, each of them containing text with 1 certain style (font, size, colour).

text style in idml replaced text.idml

When I open this .idml in APub –> select all text in any of the frames and –> replace it with APub Filler Text, the result in both frames is Arial, 1 pt, RGB black.
Whereas doing the same in ID their styles are maintained.
Note, if selected in APub with the Move Tool both frames seem to have no clear style defined (partially empty values/fields) – whereas they do in ID.

Also, the right frame is scaled in ID and thus displays larger text, defined as "12 pt (15 pt)" – whereas this gets ignored by APub and opened in a visually different size (12 pt, not 15).

(This appears like a bug to me. If there is no reason "by design" for this behaviour in APub, feel free to move this post to the Bugs Forum.)

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delay here @thomaso as I've been out of the office for the past week.

On 5/28/2022 at 1:39 PM, thomaso said:

(This appears like a bug to me. If there is no reason "by design" for this behaviour in APub, feel free to move this post to the Bugs Forum.)

I can confirm this is a bug in the app & I've logged it with our developers to be fixed. I hope this helps

[rjav]

Dan, thomaso

I have been working on another document, a quarterly 20 page journal which I have been producing for13 years, the last five issues in AFPub

The main issue I had was getting a pure black colour palette but the Serif people were quick to respond with a palette I could use and which fixed that problem -- a response which really impresses me and reassures me in equal measures

However, two nights ago, I had to change a calendar of events from one column to two -- this had been created totally in AFPub 

But, when I went to increase the length of the LH column to pull in the top entry (three lines: date, type of event, title of talk) from the RH column, I couldn't see it; then I reduced the length of the LH column to push the entry back into the RH column and I saw the all-too familiar grey lines which, when I zoomed in, I could see was the text reduced to 1pt

The reason that I couldn't see the text drawn into the LH column was that it had been increased to something like 84 pt

So, in the LH column, the text was 84 pt; push it into the RH column and it was 1 pt!!!

I had to work back and forth, constantly changing the paragraph and text specifications -- especially leading -- until eventually the erratic behaviour stopped repeating itself

The final high resolution PDF file was sent to the printer last night and the physical proof we inspected this morning was fine

Hopefully your developers can find the source of the problem

I am getting more comfortable with AFPub every day

Thanks again

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, rjav said:

But, when I went to increase the length of the LH column

Are you certain you didn't use the "rescaling" handle (the one detached from the frame) when you modified that Text Frame?

[rjav]

Absolutely

And it is only a few specific lines of text which are affected -- everything else in both columns is fine

We had calendar entries for June, July, August, and September, each one being three to five lines of 10.5 text on 12 pt leading

When I added the second column, I had June to July in the left but it was significantly shorter than the right -- so I tried to bring the first entry for August into the LH column by pulling down the bottom centre handle and that's when the erratic behaviour started

When I shortened the LH column again, the text for the first entry for August which was pushed back into the RH column -- previously 10.5 -- was now 1 pt: the rest of the entries in the RH column were unaffected

And this was in an AFPub document -- I first reported the erratic behaviour in a document I had converted from a half-finished InDesign file which I had saved as IDML

Eventually, I got rid of the problem by working back and forth, changing the type size and leading for Paragraph and Text 

As I said, it is weird

[Dan C]

I can confirm our team are also aware of 'scaling' issues with text, both when the extended 'rescaling' handle is used on text frames, and for certain IDML imported documents - this is logged with our team internally and sounds to be the issue you are encountering currently.

I'll be sure to 'bump' this issue with the team now for you & we hope to have a fix in a future version

[Immins]

I am having this issue on Affinity Publisher on my iPad

[EatMoreBacon]

Has anyone got a solution to this problem besides crossing your fingers and praying?

I'm getting quite frustrated.

[rjav]

I'm about to finish a couple of documents in the old version before swapping over to the new, rather than change horses in mid-stream. While Dan's team works on the problem, my solution for the document which caused me to log this issue, was to start again and keep my fingers crossed. Hopefully it won't be in the new.

[thomaso]

On 3/9/2023 at 2:45 AM, rjav said:

my solution (...) was to start again

What did you start again as problem solution – the computer, the application, the .idml import, the layout from scratch (with or without IDML), … ?