Section Manager Improvement

[David Battistella]

 

Not sure if this functionality can be build it however, it would be useful if I could double click on a section in the section manager and be brought to that page in the layout.

 

Thanks,

David

 

[Helmar]

I was just about to post the same, so a +1 from me for this feature.

[MikeTO]

+1

[Helmar]

It would also be useful if there was an "Auto Section" Checkbox and Text Style Selector that automatically turns each selected style into a new section. This way the Section Manager could be bypassed almost altogether. It would have the added benefit of never having to change the starting section page number because of changes further up in the document.

Just saying. 🙂

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, Helmar said:

It would have the added benefit of never having to change the starting section page number because of changes further up in the document.

I'm not sure I understand that, Helmar. Can you explain the problem a bit more, please?

[sfriedberg]

I think he wants a single continuous text flow, with certain (heading) styles recognized as triggering start-of-section processing.  For example, section break, optional insertion of blank pages to start the section on a right-hand page, automagically using a different set of master pages on the first page following the section break, etc.

I would much prefer the existing Section manager with a not-yet-available ability to link/embed external text files, or a "book" manager with the ability to concatenate external text files into a single Publisher document.  Above some vaguely-defined length, I prefer to manage my document sources in distinct chunks.

[MikeTO]

On 6/6/2022 at 6:35 AM, Helmar said:

It would also be useful if there was an "Auto Section" Checkbox and Text Style Selector that automatically turns each selected style into a new section. This way the Section Manager could be bypassed almost altogether. It would have the added benefit of never having to change the starting section page number because of changes further up in the document.

Just saying. 🙂

I don't think auto sections as in MS Word would work well in a page layout program due to the text flow issue. In Word, text only flows forward but in Publisher I can flow text from a frame on page 1 to page 2 to page 3 and then back to a second frame on page 1. If I was able to insert a section break into that story and that break fell on page 1's second frame, what should the page number be on page 2?

I think Publisher handles sections the right way for a page layout program but there is more that could be done. Ideally, we should be able to see the sections in the Pages panel - double click a section to see its pages and double click again to collapse it. We should be able to drag a section to change the order. This begs the question of whether you should be able to flow text from a frame in one section to a frame in another section. I think it would solve so many problems if stories could not span sections.

The Pages panel should also have the ability to choose between seeing section page numbers or the current absolute page numbers. I'd like to see my front matter with page numbers of I, ii, iii and my body pages starting with 1. An even more robust implementation would allow sub-sections so you could define sub-section page numbering.

I'm sure there are other features that could be added but these are a few from my wishlist.