Left aligned Text but text frame grows to left

[joehoppe]

I have a special case that i am currently not solving and why i aks you for help.

The Situation

I need a text box that has left aligned content but when the content will be edit it should expand to the left side. You see a rect that limits the text.

The normal behaviour is like the gif below. It goes over the rect instead of moving left to keep the margin on the right the same.

 

Making the Text right aligned solves the growing of the text box. It keeps the right margin. BUT the text is not left algined anymore.

I managed to get the needed behavior by aligning the text right and move all text with tabulators back to the left. It looks like this:

 

The Problem

The Text will be insert via DataMerge and that causes the problem. The text in the provided CSV file has no tabulators and after merging data it will end up like the middle gif.

Possible Solutions

could be:

• add tabs in the csv file (would prevent this due to a lot of files)
• a way to add a tab after each line break?

or something other i am missing? Could not find any setting to get it working.

Appreciate your help and thank you in advance!

Johannes

[joe_l]

22 minutes ago, joehoppe said:

or something other i am missing?

It looks like you are using the Artistic Text Tool which expands automatically. Try the Frame Text Tool (T).

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, Johannes.

I’m not aware of a setting for this, but you can achieve the desired result with a few simple steps:

1. Change the format to right-aligned.

2. Drag the left-hand edge of the text box to create extra space.

3. Type or paste the additional text.

4. Change the format back to left-aligned.

 

[joehoppe]

2 minutes ago, joe_l said:

It looks like you are using the Artistic Text Tool which expands automatically. Try the Frame Text Tool (T).

Hi, thank you for your answer! I need the behavior of automatically expansion. The text should end on always with the same margin on the right. The texts are all different and has different length. If you know a way in the Frame Text Tool (T) to align the text right but keep the shorter lines left to the longest then this tool would work as well.

 

3 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, Johannes.

I’m not aware of a setting for this, but you can achieve the desired result with a few simple steps:

1. Change the format to right-aligned.

2. Drag the left-hand edge of the text box to create extra space.

3. Type or paste the additional text.

4. Change the format back to left-aligned.

Hi Alfred, thank you for your answer!

Your way to go is nice but it needs manual action on every text field. The data will be placed into the text frames with Data Merge. I have over 1000 datasets that creates a lot of pages (image below). So manual actions are not an option. (maybe there is a way selecting all frames very easy and do this step for all at once)

[Old Bruce]

If you are using Data Merge then try using a Frame Text Text Frame instead of an Art Text Text Frame. Locate the longest bit of text in the thousand or so items and set things up using that as the example.

[joehoppe]

18 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

If you are using Data Merge then try using a Frame Text Text Frame instead of an Art Text Text Frame. Locate the longest bit of text in the thousand or so items and set things up using that as the example.

Hi Bruce, thank you! The problem with this approach is that i need do align all items on the right of the outside box independend of their length. I attached an example image. Left column would be the result when all entries has the same size of the text frame. End of the Text not aligned to the blue guide. On the right side there are all aligned at the guide. This is why the frame needs to grow to the left but keep all three lines aligned left instead of right. Or would it work and i am missing something?

[Old Bruce]

This has to be the silliest requirement I have ever seen.

Try playing with tabs between the two B600 and the two  SEB... and the two OFL items. you might need one to be Right aligned and one to be left aligned.

To make myself clear, use one Text frame, not two, for the two B600... SEB... OFL things.

[joehoppe]

Yes it is really silly. But it is a sticker for cables and the text needs to be this way to prevent overlaping when applied on the cables. Its difficult.

Ok this can work, great idea! I will play around with one text field and tabs. An obstacle that may occure is that the dataset only has those three lines without the opportunity to add tabs before using datamerge.

As seperate text frames i got it already working like the third gif in the original post but with tabs. But there are no tabs in the data set. Do you know a way to add a tab at the end of each line break? This could solve it as well.

Tried with unordered list. There you can add a tab between bullet and text but couldn't get the bulltes to the right side.

 

Thank you!

[joe_l]

9 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

This has to be the silliest requirement I have ever seen.

Not when he needs that.

By far I am no datasheet specialist, so I wonder if this is doable via scripting in the datasheet. Count the characters of the first line and fill with blanks at the end of the other two lines, so that all lines have the same length. Of course you need a monospace font for that. Silly idea.

[joehoppe]

4 minutes ago, joe_l said:

Not when he needs that.

By far I am no datasheet specialist, so I wonder if this is doable via scripting in the datasheet. Count the characters of the first line and fill with blanks at the end of the other two lines, so that all lines have the same length. Of course you need a monospace font for that. Silly idea.

Yeah this would be a smart approach. But unfortunately the font is given by the customer and is not monospace 😣. A script could add tabs to the dataset as well. This would work but i thought maybe there is a solution inside publisher 🧐

nice name btw 😜

[joe_l]

20 minutes ago, joehoppe said:

nice name btw 😜

Of course

So this one is getting weird. Are you able to split the lines? So that you can have first line right aligned and the other two left aligned? If yes, pin a floating rectangle left to the first line and apply a text wrap on it. Attached an image of the Text Frame (no Artistic Text).

EDIT: For completeness I added the .afpub to examine what I mean.

sticker.afpub

[joehoppe]

oh really cool! Got it working right away. I have to check if the first line is always the longest.

I didn't know that i can switch the alignment. That brought me to another idea. This is taking the datamerge situation as an advantage. I place the text twice in the box. the first one, right aligned, squezed together and invisable to get the length of the box. Then the same text again left aligned, move the box up a bit and tadaaaaa. Looks great. Also attached an image. The first line is orange and not invisible to make it more clear. What do you think?

[joe_l]

3 minutes ago, joehoppe said:

What do you think?

Nichts ist unmöglich! 🤣 Life is full of workarounds.