Leading doesn't work in Afinity Publisher on Mac OS 12.4

[William Blanton]

I can't get leading to work with any font using Affinity Publisher on Mac OS 12.4.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Issues with Leading not working in Publisher are often related to having the Baseline Grid active.

[William Blanton]

Walt: That's the first thing I checked. Baseline grid is not active. I've tried different fonts. All have the same result — can't adjust leading at all.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, William Blanton said:

Walt: That's the first thing I checked. Baseline grid is not active. I've tried different fonts. All have the same result — can't adjust leading at all.

Baseline Grid can be set in at least 3 places. If you can provide a sample .afpub file we can perhaps say what is happening.

[Old Bruce]

There are a lot of controls for leading. 

Could be:

Baseline Grid

You are trying to set the leading in a character style

There is no paragraph selected while you are changing the leading value.

We would need to see a document that shows this behaviour. One page is fine.

[William Blanton]

It's a really big document, 31 MB. If that's not too big, I can show it. I've looked at the baseline grid in the tool bar at the top of the screen. That's off. I also saw the baseline grid control under the paragraph area. That's off also. Is there another place I should look before sending you the file?

Thanks for your help.

[walt.farrell]

31 MB is not too big. But you could make a copy and delete all but one page that will show the problem, and give us that.

The real question is whether you want to make it public by posting it here. If not, you could make a dummy document and verify that it has the same problem, and share that.

[William Blanton]

I'll send the one page. Coming your way in a moment.

[William Blanton]

WalkFinal 0529 copy.afpubHere are two pages from the document which illustrate the problem.

TwoPages.afpub

[walt.farrell]

Thanks.

It looks like you have another common situation. Click in the text that's giving you a problem, and look in the Character panel. When I did it, for text with 24pt Leading, I can see there's a 13pt Leading Override.

[Old Bruce]

3 minutes ago, William Blanton said:

Here are two pages from the document which illustrate the problem.

Select all the text and set the Character Leading override to Auto instead of 13. Now the Leading in the Paragraph panel will work.

      

 

 

 

[William Blanton]

That fixed it, but I'm sort of confused about it now. Should I always use that control in Character to set or change leading, or is there a way to turn that off so leading can be set in the paragraph control? 

Thanks again for your help.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, William Blanton said:

Should I always use that control in Character

You should never use that one, unless you have a specific reason for doing so and understand what it means and what you're doing. It is, as it is named, an Override. If you don't need an Override, then you shouldn't use one.

[Old Bruce]

3 minutes ago, William Blanton said:

Should I always use that control in Character to set or change leading,

No, never use that. Keep it on Auto. Use the leading in the Paragraph panel, or in the Text Styles > Group or Paragraph settings in Spacing.

If you think about it the leading of text only applies to paragraphs, or multiple lines of text. The Character panel allows you to alter the leading for one or more selected characters. You may have some text that you want/need more vertical space for.

[William Blanton]

Thanks for your help, Walt and Old Bruce. I think I must have hit that character setting by mistake. Got it on auto now, and leading works fine.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

Sorry for not mentioning that one sooner.