(AF Photo, Mac, desktop) Duplicate an object on a layer? Option-click-drag...?

[Mike Swartzbeck]

Nothing I can think of works — no combination of option/command/shift/control click-drag will let me drag-copy a duplicate of a text block onto another spot on the same layer. Help is not help; it all seems to point me to instructions involving duplicating a layer — but I don't want to duplicate the layer, just the text block I want to duplicate for a set of callouts on a diagram. There's maybe 8 or 10 of these, and I really don't want a separate layer for each one.

This ought to be simple — click-drag-copy an object on the same layer. How do I do it?

[v_kyr]

Copy/paste or Alt-drag for duplicating, then arrange the copies to the position you want, possibly change the text on the copies and then ...

• ... select all layers and "merge visable" or "merge selected" from the layers context-menu or layers main menu.

• Layer operations
  • Viewing
  • Selecting
  • Transforming
  • Duplicating  <--- ***
  • Aligning
  • ...
  • Copying and pasting content  <--- ***
  • Spacing
  • Grouping
  • Linking
  • Merging and flattening  <--- ***

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Mike Swartzbeck said:

it all seems to point me to instructions involving duplicating a layer — but I don't want to duplicate the layer, just the text block I want to duplicate for a set of callouts on a diagram.

In Affinity every object is a layer. And every text frame is an object – unless you mean to duplicate a text block within a text frame? I guess you know how to duplicate text, so here is a solution to not see all layers: Untick the option to "Auto-scroll" and use a "Layer (Layer)". Then you will see only 1 layer – as long you don't change its collapsed state. – This kind of setup as various consequences, which may be unexpected. For instance different ways of object selection. When working with a "Layer (Layer)" it can be useful to continue that way and create "Layer (Layer)" for all other objects, too, e.g. one for the bubbles and/or for other additional objects. An alternative to "Layer (Layer)" is the "Group" which has some different behaviour. (see "Grouping" in @v_kyr's post above)