Is there a way to "auto-fit" a text box to the content inside it?

[AlleyDukakis]

E.g. i want to press an AUTOFIT button to wrap the bounding box around the text -- so i don't have to do it manually each time.

Does an AUTOFIT button exist?

<see image>

[Pšenda]

Double click to vertical and horizontal blue dot. 

[AlleyDukakis]

1 minute ago, Pšenda said:

Double click to vertical and horizontal blue dot. 

thanks that worked!

is there a way to do it without having to hunt and click 2 dots though?

would be nice if it was in the context menu (right click) of the text box

 

[Dan C]

Unfortunately I believe double clicking these dots is the only way to achieve this currently - if you wish you could create a Feature Request post for a context menu option here:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/65-feedback-for-affinity-publisher-on-desktop/ 

[thomaso]

… or use this existing feature request and bump it up this way in the request threads.
(It would deserve an updating post anyway since its recent discussion slightly drifted away from the initial topic.)

[Old Bruce]

@AlleyDukakis, 

Further to @Pšenda's advice: Click the bottom one first and the side one second. The frame may get too narrow if you do it the other way around.

Aside: I never really care about the size of the text frame being the size of the text. I prefer to have it larger than needed simply because I may change the Paragraph Style and wind up with overflowing text which would be unseen.

[R C-R]

8 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Aside: I never really care about the size of the text frame being the size of the text. I prefer to have it larger than needed simply because I may change the Paragraph Style and wind up with overflowing text which would be unseen.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

[AlleyDukakis]

20 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

@AlleyDukakis, 

Further to @Pšenda's advice: Click the bottom one first and the side one second. The frame may get too narrow if you do it the other way around.

Aside: I never really care about the size of the text frame being the size of the text. I prefer to have it larger than needed simply because I may change the Paragraph Style and wind up with overflowing text which would be unseen.

 

When people have a fill, the AUTOSIZE is really important.  Because you want to have an equal amount of spacing on the TOP LEFT RIGHT BOTTOM of the text body.

E.g. if you put a white square of text over a black and white photo, currently you have to eyeball the width and height of your textbox.

Can someone add this to the feature request?

 

[Pšenda]

4 minutes ago, AlleyDukakis said:

Can someone add this to the feature request?

Yes, every user can do that, see the link from Dan C.
But similar requests have already been submitted a long time ago, e.g.

https://www.google.com/search?q=auto-fit+text+box+site:https://forum.affinity.serif.com

[thomaso]

46 minutes ago, AlleyDukakis said:

Because you want to have an equal amount of spacing on the TOP LEFT RIGHT BOTTOM of the text body.

E.g. if you put a white square of text over a black and white photo, currently you have to eyeball the width and height of your textbox.

The width? – Aside my impression that the design / layout process is mainly "eyeballing" (… why we like it):

You can use a paragraph style > decoration to get the white background auto-sized with the text contents, regardless of the frame height:

 

[AlleyDukakis]

33 minutes ago, thomaso said:

You can use a paragraph style > decoration to get the white background auto-sized with the text contents, regardless of the frame height:

 

YIKES

There's a text frame indent AND a "decoration" indent.

well that's a new one for me

THANKS

It is kinda awkward having a blue bounding box that doesn't conform to the "decoration box"

But at least the margins are the same.

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, AlleyDukakis said:

But at least the margins are the same.

The real beauty of the Decorations is that they can also be different. If they couldn't be different I would never use it.

[thomaso]

12 minutes ago, AlleyDukakis said:

It is kinda awkward having a blue bounding box that doesn't conform to the "decoration box"

Not a seldom occurrence in Affinity, for instance if stroke gets applied, not to mention all objects with non-rectangular shape … bounding boxes are rectangular only.

There's always news to eyeball: Use the paragraph decoration fill together with frame insets to bring bounding box + background fill a little more into line:
(👁️ Differing 3 mm? Since it is a text style its perfection also depends on the used font file. Try with different fonts.)