Para styles and Text styles behaviour. Please explain.

[Australopithicus]

Dear AP users. I cannot understand the behaviour I am observing regarding text size and leading defaulting to odd sizes not of my creating.

As I correct text size in one para on left page, to required 10.5pt, it alters leading in the following right page para from 12.75 to 13.593pt. If I select the 13.593pt RH para and make leading the required 12.75, the previously corrected type size and para reverts to smaller type size 9.849pt and leading 11.959pt. Why the change in page number (L to R) changes font and leading beats me.

One solution I tried was to extend the depth of the left page type box to include both para’s and re-set text size and leading as one block.  When the text box is restored to its original depth pushing the RH para to its correct RH page, the leading returns to 13.593. If I restore RH leading to 12.75, left page leading and font size return to 9.849 and 11.959.

I understand enough about the styles system to recognise the cause may be the original imported file being Word set in 12pt Times New Roman with leading and para spacing defaults which I cannot identify as I do not have Word. I also recognise my chosen font and style are based upon the imported file.

I would like to eliminate specs of imported file if possible and specify clean Text and Para styles palette so there is only one style; not one style based on another.

How should I correctly do this without losing my text?. Advice would be appreciated.

Screen shot A shows text 9.489 highlighted for change to 10.5pt.

Screen shot B shows RH para leading expanded to 13.593 as a result of Left Page font size increase.

 

[walt.farrell]

Without having the document to examine, it may be impossible to prove what's happening. But it is not likely to be a text style issue, in my experience.

Where did the document and the text in it come from? Did you create it from scratch, or was it created in some other form that you imported into Publisher? (By the way, AP is the abbreviation for Affinity Photo, as you can see if you have a mouse by hovering over that abbreviation in this post or yours. APub or APu are abbreviations for Publisher.)

The common causes for a behavior like the one you describe are:

1. A user error when creating a Text Frame, where to resize the frame the user uses the lower-right, detached "scaling" handle rather than using the attached lower-right corner handle.
    
2. An Affinity issue interpreting an IDML file that's been imported. (I don't think Serif has ever figured out what's happening with this one.)

[Australopithicus]

Dear Walt,

Thank you for taking an interest in this issue. I read and understood your comments.

Re Text Box: I have never used scaling handle. Original file Word, not IDML. Word was imported and text frames set up automatically. No need for me to tinker. I have cut and reconnected text frames on pages 200 and 204 quite successfully so I feel confident that frames are not to blame. That said, you have more experience than me. How does the scaling handle actually create text flow problems?

The fact that extending the depth of Left page 98 text frame to include both paragraphs (L&R), which I have then corrected, then found the para’s revert to error after restoring the text frame to original size on respective left  p98 and right p99 as shown, implies text frame is a factor?

This issue has manifested elsewhere but I have somehow solved it. Sequence of change: leading first, then font size has proved good in other cases. If I follow that principle in this case I achieve same size font with both para’s but p90 text expands to 13.593 leading or similar. So I can achieve consistent type size but not consistent leading.

I have enclosed my file if you can find the time to examine pages 98 and 99 I would be interested in your findings.

 

John Biography Final 27:8.pdf

[Catshill]

When I come across text import issues, I often find it easier in the long run to import as plain text and reapply styles manually.

Also see

 

[tudor]

@Australopithicus what's probably happening there, is that you have the leading set as a multiple of the font size. You need to go to the paragraph text settings (you do work with text styles, right?), change the leading type to "Exactly" and then you can set your desired leading value.

[Australopithicus]

Thank you for your thoughts tudor.

Barking up the wrong tree unfortunately. Text is 10.5pt leading 12.75pt offer no common denominator in these sizes to qualify as a multiple. Leading is already set to ‘exactly’.

Thank you for your interest Catshill. I agree. Starting a fresh import with a .rtf file is a good idea. I would like to save or convert the APub file to .rtf  and start again, but the option to convert APub as .rtf is not available. Some respondents have already advised I use a file converter such as BBedit. BBEdit cannot read APub nor can it read .pdf.

If someone can recommend a file converter they have used to convert APub to text file I would like to know about it.

Personally I think the answer is buried in the Paragraph/Styles subcategories. If I were to delete all default Para Styles and reconfigure, would that delete text and require me to re-import original Word file?

Meanwhile, how did you get on with the file I supplied Walt? Did you have time to experiment?

I thank all respondents for offering their thoughts on this problem.

Best Wishes,

 

On 8/29/2022 at 3:17 PM, Catshill said:

When I come across text import issues, I often find it easier in the long run to import as plain text and reapply styles manually.

Also see

 

 

[walt.farrell]

7 hours ago, Australopithicus said:

If I were to delete all default Para Styles and reconfigure, would that delete text

No.

(But of course, you would experiment with things like that on a copy of your file  )

[Australopithicus]

I certainly would Walt, but a few words from you may save much messing about at my end!

I have yet to solve the problem.

Taking your comment about page frames. I shall delete existing frames and re-create and relink. If that does not work I shall join a Monastery

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, Australopithicus said:

If I were to delete all default Para Styles and reconfigure, would that delete text

A style never affects text contents but its appearance only.

If you delete a text style from the panel then its parent style ("Based on") gets assigned to the text, if there is no parent style then the "[No style]" gets assigned with its current style definition. Deleting a style is an undoable action, if undone the text gets reassigned the previously deleted style.

Before just deleting a text style you can first create a new style as its replacement and then use Find & Replace > Format to get the new style assigned where the unwanted shall be replaced.

[Old Bruce]

On 8/28/2022 at 2:19 AM, Australopithicus said:

Dear AP users. I cannot understand the behaviour I am observing regarding text size and leading defaulting to odd sizes not of my creating.

One problem may be caused by the Paragraph style having some settings overridden, I can see this from your first screenshot's Text Styles having a + in the "Text Style 01"

Another source of the problem may be from the rather odd use of two Paragraph Styles called "Text 01" and "Text Style 01". I would suggest that you not have a Character style called Zapf being the Base for the second Paragraph style. Anything that is set in Zapf can be most likely set in one of the Paragraph Style's itself. It is a redundancy to have Zapf based on Text 01 and then have it be the Based On for Text Style 01.

[Australopithicus]

Ok Guys, Have deleted old Para and Character Styles and rebuilt Styles.

All is not well as the complete book has reverted to the first imported Word document default which is Arial 12pt.

I expected complete setting would revert to the style I specified in my pallet. In fact as the screen shot below shows; only those para’s I have clicked and highlighted are changed.

I clicked and dragged all pages in the master page section to highlight all text. Nevertheless Style changes have not taken place throughout book.

What am I overlooking?

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Australopithicus said:

I clicked and dragged all pages in the master page section to highlight all text.

I have no idea what that means; sorry. What is "the master page section"? What do you mean by "dragged all pages"?

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, Australopithicus said:

Have deleted old Para and Character Styles and rebuilt Styles

As mentioned before, it appears not useful to create a Character style as a Base ('parent') for a Paragraph style ('child'). The latter affects entire paragraphs, the first avoids this.

[Australopithicus]

Thank You Gentleman, I have seen the Light!

Since the problem was created by style overides, and in an attempt to get back to basics, I have made ‘No Style’ the basis of Para and Font. This converts Arial para’s to Zapf and I now seem to have control over setting.

In Character> Positioning and Transform, I found the leading indicator at bottom left (Just above ‘No Break), set for 12pt Arial leading which conflicted with my 12.75pt Paragraph setting. That explained the unexpected Para behaviour in large part. Converting ‘No Style’ to required settings was the sensible way to eliminate Arial. I thought creating a Zapf Style would replace the Arial, which it does only as long as the style is highlighted. Why font size changed I cannot explain.

 

Being somewhat unfamiliar with the interface I was being caught out by the above conflict.

There was no need to keep Arial so I got rid of my problems by deleting and replacing specs.

Thank you very much Guys for your patience. The obvious is not so when a particular thought pattern dominates.

Cheers.

 

 

[Old Bruce]

@Australopithicus I have to jump in here and ask for what purpose were the Character styles Chapter Head, Chapters, and New Caption made?

Maybe it is just me not getting it. I do realize that this is most likely early on the document's life.

The way I work is to have many, many Paragraph Styles and very few, if any, Character Styles. Character styles are used (by me) to change a word, or just a single character, in a paragraph. Pretty much any trait that is available in a Character style is also available in the Paragraph style. I would have all my text assigned a pertinent Paragraph Style and just use Character styles to change a few words here and there to Italic or Bold (and I would use those words, not Emphasis and Strong).

I will have a Paragraph style named Drop Cap and make a corresponding Character style which is based on that. At times I may want a decorative font for the drop cap and I can set that in my Drop Cap Character (yes that is what I name it) Character style. Then I decide that is not what I want, I just have to change the font family to No Change and the drop capital will be the original Paragraph Style's font.

I completely understand how people think that a Paragraph Style should be based on a Character Style. It is intuitive to do so, and I have tried to work that way but I wind up having to apply and manage many more styles than anyone should have to. Basically it means I am doubling the number of styles for no good reason. But still, it seems so obvious. Choose the font family and font characteristics in a Character style then set the other paragraph stuff in a Paragraph style.

I try to have no text in my documents that does not have a Paragraph style applied. A Paragraph style of my making, there should be no text that has [No Style] as its Paragraph style. Most, if not all, of the text will have the Character style [No Style] applied to it.

[thomaso]

39 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I completely understand how people think that a Paragraph Style should be based on a Character Style. It is intuitive to do so, and I have tried to work that way but I wind up having to apply and manage many more styles than anyone should have to.

The most convincing thing for me was the fact that a paragraph can only get assigned 1 paragraph style, while it can have many styles for its containing characters, even a separate character style for each individual character. This made it clear to me that a paragraph style must be the basis and not vice versa.

Another fact are those style properties which do exists only for paragraphs, e.g. the space before / after. It would just be cumbersome to start with a character style and then add an additional paragraph style as its child to be able to set this or other properties – while all can get set in a paragraph style without the need for a character style.

[MikeW]

31 minutes ago, thomaso said:

The most convincing thing for me was the fact that a paragraph can only get assigned 1 paragraph style, while it can have many styles for its containing characters, even a separate character style for each individual character. This made it clear to me that a paragraph style must be the basis and not vice versa. ...

Really? Not so with Affinity applications. For better or worse, you decide.

Here I have applied an h1 paragraph style to characters within a body paragraph style.

[Old Bruce]

@thomaso,

Your experience is similar to mine. I too quickly figured it all out but I have a lot of experience with several different DTP packages from the 80s on. I guess I was trying to point out how it could appear to someone.

Aside: My experience actually goes back to using hand set letterpress type and then phototypesetting (Press down and release the shift key, type the first letter of the first word in the sentence, press and release the unshift key and continue typing. No visual display of what I was typing). 

[Old Bruce]

11 minutes ago, MikeW said:

Really? Not so with Affinity applications. For better or worse, you decide.

I think what Thomaso meant was something like this:

This is a Paragraph.

There are four Character styles used in that one paragraph. I do wish we could apply more than one Character Style to a single word or character at the same time though.

This is a Paragraph.

[MikeW]

5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I think what Thomaso meant was something like this:

This is a Paragraph.

You can do your example with just defined p.styles with zero c.styles.

[Old Bruce]

12 minutes ago, MikeW said:

You can do your example with just defined p.styles with zero c.styles.

The point was that any Paragraph can have only the one Paragraph style applied, many different Character styles may be applied to separate letters or words in that one paragraph. No one needs to use any Paragraph Styles or Character Styles in a document.

[MikeW]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

The point was that any Paragraph can have only the one Paragraph style applied, many different Character styles may be applied to separate letters or words in that one paragraph. No one needs to use any Paragraph Styles or Character Styles in a document.

We must be talking at cross-purposes.

My example has two paragraph styles applied to it. I could apply any/all paragraph styles to each individual letter instead of the text run in my example.

There are no character styles applied to my example. 

Someone at Serif thought that applying paragraph styles to characters was an evidently good idea. 

[Old Bruce]

Just now, MikeW said:

Someone at Serif thought that applying paragraph styles to characters was an evidently good idea. 

Okay, you weren't speaking at cross purposes, I was/am being slow and thick.

And yes, I recall having seen the apply paragraph style to characters and wondered what the hell it was supposed to do. One of those ideas that really should have been smothered right away. Have you ever seen the movie Rosemary's Baby?

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

Really? Not so with Affinity applications. For better or worse, you decide.

Here I have applied an h1 paragraph style to characters within a body paragraph style.

Oh, thanks! I never was aware about this option. (as I am not experienced with using the "Group" style which feels to combine c- and p-style properties, too).

I'd prefer to avoid using this option since it may easily cause confusion, especially in Affinity where I never can trust what's highlighted or reported by the UI for selected items which have different properties applied.

With this method I would still say there is only 1 paragraph style assigned 😎 just because paragraph properties (e.g. leading, space before/after etc) get used only from 1 paragraph style, including those text which got a separate P-style assigned to selected characters.

I wouldn't say a P-style is really assigned to such selected characters but rather say some char-properties of a p-style get assigned if a p-style gets assigned to characters. Rather confusing than useful possibilities to me.

[MikeW]

16 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Okay, you weren't speaking at cross purposes, I was/am being slow and thick.

And yes, I recall having seen the apply paragraph style to characters and wondered what the hell it was supposed to do. One of those ideas that really should have been smothered right away. ...

I do believe that the ability for this behavior falls into the "we can make p.styles apply to characters, so let's do it. Nobody else does..." which is a poor reason in and of itself.

16 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

... Have you ever seen the movie Rosemary's Baby?

Hah. Yep. Which was the reason for the laughing emoji. All sorts of imagery now in my head!