Cannot edit text or picture frames in Publisher 1.10.5.1342 on Windows 10

[wrandyr]

I have a text frame and image frame in a document that display the "x" frame and cannot be edited for layer position, content, size, or anything else for that matter. They do not seem to be locked. They remain uneditable when editing the page's master page detached. I assume I am missing something, but what?

Randy Wright

[Lee D]

Hi @wrandyr

Welcome to the forums.

Is it possible to provide me a copy of your document via DM as I would like to take a look at the layer structure. Have you tried moving them further up the layer stack?

[wrandyr]

The layers won't move, either. I have sent a link to the file.

[walt.farrell]

On 9/14/2022 at 12:28 PM, wrandyr said:

They do not seem to be locked. They remain uneditable when editing the page's master page detached.

In the Layers panel they are physically located within the A-Master layer, which comes from a Master Page. That makes them locked, I believe. It is a bit odd because they do not have the orange highlight on the left, which usually indicates you put them there manually rather than them being inherited from the Master Page. That sometimes happens, too, when you Pin an object into another object that was inherited from a Master Page.

I'm not sure what you mean by "when editing the pages's master page detached". That almost sounds like you went to the Master Page in the Pages panel and did something there. For Edit Detached, you would select the Master Page layer on the document page, and choose Edit Detached.

[wrandyr]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "when editing the pages's master page detached".

I meant that when using Edit Detached, they are still not editable, moveable among layers, or deleteable.

[Old Bruce]

5 minutes ago, wrandyr said:

I meant that when using Edit Detached, they are still not editable, moveable among layers, or deleteable.

Where did the text and or frame come from? Is this an InDesign .idml document that you have opened for editing?

We would really need to see the pages copied into a new Publisher document to be of further assistance. Save a copy and delete all the text before the bad pages then delete those earlier pages, do the same for the text after the bad pages (which should now be the first pages). Send us that copy.

[wrandyr]

This is a native Affinity Publisher document. I am fuzzy on exactly what I did, as I wasn't expecting trouble and I have been fighting with this for a few days now. I was asked to replace the two images that were on the left-hand page. The new images had some cropping, but I wanted to keep the existing layout. I placed a new image over the existing image in the top frame, and replaced the text for its caption. Those are ok. I have forgotten what exactly went sideways with the lower image and caption, but I ended up deleting them and drawing new frames. I was able to type the word "caption" into the new text frame, but it has since become uneditable, and I can't place an image or do anything else with the new image frame. These are (caption) and (Picture Frame) in the layers panel.

I'm not quite sure how to approach getting just the problem page into a new Publisher doc. This is a book, and the text in the (Carol J. Bornstein... layers is flowed through nearly all of the document, with pinned content throughout. I imagine the sending the flowed/pinned content crashing through would obfuscate things. All of the other text layers come from the master page.

[Old Bruce]

15 hours ago, wrandyr said:

I'm not quite sure how to approach getting just the problem page into a new Publisher doc.

Don't use a new Publisher Document. Make a copy of the current one.

First select the last word in the desired page and select all the text flowing into other pages by holding down Shift + Command + Down Arrow. Hit the delete key, flowing text is gone. You can now use the pages panel to delete the end pages.

For going up it gets complicated, you'll want to delete Spreads, not just pages but only complete two page spreads. Do the same for the placing of the text caret to get rid of the text flowing into the page. Start with the first word and use Shift + Command + Up Arrow, all the text flowing into the page will be selected and you can delete it. Remember to delete only two page Spreads. Do not delete page one we will need it to keep the layout.

you should now have a three page document, Page one and the spread with the problem. Plus of course all the Master/Parent pages will be included too. This is why we started with a Copy of the problem file.

 

[wrandyr]

Lee has pointed out to me in a PM that there is a master page applied to itself in the original file. I have cleaned that up, and using Edit Detached was able to delete the rogue frames.

Thank you for your suggestions.

 

Randy