AF Publisher V2 > Books > Left Right Layout

[natecombsmedia]

Hey friends,

Today is my first time trying out the new Books feature in AF Publisher 2. I love this idea and used to use the equivalent when I was back on InDesign. It has more files to work with, but I like the tradeoff for things it opens up, the document cleanliness, and the software power/stability. However, the initial setup is definitely taking more time than it needs to. I just want to check if I am setting up the smartest way:

Is there a way yet to automatically view chapters that start on an even page (left) as a left side starting spread? Right now, everything starts on the right regardless of where it falls in the book. For example, chapter 2 might say Page 1, with the book page number (10) in parenthesis next to the document page.

I saw in the documentation that you can use the Stray Pages feature to clean up after the fact, but I am pretty sure I will need it before the export stage. Some chapters that have shapes and other things that will cross over from the left to the right, and they don't work this way.

I have been using Document Setup > Model > Start On Left (or Right) to adjust existing chapters manually, and this is probably fine since I believe I set up a master for both options to save each chapter over years ago in Adobe, but if there is anything simple I am missing to that is better, I would love to know. Thanks!

[natecombsmedia]

Also experiencing regular crashing when trying to save the book file. Am I not supposed to add chapters as they are formatted? Is this more of a compile it at the end feature? That's how I did it back in the day, which is fine. It's just this feature is more advanced and theoretically user-friendly than InDesign 10 years ago.

[MikeTO]

On 12/26/2022 at 4:02 PM, natecombsmedia said:

Is there a way yet to automatically view chapters that start on an even page (left) as a left side starting spread? Right now, everything starts on the right regardless of where it falls in the book. For example, chapter 2 might say Page 1, with the book page number (10) in parenthesis next to the document page.

I saw in the documentation that you can use the Stray Pages feature to clean up after the fact, but I am pretty sure I will need it before the export stage. Some chapters that have shapes and other things that will cross over from the left to the right, and they don't work this way.

I have been using Document Setup > Model > Start On Left (or Right) to adjust existing chapters manually, and this is probably fine since I believe I set up a master for both options to save each chapter over years ago in Adobe, but if there is anything simple I am missing to that is better, I would love to know. Thanks!

AFAIK, there is no way to direct Publisher to choose to start a chapter on the left or right based on the last page of the previous chapter, you must make this choice for each of the chapter files.

IMO, the most logical setting for Stray Pages with a facing pages document is to have both Merge and Pad enabled - without Pad you'll wind up with single page spreads in the exported PDF so it needs to be enabled. However, I don't find that Merge actually merges when I think it should so I recommend checking the output and adjusting your chapter files accordingly. i.e., if chapter 1 ends with a blank right page and chapter 2 starts on a right page, Publisher will pad before chapter 2 leaving me with 2 blank pages which isn't what I want in my book. I think it should pad before merging but it might be merging and then padding.

[natecombsmedia]

Ah, great to know actually. Amazon requires Affinity's style to be single pages or it doesn't turn out properly (odd because it's a PDF and other programs, they only take two-page spreads).

The padding was my big worry. I have been making sure so far that there are no blank pages at the beginning or end of a document, and the page numbers seem to be lining fine. Hopefully, a final export will work out fine.

[Chris_06]

On 12/29/2022 at 4:55 PM, MikeTO said:

However, I don't find that Merge actually merges when I think it should

I find this to be true as well.

Furthermore, I find that pad behaves in an almost random fashion: Sometimes it adds one page (front OR back) sometimes it adds two (front AND back) where in either case the opposite was correct.

At the moment, I don't see the added value of the Book feature over the Section feature.

[Chris_06]

On 12/29/2022 at 4:55 PM, MikeTO said:

i.e., if chapter 1 ends with a blank right page and chapter 2 starts on a right page, Publisher will pad before chapter 2 leaving me with 2 blank pages which isn't what I want in my book.

This is what I observe.

On 12/29/2022 at 4:55 PM, MikeTO said:

I think it should pad before merging but it might be merging and then padding.

That seems to be a very real possibility. It does not appear to merge at all that I can tell which makes me wonder if the order is incorrect resulting in merges being "overwritten" by padding.

[Chris_06]

Assumptions based on spreads:

1. The Book feature attempts to start all chapters on the right-hand side of a spread. (This really should be a user-option.)

2. Merging attempts two things: a) remove unnecessary blank pages in an effort to accomplish #1; and, b) maintain proper alignment of spine oriented margins.

3. Padding attempts to add blank pages in an effort to accomplish #1.

If those assumptions are correct, then merging should probably happen first, and padding cleans things up.

Note to the development team: Publishing the current design logic flow of this would probably go a long way towards a) clarifying intent and present functionality; and, b) helping solicit more useful feedback. Right now this exercise is like attempting to sort rocks from a kilo out using a rubber toothpick... 🙂

[MikeTO]

There are a couple more issues, too, so I suspect this is being left when it can all be tackled. I wrote a long thread on this with pictures a while ago.

The last page in a chapter may be blank to you and me but if it's part of a spread it's almost certainly based on a master and thus in the real world will have a master text frame and footer/header text. To Publisher, it's not blank, but to the user it certainly is. There needs to be an option to merge pages that have only master objects.

Another issue is that pad should have an option to pad using a master page rather than a purely blank page because maybe you want padded pages to have header/footer text. While an improved pad option could include a master page list for padding it would be better to just introduce the concept of a default master page for documents and sections. This would also enable padding between fixed-length sections if that feature was added in the future.

For now I recommend merging and padding manually for greater control.

[Chris_06]

25 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

The last page in a chapter may be blank to you and me but if it's part of a spread it's almost certainly based on a master and thus in the real world will have a master text frame and footer/header text. To Publisher, it's not blank, but to the user it certainly is. There needs to be an option to merge pages that have only master objects.

Pages inserted by the Book feature are always blank in my experience even though I remove all blank masters from all chapters. I suspect that the underlying code might indeed be using a master, but it is using a default of some sort rather than one based on the current document/book/etc.

As you point out:

27 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

it would be better to just introduce the concept of a default master page for documents and sections

This should all have been fleshed out by the design folks or at least should have been scared out during Beta. The current solution actually appears to have been designed to address a very specific layout. But I'm second guessing here.