Designer V2 - no indentation for new paragraphs on the top of a page

[Ushur]

Hello!

As (in Germany) there is no indentation for new paragraphs on the top of a page if you do best practises, I tried to create a style in Affinity Designer V2, but I am not able to. Is there a way to create such a style or would I need to do this manually in ADV2?
I can do this after a headline because I can set the next style, but how would it work for a new page?

Best Greetings
Ingo

 

[walt.farrell]

First, there are no "pages" in Designer; they are a Publisher concept.

However, even in Publisher, there's no concept of a style that will apply to the first paragraph on a page. In either app, you would need to define a specific Text Style for "first paragraph on page" and assign that style to the paragraph. You could define an additional text style like "subsequent paragraph" and you could define"first paragraph on page" to automatically switch to "subsequent paragraph".

Of course, if you have linked text frames in Publisher, what was a "first paragraph" could become a "subsequent paragraph" if you make changes to the text, and you would need to reassign the paragraph text styles manually when that happens.

[Old Bruce]

2 hours ago, Ushur said:

As (in Germany) there is no indentation for new paragraphs on the top of a page if you do best practises,

Is that a real thing? Or is it for the first paragraph in a new Article or Section or Chapter? I just don't think a random paragraph which happens to be the first bit of text on a new page would be flush to the left. And what if there are three lines from a preceding paragraph above it, technically it would be the first paragraph. Or would it be the preceding page's last paragraph which continues onto the new page which would be considered that new page's first paragraph?

If this is actually a real thing then I have to say sorry but Affinity Designer and Publisher are unable to know what bit of text is the "first" on any give random page.

I got into a routine where I make a Paragraph Style for the Bulk of the text and then I make one for the First Paragraph in a Chapter (or section). I have the First Paragraph based on the Bulk style and I will frequently change absolutely nothing for the First Paragraph but I will apply it to all of the First Paragraphs in the document. Then I can decide whether or not I want to make adjustments to the First Paragraphs.

[MikeTO]

Ushur isn't referring to a Publisher page but to a book page. In some languages you shouldn't indent the first paragraph on a page.

While we don't have this in English, the equivalent issue is the first paragraph following a heading is often not indented. i.e.,

This is a heading

This is the first paragraph
of text

     This is the second para
-graph of text

Adobe InDesign users frequently complain about the lack of this feature and I think it's long past time for page layout software to add this. The workaround for English is to create two body text styles, Body and Body Indent, or Body and Body No Indent, whichever way you prefer. Then you just manually apply the no indent version of the style to the first paragraph after each heading and set up the Next Style attributes accordingly. But you better add "check the indent/no indent styles" to your checklist because you're sure to miss a few.

There's no equivalent workaround for German so Ushur is correct to ask for this.

Bruce, while Publisher may not "know" which text is at the top of a page, it does know what text is at the top of a column or frame and that's what is important. It offers a similar "Use Space Before <Only At Column Top>" attribute. What Publisher and (Indesign) need are equivalent attributes to control first line indent.

• "Use First Line Indent Before <Only At Frame Top>" - this would offer German users the control they need
• "Ignore First Line Indent After <select style>" - this would offer English users the control they need without having to resort to two styles. The problem with this attribute is that you might have Body Text following Heading 1, Heading 2, or Heading 3, and want no indent after any level of heading. Publisher doesn't have a concept of a heading style so the user would need to select each heading for this option. This needs to fit in a panel and a popup list control is the most logical one to fit in the space, a multi-select scrolling list would take up a lot of space and be messy. One solution would be a More (...) control to the right of the popup that would allow the user to multi select.

Anyway, that's a bit too much thought for the UI at this point. But IMO Publisher (and InDesign) sorely need these two attributes. And I really like Serif adding features that InDesign doesn't have yet. 🙂 

[walt.farrell]

Thanks, @MikeTO.

By the way, the "no indent after heading" case is sort of handled already. Just have the Heading style set the "no indent" style as its next style. Then have "no indent" set "indent" as its next style.

Of course, none of these work with pasted text. They require typed text. And they won't work automatically if you insert a Heading into a Text file that exists already. So there is still additional functionality needed.

[MikeTO]

20 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

By the way, the "no indent after heading" case is sort of handled already. Just have the Heading style set the "no indent" style as its next style. Then have "no indent" set "indent" as its next style.

Of course, none of these work with pasted text. They require typed text. And they won't work automatically if you insert a Heading into a Text file that exists already. So there is still additional functionality needed.

I do have mine set up with Next Style but all of my text is pasted into Affinity.

Regardless, at least we have a two-style workaround for this English formatting convention but there's no workaround for the formatting convention Ushur described.

I think these would be worthy feature additions that would save a lot of extra work.

[Old Bruce]

I am baffled by this convention. The reader is left with no indication as to whether or not the first line is a new paragraph. I include a quick and nasty example of two documents. Look at Pages 2 and 3 in each. Here is page two, a new paragraph for sure in the second example

Scandal in Bohemia.zip

And page three is the same in both cases, a continuation of the previous paragraph. But it could be ambiguous if we adhere to the "convention". I honestly cannot believe that this is a thing.

 

[MikeTO]

4 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I am baffled by this convention. The reader is left with no indication as to whether or not the first line is a new paragraph.

Since the purpose of the indent is to help the reader identify where in a page full of text the next paragraph starts, there's less need for it at the top of a page. I prefer our convention of indenting even at the top of the page but there are so many regional variations.

[loukash]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Is that a real thing?

No. It's a possibility because nowadays "you can" relatively easily. 
Having learned typography at a Swiss art school shortly before DTP even came to existence, these alleged "rules" weren't carved in stone at all. Costs was likely a factor, because you would have to pay the typesetter for this massive extra work. (At that time, my flat and band mate was a typesetter apprentice so I had quite some insight into the process.)

So today, if you have a layout app that can automate at least parts of it, that's a great thing. If not, you just go on as you did the past 30+ years of DTP and quickly check each page manually. Which is something that every self-respecting layouter would do anyway, right?

In Publisher, we have format, text style and regex search which can be quite helpful in these scenarios. Also not to underestimate here are keyboard shortcuts for text styles. 

[Ushur]

Thanks for all the input. I was just curious if it can be automated. Thanks