Quick Grid Not Working Publisher V2

[Suirdzign]

As above. Quick grid is not functioning for me.

Followed video to the letter but pressing right arrow key only moves object drawn

Just installed V2 and carried over references. Do I need to change something in my preferences??

[GarryP]

This works okay for me in Publisher 2.0.3 on Windows.
When you press the arrow keys you need to still have the left-mouse-button pressed down, while you are dragging the shape out.

[Suirdzign]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

This works okay for me in Publisher 2.0.3 on Windows.
When you press the arrow keys you need to still have the left-mouse-button pressed down, while you are dragging the shape out.

Thanks Gary 

I worked it out eventually last night. 

Many happy returns of the season

 

[GarryP]

You’re welcome, and happy returns to you too.

(Hopefully this thread will help others who are in the same position, if they find it.)

[Suirdzign]

True. A simple addition in the instructions.... Draw shape and hold.... Would make all the difference

[GarryP]

The Help for Quick Grids currently says:
“1. Using a shape tool, picture frame tool, or the Frame Text Tool, begin drawing an object on a page.”
…
“6. Release to finish drawing the object and the grid.”

It might be more useful if it said something like:
“1. Using a shape tool, picture frame tool, or the Frame Text Tool, begin drawing an object on a page but do not release the mouse button until later.”
…
“6. You can now release the mouse button to finish drawing the grid of objects.”

[dlampel]

Wondering what I am missing or doing wrong.

Watched and followed video. Everything works as promised, yet, when I release the left mouse button to finalize the grid, it instantly reverts to just frame.

I am doing this with text frames.

[dlampel]

Addendum: It seems to work with image frames--but not text frames.

[GarryP]

It’s working fine for me with Frame Text layers – see attached video.
Once you release the left-mouse-button only one of the newly-created layers can be seen on the canvas (under default formatting circumstances) but all of the layers are created.

Note: I don’t think it would be ‘normal’ to create a grid of Frame Text layers in this way - column and row guides would be more 'normal'. Can you give more details of what you are trying to do?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

Once you release the left-mouse-button only one of the newly-created layers can be seen on the canvas

Sounds like you may not have View > Show Text Flow enabled. Without it, only a Selected Text Frame would show.

[GarryP]

I wouldn’t have thought that that would make a difference, since I had not linked any frame text layers, but it does, and the same in V1 too. Learn something new every day.

The text in the help “Linking Text Frames” says: “To temporarily hide blue link lines, arrows and overflow indicators, switch off Show Text Flow on the View menu.” Maybe it should mention the blue text frame bounds too.

[dlampel]

Quote

Sounds like you may not have View > Show Text Flow enabled. Without it, only a Selected Text Frame would show.

Yes, that was it. Thank you all, especially the always wise Walt. Not sure how this got switched off, as I typically have it on for my normal work.

I originally thought I could apply this technique in a Table of Contents. Historically, a chapter in a book would often include a brief summary of that chapter's purpose, so I thought I could have these text frames in place, then Place Autoflow into them the respective text files containing the summaries for each chapter. Alas, I quickly realized that setting up these text frames within a generated TOC would create more work than just using Copy/Paste to insert the text manually.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, dlampel said:

I originally thought I could apply this technique in a Table of Contents. Historically, a chapter in a book would often include a brief summary of that chapter's purpose, so I thought I could have these text frames in place, then Place Autoflow into them the respective text files containing the summaries for each chapter. Alas, I quickly realized that setting up these text frames within a generated TOC would create more work than just using Copy/Paste to insert the text manually.

If I understand you, you have a paragraph at the start of the chapter (after the chapter title, typically), and you'd like that paragraph to also appear in the TOC.

If that's it, just give that paragraph a unique Paragraph Text Style, and select that text style in the TOC panel for inclusion in the TOC, along with the text style for the chapter title. Then both should appear in the TOC. You'll probably want to make sure you have the "include page numbers" option disabled for that one in the TOC panel, of course.

[dlampel]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If I understand you, you have a paragraph at the start of the chapter (after the chapter title, typically), and you'd like that paragraph to also appear in the TOC.

A logical assumption, but no. The text (just one or two sentences) would only be in the TOC.

Details: After I complete a sometimes years-long Bible study, I publish my notes in PDF form. So in this context, each "chapter" is one day's session notes (around 8 pages). I don't see a good reason to include these summaries in the notes themselves--although your suggestion is causing me to consider it. In actual mechanics this would not save me any work, for I would still have to go into each session and manually insert the summary text--same as I would have to do in the TOC. But thank you for helping me think through this.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

The "summary at start of chapter" is a fairly common approach, in my experience. It helps the readers of the book, kind of like an Executive Summary in a report. And it would let it appear automatically in the TOC, as well.

[dlampel]

After some weekend experimentation (and discovering a line previously missed in the Help file for Publisher), I now realize that what I thought I could do with text is impossible. From the intro video I thought one could do with text files what is so elegantly implemented for graphic files. But in Publisher one cannot lay out a grid of text frames, then populate those frames with individual text files. From the Help file:

Quote

Autoflow is available for text documents but only when placed by clicking or dragging on a page, not by clicking on an existing text frame.

That is, one selects a text file, or multiple files, to Place, then, with the cursor loaded, one draws the initial text frame. If multiple files, subsequent frames are created on subsequent pages, containing the subsequent files. Placement of these frames is determined automatically depending on one's layout and where the first frame was drawn. If one wants to load the text files into multiple frames on one page, or does not want the frames to be on every page after the first, one is out of luck.

Needless to say, this user would vote for Affinity to implement for text files something akin to what it so splendidly has for graphic files. After all, in the suite of three programs, this is the one for text, right?

[Old Bruce]

@dlampel, I am not sure if this is what you want with placing many Text Files.

If you use Text Frames on a Master Page (linked if needed for 2 page spreads) then I can Place multiple text files into the various Text Frames on the first page and have auto flow work so I get the continuation from Frame 1 on Page 1 through to Frame 1 on Pages 2, 3, 4 etc. Now if I shit click on Frame 2 on Page 1 I get that text flowing through Frame 2 on Pages 2, 3, etc and so on.

Best Practices is to name the Text Frames on the Master Pages.

[dlampel]

31 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

@dlampel, I am not sure if this is what you want with placing many Text Files.

No. I am quite familiar with autoflowing in that manner. I do not believe there is any way to automate what I was looking for: originally a brief chapter summary in the TOC. As Walt pointed out, if I include this text on the same page as the title of each chapter, I could automate its inclusion in the TOC as well. This could be done manually--but not with Autoflow, for Autoflow wants to place the overflow on each subsequent page, whereas I would want it only on each Title page of each chapter.