Text Frame's baselines puzzle

[Aleksandar Kovač]

My inability to grasp concepts has been successfully demonstrated here before. I hope this will not be another reiteration of that. This time, I am failing to grasp Text Frame's Baseline Grid (BG), 'Relative to' setting. I have searched Help, alas no help was found.

So, dear fellow humanoids, et al. help me please. (play file attached)

Document BG is OFF.
Text Frame's Ignore BG is OFF.
Text frame's independent BG are ON.
Text aligns to BG.

Publisher help states:

Start Position — specify the offset of the first grid line from the origin at Relative To.
Relative To — specify what the baseline grid's starting position is in relation to.

Alright, let's go to Text frame's BG panel and play with 'Relative to' setting:

Top of Page

Expectation: As stated, BG starting position is defined in relation to Top of Page... Top of Page becomes BG's fixed origin. I.e. Text frame's BG' first line would be anchored in relation to Top of Page and offset by 'start position' value. Moving text frame would 'appear' like a frame on an otherwise static baseline grid. This behavior would be very useful for maintaining baseline consistency overall in layouts with more than one BG system. Neat!

Observed: Instead, it seems that BG is anchored to Text frame's top and it seems it behaves just like 'Top Inset' setting. 🤔 It seems that this setting is applied only when Text frame is created. Later it does not apply anymore. 🤨 Why?

Top Margin

Expectation: The same as above but page's Top Margin becomes BG's fixed origin.. I.e. Text frame's BG would be fixed in relation to Top margin. Increasing top margin by 1mm would make all relevant text frames' BG to move downwards 1mm.

Observed: BG is again anchored to Text Frame's top. 🤔 But, I cannot find how this setting relates to anything pagey-top-margin-y, at all. Help.

Top of Artboard

Expectation: Not explored. I guess this applies to editing graphics from Designer? If so, IMHO, it should not be present in GUI if it does not apply to paged document.

Observed: Seems to behave like 'Top of Frame' setting.

Top Artboard Margin

Expectation: Not explored. Again, I guess linked to editing graphics coming from Designer. Also, if so, IMHO, it should not be present in GUI if it does not apply to paged document.

Observed: 🤨 Moving a text frame up/down with this setting produces a funky effect. (Multiply by -1 error?)

Top of Frame

Expectation: The first BG line is defined relative to Top of text frame.

Observed: Behaves as expected.

Top Inset

Expectation: The first BG line is defined relative to Text frame's top inset.

Observed: Behaves as expected.

(Theme song: The Beatles: Help)

Text frame baselines.afpub

[Old Bruce]

Playing about a bit with your file I came away wondering if the problem(s) could the linking of all the different text frames. But overall I can't comment because most of the available settings are things I don't quite understand. 

[MikeTO]

I highly recommend not to use the Text Frame panel's Baseline Grid > Use Independent Baseline Grid option. Ignore all that.

Instead use View > Baseline Grid and choose Use Baseline Grid. This is much simpler because there is one baseline grid for the page which is the whole point of a baseline grid.

Now you'll just have Top of Page, Top of Spread (for facing pages), and Top Margin options.

Cheers

[Aleksandar Kovač]

Hi @Old Bruce, I have been learning so much from your posts, and if you say you 'don't quite understand', I wonder whether it is reasonable for me to go into this.  (Un)linking frames did not have effect on this setting. For some proper confusion regarding "relative to" setting, check out the situation on the image below. What would "relative to top of page" mean here? (again, I found out that it refers to the position of frame's inception, and from that point, no matter how you manipulate the frame, it would always refer to that original position)

@MikeTO, absolutely proper recommendation. Thanks! most of the time document baseline grid is fine + old-style calculation methods (Thank you Swiss school, thank you Robert Bringhurst). But, you know, because, it's there  it beckons me. It has (unfulfilled) potential. Perhaps, a dychotomic layout with two, conflicting grids, but both of them manageable?

As it is, it serves its purposes, even with the mysterious (disfunctional?) options. So... if it works, how does it work? If it doesn't, why is it cluttering the UI? Rhetorical questions, of course. The way I understand this (not much), the only sensible setting here would be "start at" distance that would always take top inset into account.

[Aleksandar Kovač]

'Leave them Text frame baselines be!' — they said. 'Nothing but hurt there.' — they said. And, of course, they were right. But, you see, I paid for the goddamned thing and I happen to think that a little pain is.. Well, and I like baselines in text frames because assets, profit, miscellanea, reasons... 

Now, look at this Text Frame baseline mess! Text in a text frame, nicely fixed to a baseline, once dragged into an unsuspecting, perfectly innocent looking group, starts to float! Before and after pics provided... (AP2 file attached for productive baseline-y fun)

 

Baseline wonked after grouping.afpub

[MikeTO]

I recommend opening the Text Frame panel and turning off Independent Baseline Grid for this text frame.

Then use View > Baseline Grid > Use Baseline Grid. Using the page-level baseline grid will solve the problem.

[Old Bruce]

I find it interesting that the premade Group will mess it up. But nothing untoward happens if I group the text frame into a new group. Again nothing odd occurs if I make a shape and group that all on its own and then remove the shape and place the text frame into that new newly empty group.

[loukash]

4 hours ago, Aleksandar Kovač said:

'Leave them Text frame baselines be!'

Not if you're like me who strongly dislikes 0° rotations.  
Sometimes, I want my text frames -0.7452° or 0.6509°. And the content aligned to a baseline grid. The global baseline grid has absolutely no authority here. More power to the Text Frame grid!

4 hours ago, Aleksandar Kovač said:

Now, look at this Text Frame baseline mess! Text in a text frame, nicely fixed to a baseline, once dragged into an unsuspecting, perfectly innocent looking group, starts to float!

There is something "wrong" (?) with your Group object itself. Has it been previously scaled?
If you group the original text object with itself, i.e. creating a new "virgin" group, or move it into another regular group, all is fine.

That said though, in v2 there are still a few unfixed bugs with Text Frame baselines inherited from v1. I vaguely remember having reported them a few years ago. 

[loukash]

2 minutes ago, loukash said:

There is something "wrong" (?) with your Group object itself. Has it been previously scaled?

Yep, that's it:
Don't place text frames with baseline grids into previously scaled groups.

[Aleksandar Kovač]

@MikeTO, In that example, master baseline grid is the way to go, by all means. It is just that the issue was most evident this way.

@loukash, you are absolutely right! Great finding! (Affinity, please take note) ... It is a little bit like remembering to take some pain medicine two hours before the pain, innit? 🙃

[MikeTO]

On 1/19/2023 at 8:22 PM, loukash said:

Yep, that's it:
Don't place text frames with baseline grids into previously scaled groups.

I posted this into the bugs forum today because it came up again and I don't think it was logged by Serif.