Why does my text style get all messed up?

[EatMoreBacon]

I am stumped!

I applied a text style to all my text. I thought a text style means that formatting is consistent. But if you look at the bottom of page 1, there are several paragraphs that are sized at 2.8 instead of 11.5. Why? I don't know. If I ReApply Text Styles, it switches to size 47.9 which I know I didn't set that either. It seems these two paragraphs can only be in one or the other.

In Indesign, I could choose to clear all overrides or just paragraph overrides or just character overrides. Here I haven't yet discovered how to do that. At least not in this situation.

Minutes 2023-01-18 MCFL meeting correction copy.afpub

[EatMoreBacon]

If you look at the file, when you resize the text frame, strange things happen.

If you drag the bottom of the text frame up, the small size text appears in the following text box at the proper size.

If you drag up too far the regular size text comes up in the next text box way too big.

If you drag the text frame down, more regular size text becomes teeny tiny.

What am I doing wrong?

[firstdefence]

Something else to note is the addition of a plus sign (+) on the paragraph style within the context menu...

You will see the cursor icon within the small text, if you click on the text listed as 1) it will remove the +, the same occurs for the lettered bullets, this suggests there is an additional setting applied to the paragraph style, maybe outside of the actual style, like local formatting. 

[EatMoreBacon]

But then it goes to 41 pt

and if I click in there with the cursor, it shows a + again and if I click onto 1)2)3) again, it goes back to 2.6pt!!!!

[LondonSquirrel]

I have seen this a couple of times, the weird sizes which I know for sure that I did not apply. Like you, I tried reapplying text styles only to find the problem cropping up again soon afterwards. 

The only way I found to reliably reformat all the text correctly was to copy the text to a plain text editor, delete the text frame from APub, add a new text frame, then paste the plain text in and apply the styles. I am not sure where the problem lies, whether it is the text which gets 'confused' or the text frame or maybe both.

[walt.farrell]

There are some bugs that could cause this, including one related to importing IDML files, and others related to copying/pasting a text frame between documents with different DPIs, or changing the DPI of a document after creating a text frame.

But most often it may occur if you resize a text frame using the wrong handle. If you look at the lower right of a text frame, you have two handles. One is at the corner of the frame, the other is detached and located diagonally below and to the right of the corner. If you use that detached handle, it resizes the frame, but it also rescales the text within the frame. That rescaling matches the effect you're describing.

You can try selecting the frame (not the text within it) and clicking Revert Defaults in the Toolbar, or using Edit > Defaults > Revert. If that doesn't work, deleting the frame and recreating it is the only other known approach.

[LondonSquirrel]

9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If you use that detached handle, it resizes the frame

I've seen that feature/bug, and I can right now repeat the result of using the 'wrong' handle'.

But I'm also 100% sure that I didn't use that handle myself when I encountered this problem. The 'resize frame' handle maintains the proportions of the text frame, which is why I am sure that I didn't use it. I think there might be another bug lurking around somewhere.

[thomaso]

@EatMoreBacon, since you mention ID, is your .afpub based on an .idml?

16 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

But I'm also 100% sure that I didn't use that handle myself when I encountered this problem.

As Walt mentioned, there is a known bug with imported .idml.
(I can't install V2 to check but would have expected that in the "next generation of Affinity, (…) setting a new standard in the world of creative software" at least general bugs would have been fixed?)

[laurent32]

3 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I think there might be another bug lurking around somewhere

@EatMoreBacon, since your problem occurs in a part of your document where there are some ordered list (1. ; a. ; 1) ; etc…), it might be linked to a problem I reported yesterday :

 

Especially if you often use that button :

Moving numbers could explain plenty of things…

[LondonSquirrel]

16 minutes ago, laurent32 said:

Since your problem occurs in a part of your document where there are some ordered list (1. ; a. ; 1) ; etc…), it might be linked to a problem I reported yesterday :

 

Especially if you often use that button :

Moving numbers could explain plenty of things…

Thanks for the tip, but it is @EatMoreBacon's file with the numbering.

[laurent32]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Thanks for the tip, but it is @EatMoreBacon's file with the numbering

I edited my post to be clearer ✅

[EatMoreBacon]

I don't think I did anything with the rescale handle.

I think it may have been a template in Indesign, that I converted to idml and imported to afpub. All the text was added in afpub.

Is there a way to get rid of the odd sizes? Or do I have to start over?

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, EatMoreBacon said:

Is there a way to get rid of the odd sizes? Or do I have to start over?

Did you try the approaches I mentioned above?

Can you share your document with us?

[EatMoreBacon]

Here is the file

I think I tried everything except starting completely from scratch.

Minutes 2023-01-18 MCFL meeting correction copy.afpub

[firstdefence]

I'd bite the bullet and be inclined to start from scratch, I don't think this is going to be a quickly solvable puzzle, as frustrating as this is.

I'm working away at the moment and the job has stalled so thought I'd set up a basic document for you to format. Text was cleaned up and filtered as plain text via Textedit on mac. All tabs and bullets were removed and the font was set to Times New Roman 12pt

I made up a separate Master page for Page 1 and added text frames to the Master A spread and set it to flow automagically lol! 

Imported the text styles from the old document.

Minutes 2023-01-18 MCFL Meeting no formatting.afpub

 

[LondonSquirrel]

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

Text was cleaned up and filtered as plain text via Textedit on mac. All tabs and bullets were removed and the font was set to Times New Roman 12pt

I would go a bit further than this. I recommended to use plain text. But if you are applying attributes of any kind, such as font and font size, that is no longer plain text. Plain text should remove all and every attribute of the text to ensure that what goes into APub is completely 'clean'.

1 hour ago, firstdefence said:

I'd bite the bullet and be inclined to start from scratch

I agree. It's not a long document and is quick enough to set up from scratch.

[Old Bruce]

@EatMoreBacon,

Near as I can tell, you have Superscript turned on for the default in the Character style [No Style].

One more thing is that you have chosen an already used Keyboard Shortcut for the application of the different numbered lists. I don't think this is the cause of the problems with the text sizing it is something which should be fixed.

[firstdefence]

3 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I would go a bit further than this. I recommended to use plain text. But if you are applying attributes of any kind, such as font and font size, that is no longer plain text. Plain text should remove all and every attribute of the text to ensure that what goes into APub is completely 'clean'.

I agree. It's not a long document and is quick enough to set up from scratch.

I just brought it in as plain text, that's what I meant by plain text, and just changed it from Arial to Times new Roman because it was Times New Roman in the old document, probably from a Windows based system. I used textedit to get rid of any formatting that may have caused the whole debacle in the first place, a bit of a wash and rinse jobby. lol!

Also learned how to bring in text styles from another document, not up on Publisher like ald Walt is lol!

[EatMoreBacon]

I'd bite the bullet and be inclined to start from scratch.

Thanks! I guess my biggest question is how do I avoid having it happen again.

Near as I can tell, you have Superscript turned on for the default in the Character style [No Style].

Ok, that would be a problem. How do I change defaults in the No Style?

Imported the text styles from the old document.

How do you import text styles and be certain that you don't get any junk along with it?

you have chosen an already used Keyboard Shortcut

Yea, its one of the things I'm needing to relearn. With Indesign, you had to use the NumPad for text shortcuts. With AfPub that don't work, so I need to change my shortcuts and I didn't get to all of them yet.

Sorry, I'm not sure how to quote other posts....

[Catshill]

Ignore the No Style.

Create a base paragraph style will all the parameters set as required.

Import text as unformatted.

[firstdefence]

7 hours ago, EatMoreBacon said:

How do you import text styles and be certain that you don't get any junk along with it?

Two ways to start the import, either Text > Text Styles > Import Text Styles... or from the Text Styles Panel Click on the Burger Menu  and select Import Styles...

Look for the afpub document you want to import the text styles from, highlight it and click: Open

Below is the window that will pop up, by default all of the styles are selected but you can deselect the ones you don't want, the check all is to check for name conflicts and that will be shown in the list, you can simply rename a conflicted style to carry on importing it.

 

[firstdefence]

7 hours ago, EatMoreBacon said:

Thanks! I guess my biggest question is how do I avoid having it happen again.

You would have to know what you did in the first place, this is a bit like the question "Where did you lose it"  Ultimately, the saver for this is to be able to save versions easily, which, unfortunately Affinity Publisher doesn't have yet, Mac users have Time Machine if used and I'd urge Mac users to seriously consider using Time Machine; saved my bacon a few times. For Windows users especially, I would encourage Affinity to seriously consider the versions feature and even improve on it if possible. Many a problem with corrupted files, system crashes, or like this accidental formatting (trying to unravel a Gregorian knot) could have been resolved with stepping back a version or two and a lot of consumed time, caffeine, headache and heartache saved to boot.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, firstdefence said:

Ultimately, the saver for this is to be able to save versions easily, which, unfortunately Affinity Publisher doesn't have yet,

Save As is easy enough for me, and works well until you get into projects large enough to require the Book function and multiple chapters. Then things get messier.

[Old Bruce]

14 hours ago, Catshill said:

Ignore the No Style.

Create a base paragraph style will all the parameters set as required.

Cannot ignore it/them. As [No Style] is the starting point for a lot of the functions in Group and Paragraph and Character Styles.

[Catshill]

51 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Cannot ignore it/them. As [No Style] is the starting point for a lot of the functions in Group and Paragraph and Character Styles.

Is it? So why would I need to use or need that knowledge?