Publisher v2: Can't Get Styles to List in Format Note Body

[dlampel]

I am doing some testing with footnotes and end notes before beginning work on the final production document, which will be somewhere around 500 pages. I am Pasting (not Placing) the Open Document (ODT) text into my Publisher template, which also brings in all my text (para) styles.

Publisher properly creates the footnotes and side notes, but getting the document styles to list in the Format Note body dialogue is like pulling teeth. Sometimes (only some times) they will display. When they do not, I have closed the document and reopened it; some times the styles will then list--other times no. If I get them to display (i.e., by clicking on the drop down list), if I return later, they may not. If I get them to display for footnotes, they won't for sidenotes!

What am I missing? I cannot find any other posts about this, so it must be operator error. Does one have to create new styles just for notes?

[Dan C]

Hi @dlampel,

Thanks for your post and our apologies for the delayed response here.

Are you able to attach a copy of your ODT document, and your .afpub file here so that I can investigate this further?

Many thanks in advance

[dlampel]

Thanks, Dan. To be clear, the text styes are listed as expected in the Publisher file; where they are missing is in the Format Note body dialogue.

Because they are small, I have attached all three test files, as well as the original ODT doc. You will find the footnotes on page 4 (14), and the sidenote on page 15 (25).

I appreciate your help with this.

TEST_02.afpub TEST_03.afpub TEST_01.afpub Notes_1.odt

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing these for me!

Interestingly, 'TEST_02.afpub' crashes on open for me, and I'm not 100% certain of the cause of this and therefore I have logged this file as a bug with our development team.

However, in opening 'TEST_01' or 'TEST_03' - both of these files display the Paragraph Styles in the Context Toolbar list, and within the Notes Studio, as expected -

 

Have I correctly understood your report in the steps I've taken above? I note you mention this is not consistent on your PC, though I have opened and closed the document multiple times, both in the retail and beta versions and these lists are populated as expected in all instances.

Many thanks once again!

[dlampel]

Dan, I appreciate your time and efforts with this.

Note: I am running Publisher 2.0.4

At this end things remain elusive. I opened Test_03 and, initially one note would display the list, one would not. (I am insuring that I select the appropriate "Footnotes" or "Sidenotes" tab each time.) Closed file. Reopened. This time both notes displayed the style options. If a solution is not found, I suppose that I can just keep trying until the options are displayed, select the style I want, and hope that it will still be there when I reopen the file.

Again, thank you for your help.

[Dan C]

No problem at all, 

On 3/3/2023 at 5:38 PM, dlampel said:

At this end things remain elusive. I opened Test_03 and, initially one note would display the list, one would not

Just to confirm, when this issue appears do you not see any styles listed in this dialog, or only the styles imported from your ODT document?

If possible, are you able to provide a screen recording showing this issue for me, so I can investigate further?

If you're unsure how to take a screen recording, please check out our FAQ linked below - 

Many thanks!

[dlampel]

1 hour ago, Dan C said:

Just to confirm, when this issue appears do you not see any styles listed in this dialog, or only the styles imported from your ODT document?

If possible, are you able to provide a screen recording showing this issue for me, so I can investigate further?

Dan,

Running Win 11, and I do not have the Recording app described in the FAQ. If absolutely necessary I could take further steps to install it, but I'm not sure it would work for me, since I use two screens, with all my Publisher controls on one, and the open documents on the other. Here is my step-by-step:

• With doc open I place the text cursor in the foot/side note itself.
• I make sure I have selected the appropriate tab in the Notes dialogue.
• Under "In Note Body" the style option looks as it does below in the first screen shot. Clicking on it shows nothing more than what it shows here--i.e., no styles at all from which to choose. Even if I have successfully assigned a style the last time it worked, it does not show that style.

• When it is working, the same dialogue looks like this:

• If I click on the style option, it displays all the styles in my doc's Text styles. (I have not created any styles specific to Notes; just using in my tests the para styles that come over with the word processing doc.)
• But, as reported, this only works about 50% of the time.

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me - I've been testing this further here with my Studio controls on a secondary monitor and I'm still yet unable to replicate the exact behaviour reported.

I do note you've mentioned ensuring the correct text frames and options are selected in the Notes Studio, as this is the only time I see similar behaviour.
For example, if I have no selection of any frame, all options in this dialog can be selected.
If I have the main text body selected, all of the 'Document-wide' options are greyed out for all 3 note types (as expected) but the 'Custom' section can be edited for all 3, as required.
With a footnote selected, I'm able to control options for both 'Document-wide' & 'Custom' under the Footnotes tab, but no options under the Sidenotes or Endnotes.
The same is then true with a sidenote or endnote selected in the document respectively.

The next time this occurs, can you please deselect all objects in your file (simply click in any blank space with the Move Tool) and let me know if these options can be edited as expected?

[dlampel]

Dan, here is a detailed script of the steps I just performed:

1. Open file Test_03. Go to page 24 (15).
2. With move tool selected, deselect all.
3. All styles Listed (for Sidenote)
4. Switched to Frame text tool. All deselected.
5. All styles still listed.
6. Click in Sidenote text.
7. All styles listed.
8. Go to page 14 (footnote) without anything selected and text tool selected. Switch dialogue tab to Footnotes. No styles listed.
9. Click in footnote text with text tool. No styles listed.
10. Switch to Move tool; nothing selected. No styles listed.
11. No matter what I tried I could not get the style list for the footnote to display--not even the style that had previously been assigned (Scripture 1).
12. Return to page 24 (15) with Move tool; click on Sidenote tab in dialogue and with nothing selected in the document. No styles listed (where just a moment before they had).
13. Switch to Text tool with nothing selected. No styles listed
14. Click in Sidenote text. No styles listed. Not even the one previously assigned (Default First Paragraph).

[dlampel]

More clues... 

Today I opened up my empty template file to begin a TEST_04. Before bringing in any text at all--and with only one text style in the doc list (R_Copyright), and with nothing in the doc selected, I went to the Notes dialogue. I clicked on the Footnotes tab, and selected "Document-wide." Based on what you have said, Dan, I would expect it to offer me that one text style in the Note Body Style pulldown. But, as usual, just [No Style}.

After Pasting the text into the template, and with still nothing selected, but now with multiple text styles in the doc list, still none will display in the Notes body style option.

Created a Side note and dropped in the text for the note with its original style assigned... Crash. Publisher closed.

Edited March 8, 2023 by dlampel
additional information

[Dan C]

Many thanks for the further tests and I'm certainly sorry to hear this is still occurring for you.

I've followed the workflow you've provided exactly and the Styles remain selectable for me at all expected stages, so this may be due to your local Publisher settings.

Therefore I'd like to try resetting your app to default settings to see if this resolves this oddity for you.

Can you please close Affinity Publisher, then open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) and navigate to:

%userprofile%\.affinity\Publisher

Within this folder, please select the "2.0" folder and rename this to "2.0_old".

Having done this, please reopen Publisher and start a new document, or open one of your test files and let me know if this resolves this issue for you?

[dlampel]

Dan,

Well, this is discouraging.

I followed your directions precisely, and when prompted, did not even import my Publisher 1 stuff. So back to a completely clean Publisher with factory settings. Went through the same steps chronicled above. Could not get styles to pull down no matter what. So, imagining the possibility that my template might contain some residual Publisher 1 data, I opened a brand new, clean file from scratch, Pasted the standard text I have been using for my tests--with same result: no possible way to use existing styles to format notes. 

Next, I opened a second brand new, clean file, and this time instead of Pasting my existing text, I Inserted Filler Text. Immediately the Affinity default styles were displayed in the Note Body Style pull-down.

Although this is good news, since it points to my word-processor file as the culprit, for the same reason it is very bad news; the whole purpose is to publish somewhere around 400 pages of notes generated over the last year. I can't type them all over again.

I will next run some tests, such as,

1. Go back to original program settings and see if I duplicate  the successful steps with clean files and text.
2. Save my .ODT files as MS .docx files to see if the problem lies with the .ODT format.
3. If that doesn't work, I will try some other file formats.

Not so fast.

Repeating the successful steps from above with the original settings back in place did not work. So the evidence would seem to indicate that it is both my WP text and the old settings. I will switch back to new, factory settings, and start again.

Thank you for your help with this.

Edited March 8, 2023 by dlampel
more information

[Old Bruce]

10 minutes ago, dlampel said:

Although this is good news, since it points to my word-processor file as the culprit, for the same reason it is very bad news; the whole purpose is to publish somewhere around 400 pages of notes generated over the last year. I can't type them all over again.

You could try saving as Plain Text.

[dlampel]

5 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

You could try saving as Plain Text.

That would add many, many more hours of work. But thanks for your input. (I think before I would do that I would just abandon the use of foot/side notes for this document.)

[Old Bruce]

1 minute ago, dlampel said:

That would add many, many more hours of work. But thanks for your input. (I think before I would do that I would just abandon the use of foot/side notes for this document.)

Ah, Footnotes. I thought notes as in ... well... notes, documents. I downloaded the ODT file and couldn't find any notes in that with LibreOffice. Granted I just quickly scanned through page by page. The problem you describe just doesn't happen here on my Mac OS 11.7 with the Publisher files you included.

[dlampel]

13 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Ah, Footnotes. I thought notes as in ... well... notes, documents. I downloaded the ODT file and couldn't find any notes in that with LibreOffice. Granted I just quickly scanned through page by page. The problem you describe just doesn't happen here on my Mac OS 11.7 with the Publisher files you included.

No, there are no footnotes in the original ODT files. Here is the workflow: Combine the three ODT files into one, then paste that into Publisher. Once there, I will be (if all these problems can be rectified) pulling certain portions of text from the main body and changing them to either footnotes or sidenotes, depending on the nature of the text.

By the way (Old Bruce and Dan) I am having some success in my testing today. But I am still trying to narrow it down to the precise culprit(s).

[dlampel]

Gentlemen (and To Whom it May Concern):

I believe I have found the culprit in all this--and it is an old nemesis.

When Publisher 2 was first released we were told that we could open v1 files with it, and that we would be prompted to save then in the v2 format. Even following the prescribed procedure I experienced terrible headaches using my templates that had started their life in v1. Some of this could be attributed to bugs in that first iteration of v2. Well, many of those bugs were rectified, but perhaps there are lingering "bugs," of my own devising, in those old templates that have insinuated themselves in the v2 versions of the templates. 

I have concluded (fingers crossed!) that the problem is not with my program settings, nor the original WP files, but with my templates. I have returned to my original settings files, and have successfully inserted both footnotes and sidenotes--and selected the appropriate text style for both--in

• typed-in text
• pasted in plain text
• a different ODT from those in the Test_xx series files, with paragraph styles

into

• several New Publisher documents (not from templates).

What I could not get to work was inserting--and setting the text style for--footnotes and sidenotes in Publisher 2 documents based on older v1 templates that had been converted to v2. So the plan of action would seem to be to recreate--from scratch in v2--my standard templates.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for the update @dlampel, I'm certainly glad to hear you were able to identify the cause of this and explains why your experienced behaviour was different from mine!

Hopefully you shouldn't have any further issues with your new templates created in V2, but should you have any further questions we're happy to help

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "User file - Opening .afpub crashes app" (REF: AFB-7444) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.1.0.1728".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[dlampel]

On 3/10/2023 at 9:40 AM, Dan C said:

Hopefully you shouldn't have any further issues with your new templates created in V2, but should you have any further questions we're happy to help

Dan C., et al,

I am sorry to report that this problem persists. I am currently working on the final publication that my previous testing was for, and once more the available styles will not display in the Notes dialogue. I am posting this for information purposes; for this project I have a work-around (see below).

• I created a brand new, perfectly clean v2 document--not from any template, but from scratch.
• The new document had no styles--only the "No Style" selection.
• My WP file (369 pages) was Pasted into the Publisher document, loading its para styles into the document.
• I created a new style named "Note Text" to use in all notes.
• I went through the procedure to create a new Footnote, using "Document-wide" settings. Reference number was inserted into the text and a new footnote created at the bottom of the frame--everything as it should.
• However, no matter where I place the cursor--either with everything unselected or clicking in the note itself--the options under Format / In main text  and Format / In Note Body show only [No Style] for an option. Not other styles--not even the style I manually assigned from the Style list.
• Work-around: After I have created each note, I can manually select the "Note Text" style I created to apply it to the note. But this must be done manually for each note. 

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, dlampel said:

• However, no matter where I place the cursor--either with everything unselected or clicking in the note itself--the options under Format / In main text  and Format / In Note Body show only [No Style] for an option. Not other styles--not even the style I manually assigned from the Style list.

From your screenshot it appears you created "Note Style" as a paragraph style. You need to create it as a character style because these styles are applied to a range of characters, not to the entire paragraph.

Cheers

[dlampel]

40 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

From your screenshot it appears you created "Note Style" as a paragraph style. You need to create it as a character style because these styles are applied to a range of characters, not to the entire paragraph.

Cheers

I appreciate your help, MikeTO, but that does not appear to be the case. In fact, the Help file states, under "To style note bodies":

3. On the panel's format section, set Note body style to your required paragraph style.

Even so, I just created a character style, to test your advice, and it would not show even that.

[Old Bruce]

@dlampel,

What do you see in those styles sections when you open this document?

notes w styles.afpub

[dlampel]

35 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

@dlampel,

What do you see in those styles sections when you open this document?

notes w styles.afpub

As one would expect, the appropriate styles available to the respective numbers and note text.

This is the most bizarre situation I have ever seen. I closed your file, and immediately opened mine. Now, after doing what I exactly had done before--many times without success--clicking outside the text frame, the appropriate style were listed. Then, after writing the first sentence in this paragraph, I returned to my still-open document, and no matter what I did, the styles would not appear. Just like before: [No Style]. AARRGGHHH!!

[MikeTO]

4 hours ago, dlampel said:

I appreciate your help, MikeTO, but that does not appear to be the case. In fact, the Help file states, under "To style note bodies":

3. On the panel's format section, set Note body style to your required paragraph style.

Even so, I just created a character style, to test your advice, and it would not show even that.

That is only for In Note Body > Note Body Style. The help file is a bit confusing.

In these screenshots I have replaced all the default styles with one custom paragraph style and one custom character style. Only the character style appears in the two Number Style lists. For the Note Body Style, only the paragraph style appears.

If this doesn't clear it up and you're still having an issue, could you please share a test document? Thanks.

Left: In Main Text > Number Style. Middle: In Note Body > Number Style. Right: In Note Body > Note Body Style