Fit Box to Content and auto resizing for text boxes

[David Gamble]

Hi All,

The one thing I miss from our move to Affinity Publisher is a Fit Box to Content command for text boxes.

Same goes for auto-resizing.

I have gotten used to a keystroke for the last ten years or so.

(Apologies if these exist and I can't find them).

David

[GarryP]

If you double-click on the right/left/top/bottom node of a Frame Text layer the frame will automatically resize to fit the text within the frame.
Is that what you are looking for?

[David Gamble]

It's certainly better than dragging. Thanks.

Ultimately, I do a lot of image captions and the box needs to fit the text as the style is reversed out text, so this helps. Ideally, a keystroke to fit the box to the text would speed up the process.

Thanks for the input. Much appreciated.

[GarryP]

I don’t understand what you mean by “fit the text” or “reversed out text” in this case; could you give us a visual example?

Note: It would need four keyboard shortcuts to replicate the existing functionality as double-clicking each resize node performs a slightly different action.

[MickRose]

If this is just white text on a black background or similar I'd have thought a paragraph style could be set up to do that.

[David Gamble]

Using Indesign, I would create a caption box (steps below), then hit ALT+CMD+C which would shrink the text box to fit the text. The text frames have a 1mm inset.

In fairness, the double clicking would help, but I have always favoured keystrokes over using a pointer.

Also, I find making the text box fit the text, reduces the chances of incorrect selection in other areas outside caption use when there are numerous text boxes around.

Maybe it's a little OCD, I dunno.

 

For context, I used to:

Select all images
Create Static Captions from Filename
Find/Replace filename suffix with nothing
Apply Object Style to Captions
ALT+CMD+C to fit box to content.

 

 

[Tom Bundick]

Wondering the same thing, I think. I have daily reports with sections of text that are never the same length. I'd like to be able to type or paste sections of text into a frame and have it automatically expand to fit the text. 

Seems like it should be easy to do, because Facebook comments work like this a gazillion times per day. That's the kind of expanding text frame I'm looking to use.

Is it possible to have text frames behave this way in Affinity Publisher?

 

Tom

[TravisL]

I'd really like a feature like this as well!

[MrRandomDog]

Would love this command as well.  Used to use it all the time when doing text layouts.

[fde101]

On 4/6/2023 at 9:55 AM, Tom Bundick said:

I'd like to be able to type or paste sections of text into a frame and have it automatically expand to fit the text. 

Not 100% sure what the goal is but if by chance you are just looking for a border around the text itself you can probably do that by setting it up as a decoration in the paragraph style; just make the frame itself invisible.

 

[rabbitreader]

The question is how are you shrinking the text box fit around the text in Affinity Like you can in InDesign, Which is particularly important for justification of text boxes which is a basic function of layout software like Affinity

If all of your text boxes are not shrunk and around the text equally as times than just a vacation doesn't line up and look for it.

When I double click on a corner of a box it doesn't do anything at all

[walt.farrell]

15 hours ago, rabbitreader said:

When I double click on a corner of a box it doesn't do anything at all

Try double-clicking the center nodes on the right or bottom edges of the Text Frame.

[Obscured]

.

 

 

[Nela]

On 4/6/2023 at 3:55 PM, Tom Bundick said:

Wondering the same thing, I think. I have daily reports with sections of text that are never the same length. I'd like to be able to type or paste sections of text into a frame and have it automatically expand to fit the text.

Is it possible to have text frames behave this way in Affinity Publisher?

I'm surprised that I can't find this option anywhere, but I suppose I really shouldn't be. I've realized by now that Publisher is an amateur app that will never be able to replace InDesign for anything but the most basic design projects 😔

Changing the length of text and clicking on a handle is not intuitive, and sometimes it doesn't even work when my handles are little X-s instead of circles.
I imported many files from InDesign and I'm still having trouble remembering how to edit text frames that are "Detached" in Publisher, for reason unknown. I don't understand what "Detached" even means. It's not "locked". The Lock setting in the layers panel is unchecked. I'm guessing this is because the text box is an inline object within the flow of the multi-page linked text box ("Primary text frame" in InDesign). I don't want to pull these smaller text boxes out of the normal flow of the multi-page document, but apparently Publisher doesn't like that.

Before anyone suggests "paragraph decorations" to have the border or background expand or contract automatically, my text boxes always contain multiple paragraphs. If I wanted to just change the appearance of a single paragraph, I would've done that.

EDIT: I've since been able to manually resize the text box, so no solutions needed for that issue.

I'm still giving my vote to have the auto-resize setting available.

[vivala]

 

Don't know if this solution can do what we are looking for I don't know how to recreate the starting point...