Affinity Publisher V2: Question about text decorations and automatic column break

[IgorRock]

Hi all,

I've run into an issue with the automatic column break and paragraph text decorations, and was wondering if I'm missing something (or if Publisher is).

I'm writing a role playing game module and I want to add some text which the game master should read out loud (which should be clearly visible to the reader), which means that text needs to be at the correct spot in the surrounding text and move with it if I edit any text before it or add some illustrations (I'm still at the writing and editing stage, so some small text changes can cause bigger changes in the layout because of text wrapping etc.). I know that once I've finished everything, I could just manually adjust the text (e.g. split a paragraph into two at the right position) to get the wanted effect, but I think there should be a better way.

As you can see, I've created a paragraph style for a boxed text (this is not a text frame, just some text which has a different background and a 1 pt box around it because of a paragraph style with decorations enabled).

The problem is that when Publisher auto-wraps a paragraph with these decorations, it literally cuts them off, which means that in the first column, there is no lower line (or background) for the text, while in the new column, there ist no upper line (and no background, either) before the text starts.

Is there any way to get Publisher to adding those missing parts when a paragraph wraps onto a new column or page? I guess if I use a text frame and just pin it in place at the correct position in the text, the whole frame would be moved to the new page, which would leave me with a big empty space in the first column, and is - again - not what I want.

I guess I could just use the left and/or right line together with the background (so it's not a boxed text anymore, but still clearly visible), but I would prefer to have a full box around the text.

Any ideas?

Edited March 14, 2023 by IgorRock
Added Publisher Version to subject

[Old Bruce]

I think that this is actually by design. There is a bottom line at the end of a paragraph, not at an arbitrary frame break.

The following is simply my take on your situation from the reader's perspective. Consider the situation when there is a line at the bottom of the column. Could this not cause confusion for the person reading aloud the text. "Oh, here is the line signifying the end of what I am to read aloud". Myself I would do without the borders, just have the different coloured box.

[IgorRock]

43 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I think that this is actually by design. There is a bottom line at the end of a paragraph, not at an arbitrary frame break.

The following is simply my take on your situation from the reader's perspective. Consider the situation when there is a line at the bottom of the column. Could this not cause confusion for the person reading aloud the text. "Oh, here is the line signifying the end of what I am to read aloud".

I understand your point, but isn't that something which I as the designer should decide for my own layout?

For example, this this is a page from the German manual of the original D&D, which does exactly what I asked for (without the background colour, though), and it looks like people haven't had a problem with that, given that it's the biggest RPG on the market for a few decades by now...

(I've blacked out the text and values to not get into any copyright troubles for posting this)

I guess you're right in regards that I'll have to go with just the background and maybe a thicker line on both sides instead (which is another design used by other RPG as well), at least for now.

But I still think there should be an option to add these lines on a paragraph break if wanted.

[Old Bruce]

6 minutes ago, IgorRock said:

this this is a page from the German manual of the original D&D,

To my eye those examples look like tables, not paragraphs.

[IgorRock]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

To my eye those examples look like tables, not paragraphs.

Yes. Somehow I expected a comment like that which totally misses the point I was making.

The argument was that somebody would think that something ends when there is an bottom line of a box at the end of a column. Please note that the table cells in those tables don't have horizontal lines between them, only the different tables have those. As such, this is exactly the same thing as with a paragraph which would continue on the next page.

On the contrary, with the table it's actually worse, since there are no unfinished or half sentences at the end (as with a paragraph), just some numbers, so it's actually worse with a table than with a paragraph, since the reader only realizes that there is something missing once he reads the next column.

Nevertheless, they still choose to not change their layout to put the whole tables in a separate column or anything, and that book was more than successful. And that's what I meant: It's a design choice somebody made, which as such should not be predetermined by the tool you're using.

[Digger3749]

I'm also searching for the same solution and it's for the exact same reason as you have.  Have you found a solution?  I'll keep hunting and if I do find a solution I'll post it back here.

[IgorRock]

Sorry, but nope, I haven't found any good solution for this.

I ended up manually adding paragraph breaks (sometimes even mid-sentence) as the last thing at a column's end before I exported the PDF (which sucks, because I have to be careful with corrections or additions now - I always have to check if all breaks are still at the right spot, which for some chapters means controlling 15-20 pages). 😒

[anto]

1 hour ago, IgorRock said:

Sorry, but nope, I haven't found any good solution for this.

I ended up manually adding paragraph breaks (sometimes even mid-sentence) as the last thing at a column's end before I exported the PDF (which sucks, because I have to be careful with corrections or additions now - I always have to check if all breaks are still at the right spot, which for some chapters means controlling 15-20 pages). 😒

As a workaround, you can create a text frame as asset, and then pass the text through it.
It's very easy to resize it, and if you don't need it, you can delete it and let the text flow through the main frames.

It is very easy and quick to control even 100 pages.

 

[anto]

Or you can create 2 styles: Normal text and Text in next frame and play around with them with them.

And you can edit text

 

 

[anto]

Two more ideas.

1. You can create line and rectangle on master page. More details in video

 

2. You can create asset with gropus of lines and rectangles and then turn them on/off and do not use master page