Using images or characters as separators / dividers between scenes in a book

[HeikeT]

Hi there, 

Happy Easter everybody! Is there a way in Affinity Publisher to create a text style that has a predefined symbol or even an image attached to it? 

I am looking to create a re-useable element to use as a separator between scenes in a non-fiction book. So that if I change my mind I only have to adjust the style? 

Ta, 

Heike

--

Some scene /end of scene. 

***

Start of next scene

--

 

[Catshill]

I would create the divider and import it as an asset.

[carl123]

A linked file (document/image) would just allow you to update that file when you want to change it "automatically"

 

[lacerto]

One possiblility would be using a paragraph style (in this case center aligned) that applies a symbol within a font (in this case Unicode U+25ca LOZENGE in Arial) as a bullet character formatted with a character style (to get loser spacing and possibly different glyph size from the body text). The paragraph style is applied by using an assigned shortcut key Alt/Opt + B. Body Text style is defined as the "Next Style" for the Scene Break so that after the scene break (three lozenge symbols) has been inserted, just hitting Enter applies again Body Text style on the new paragraph.

 Note that there must be any character following the auto-inserted bullet (in this case a space character is added) to be able to retain the bullet formatting.

EDIT: Having the bullet symbol in paragraph style would then let you change your mind and have basically any symbol at all in any font available to you to be used as a graphic element for the scene break, and have that change applied to all breaks within a document, like here changed to clapperboard 30pt in Wingdings:

 

[GarryP]

HeikeT: I think the problem here may be that the term “re-usable element” is too vague for us to do more than guess at what you want.

If you can give us a better idea – preferably with good visual examples – of what specific sort of thing you mean then we can focus on that.

Note: Text Styles only affect text but there may be better ways to do what you want, once we know more about what you want.

Note: If you have access to other Affinity applications then tell us which so we know if we have more options.

[walt.farrell]

If you also have Designer, you could use a Symbol as your divider. Any changes you make to the Symbol would apply to all uses of it, allowing you to change your mind later.

[HeikeT]

Thank you guys! @lacerto idea is a nice hack that would work. 

@GarryP fiction books use either symbols (text) or decorative elements (images) between scenes or to mark POV changes. It is usually the same symbol used up to a couple of hundred times. Fiction authors write in writing tools like scrivener and import the text into Affinity Publisher for print layouts. In scrivener the scene dividers are placed automatically using rules on export compile, but how they actually look is part of the print design ... so it would be nice to have a clever hack to replace the dividers with automated rules rather than placing 100+ symbols. One possible way to do this would be a text style because styles come through with the compile :). 

In short, what @lacertosuggests would work if you choose a text character as a divider. 

I'll investigate a bit further. If anybody knows a hack to add an image using a text style, or how the replace a string of characters with an image symbol that would be awesome! 

Ta! 

 

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, HeikeT said:

what @lacertosuggests would work if you choose a text character as a divider. 

(...) how the replace a string of characters with an image symbol

Not sure what kind of image you want to use but there are various ways to convert a custom SVG into a font. For instance https://www.glyphter.com/

Then "Find and Replace" would enable you to replace any text respectively its style.

[lacerto]

9 hours ago, HeikeT said:

In short, what @lacertosuggests would work if you choose a text character as a divider. 

I seem to have misunderstood your goal because my suggestion was more a writer's trick to create a graphic divider in context of text creation while still keeping the divider as a text element that can be replaced using e.g. text styles.

If there are no such requirements but you just search a way to replace divider markers like "***" with any graphic element that can subsequently be easily replaced within Affinity apps, I would use one of the following methods (already suggested above):

1. Use a specific glyph in a regular or symbol font, along with a character and a paragraph style pair that defines the desired alignment, size and spacing (space before and after) for the break, and use Find and Replace to apply text replacement along with the style based formatting; there is no need to use "Bullet" style in this case so the used symbol would also stay searchable; note though that there are still limitations in Affinity apps as for use of color fonts (e.g. SVG color fonts are not supported); or 
2. Search the divider strings and replace the found instances manually one by one (i.e. via Clipboard paste) with a linked image (which could later be changed in one go by relinking to another image using Window > Resource Manager); or
3. Borrow the Symbol feature from Affinity Designer (via Designer Persona) and replace found divider strings manually one by one with them. Designer Symbols can consist of any elements and can subsequently be edited so that all changes are immediately reflected in all symbol instances.

Note that linked images and Symbol objects used as inline elements move along with text when it is re-flown.

[LizziTremayne]

I have used a tiny horse head as the scene divider in my books (like @HeikeTHeikeT, I use Scrivener and these can be input). I'm not sure how to do this in Affinity Publisher! Thanks @thomaso I will try https://www.glyphter.com/. nope.

Hi again, I have this little horse head as a jpg, a pdf, a png, a .psd, and a gif. 

CAN I directly import these as an asset (not the correct filetype?) or can they be somehow placed into the Glyph panel (Designer or designer persona)?

anyone?

Thanks all!

xx

LizziTremayneAuthor

 

Edited April 29 by LizziTremayne
adding to the previous question, fixing AP to Aff Pub.

[GarryP]

52 minutes ago, LizziTremayne said:

I'm not sure how to do this in AP!

AP is Affinity Photo, APu or APub is Affinity Publisher.

It’s not a major problem, and no harm has been done, but it can cause some confusion if the wrong abbreviation is used.