Text Styles has become very erratic

[Dennison]

Text Styles has become highly erratic:

style does not update

font sizes change erratically between use

features of a font style change erratically

 

These are just some of the examples.  Text Styles is too unpredictable to use because of how many unintended changes it makes to the layout elsewhere in a large book.

 

Screenshots show one instance.  Style set to Black Bullets, but when updated changes bullets to diamonds and some text to bold (only in some Text Frames).

 

Mac M1  Ventura 13.3.1

APub V2 Beta 2.1.0.1742

 

 

[Dennison]

Another example - SAME Text Style but text font size is different

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Dennison said:

SAME Text Style but text font size is different

That might be correct. It will depend on whether you ever used the scaling handle on a Text Frame (the outer detached handle) when adjusting the size.

If you ever used that handle, then the font size would still be 11 pt, but scaled to fit the scaling applied to the frame. And the scaling factor is not displayed by the Affinity applications.

[Bryan Rieger]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

If you ever used that handle, then the font size would still be 11 pt, but scaled to fit the scaling applied to the frame. And the scaling factor is not displayed by the Affinity applications.

This scaling factor seems to be a recurring problem as I've seen it a number of times in the forums. Serif, any chance you might fix this by simply showing the scaling factor applied to an object?

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, rgba said:

Serif, any chance you might fix this by simply showing the scaling factor applied to an object?

I know that's been suggested before.

I think you can at least reset the scaling, by selecting the text frame (not its contents) and clicking the Revert Defaults button (or using Edit > Defaults > Revert).

[Bryan Rieger]

6 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I think you can at least reset the scaling, by selecting the text frame (not its contents) and clicking the Revert Defaults button (or using Edit > Defaults > Revert).

I've only ever been able to get that to reset everything and revert back to 12pt Arial, at which point I then have to go back and reformat everything that was in that block. If you essentially have to redo all of your work, it's not much of a solution.

[Dennison]

4 minutes ago, rgba said:

I've only ever been able to get that to reset everything and revert back to 12pt Arial, at which point I then have to go back and reformat everything that was in that block. If you essentially have to redo all of your work, it's not much of a solution.

 

13 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I know that's been suggested before.

I think you can at least reset the scaling, by selecting the text frame (not its contents) and clicking the Revert Defaults button (or using Edit > Defaults > Revert).

am I understanding you correctly - that if i EVER use the scaling handle - then Text Styles will NEVER be applied correctly? 

In AD when I use the handle, it shows the size of the font changing. BUT it can be edited again in the font size box at the top left.  

Are you saying that it works differently in APub 2 ?

As rgba says, if every Text Frame in the entire document has to be manually updated, then it's an unusable feature.  My current document probably has 1000+ Text Frames.

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, Dennison said:

that if i EVER use the scaling handle - then Text Styles will NEVER be applied correctly? 

Correct, for that specific Text Frame.

8 minutes ago, Dennison said:

In AD when I use the handle, it shows the size of the font changing. BUT it can be edited again in the font size box at the top left.  

Are you saying that it works differently in APub 2 ?

No, it works the same in both.

Yes, you can still get the size to change using the font size box. But as I understand it, it will not be accurate after you've scaled the text frame.

Basic safe rule: Do not use the scaling handle, unless you're fully aware of what it does and all the effects it will have.................

[MikeTO]

14 minutes ago, Dennison said:

am I understanding you correctly - that if i EVER use the scaling handle - then Text Styles will NEVER be applied correctly? 

No, the text styles are being applied correctly, it's just that if the scaling factor is 50% and the text style is 24 pts, you're going to see 12 pts.

The scaling of content within a picture frame or text frame is a great feature but it's too easy to mess up. With picture frames, it's easy to correct, the scaling factor is available from the Context Bar. But for text frames the scaling factor isn't shown and resetting it has other consequences. I think changing the scaling factor is a very important feature to add. Possibly through the Text Frame panel.

IMO, the easiest way to solve it is to delete the text frame containing the text.

• If the text frame is not linked to or from another frame, draw a new blank frame, link it to the problem frame, and then delete the problem frame. This will shift the text to the new frame.
• If the text frame is linked to OR from another frame, delete the frame, draw a new one, and re-link them.
• If the text frame is linked to AND from another frame, delete the frame, draw a new one, and link the previous one to the new one - that will insert the new one in the proper order.

As for the other issue (bullets to diamonds), we'd need to see a test file with steps to reproduce the problem before providing suggestions.

Cheers

[Dennison]

38 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Correct, for that specific Text Frame.

No, it works the same in both.

Yes, you can still get the size to change using the font size box. But as I understand it, it will not be accurate after you've scaled the text frame.

Basic safe rule: Do not use the scaling handle, unless you're fully aware of what it does and all the effects it will have.................

Thanks.

I do not remember EVER using the Scaling for these Text Frames or any in AfPub.  I always either use Text Styles (though it's so erratic it's too unreliable) or select and change change in the Font Size window. 

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Dennison said:

I do not remember EVER using the Scaling for these Text Frames or any in AfPub.  I always either use Text Styles (though it's so erratic it's too unreliable) or select and change change in the Font Size window. 

I suspect that, for those 1-line headings done as separate Text Frames, that it would be very easy to get the scaling handle by mistake when adjusting the size of the frame.

[Dennison]

Yes maybe

[Dennison]

A new erratic behaviour.

Text in Text Frame A moves when a drawing in Text Frame B is shifted - Frames are not connected.  see screenshots

After taking the screenshot, I could not replicate the issue. 

However, the text in the (unconnected) Text Frame above B was then corrupted, which it was not before. This corrected when size of Text Frame was changed

 

[walt.farrell]

20 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Text in Text Frame A moves when a drawing in Text Frame B is shifted -

It's unclear from the screenshots which frame is A and which is B, and what drawing you moved. But I would start any investigation by checking the Text Wrap settings of the frame whose text moved, and the Wrap Outline of the drawing.

[Dennison]

Thanks Walt.

"this Frame A" at top

"this Frame B" at bottom

"moving this drawing" - see arrow.

Wrap settings - first thing I checked, nothing unusual - screen capture did not capture the dialog box

[MikeTO]

What you're seeing here is a redraw issue

It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the text in the frame, just that Publisher failed to redraw the screen correctly. This can happen when an app needs to redraw the screen but incorrectly calculates the area that needs to be redrawn or when it redraws an object in the wrong spot. Apps don't redraw the entire screen every time you do something, that would take too long, they redraw the minimum necessary.

In this case, Publisher decided to redraw up to the bottom part of text frame A, except that it miscalculated and presumably redraw part of text frame A in the wrong spot. As is obvious, the bottom pixels are shifted to the left by about an inch so if they were shifted back it would look normal. It was corrected when you changed the text frame size - any change to the text frame would cause it to redraw and remove the redraw error.

As Walt suggested, a good first guess is this has something to do with text wrap. It shouldn't do what it's doing but it's the likely cause of the problem. If you want to send me a copy of the page with the issue I'll play around with it and figure it out so the bug can be fixed.

The reason the rest of us haven't come across this bug before in our own documents is because we're not using all of these small text frames. I recommend using just a single master page text frame for all of your body content - don't create separate frames for headings or different parts of the page. A book without chapters should have a single story, a series of linked text frames, and a book with chapters should have either a single story or a separate story for each chapter. All headings and body text should go into the same story. The only additional frames should be for headers and footers.

Your book may be a candidate for the new Running Headers feature in 2.1 which will simplify some of the header use cases that people had to do manually until now. Using Running Headers with all of these separate frames won't work well because it relies on knowing which header is first, and if these separate text frames aren't stacked correctly in the layer order, the running header could be incorrect. So another reason to consider moving to a single text frame for your next book.

Cheers

[Dennison]

Thanks Mike.

This works for a text only fiction or non-fiction book, but not for a book with 100s of drawings, multiple short subjects, multiple bullets etc.

Using a single text frame per section or "chapter" or per page is completely unviable for this kind of book because having cascading formatting would potentially change every subsequent page –  a nightmare. (I tried with MDB1 with 350 drawings and abandoned that approach pretty quickly.  It would mean that after a 1 line change on page one, the layout would have to be checked on every subsequent page until the end of the linked text frames.  Moving the location of a whole topic's text and drawings would create another form of layout hell.

[MikeTO]

19 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Thanks Mike.

This works for a text only fiction or non-fiction book, but not for a book with 100s of drawings, multiple short subjects, multiple bullets etc.

Using a single text frame per section or "chapter" or per page is completely unviable for this kind of book because having cascading formatting would potentially change every subsequent page –  a nightmare. (I tried with MDB1 with 350 drawings and abandoned that approach pretty quickly.  It would mean that after a 1 line change on page one, the layout would have to be checked on every subsequent page until the end of the linked text frames.  Moving the location of a whole topic's text and drawings would create another form of layout hell.

If you used page breaks in your single story you'd find that you could edit text without impacting any other pages. Editing text in such a way that adds or removes a line of text would have no impact on other pages in the document unless you added so much text that it flowed to the next page. And if it did that, it would simply add another page rather than messing up the formatting of any other page.

Moving topics is easy in a single story - just drag select the text (and pinned images you want to move), Cut, and Paste. Note that you need to use pinned images to do this.

I understand why you think the approach you're using is easier, but I think you'd find the single story approach better if you gave it a try. I wouldn't try it with your current book of course, but perhaps give it a go with your next one. Consider it an investment in the future.

Note that there is a bug with cutting and pasting text with pinned images when the images are linked resources and you happen to be using iCloud or some other non-internal drive on macOS. You'll often encounter the 'lost access to the file' error when saving after a move like this but you can use Save As to create a new file.

[Dennison]

Thanks Mike, though I'm not sure I understand.

Left and Right pages have different margins - facing pages - so adding a single page upsets the layout all the way through the book, including all the Running Heads

If I Cut and Paste a topic, say 1/3 of page, into a new location then everything after that will jump down 1/3 of a page through all the linked Frames.  Many of the drawings are adjusted and sized to fit in specific spaces to avoid, as much as possible, having an explanation on one page and then having to turn the page for the companion drawing on the subsequent page.  Not an issue with text + drawing on facing pages, which is another reason why adding a single page anywhere creates havoc.

 

As you say, with 400 + pages completed and nearly 1400 drawings, completely re-doing the layout is out of the question.  I'd be deliriously happy if Text Styles worked without problems.

 

[MikeTO]

23 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Left and Right pages have different margins - facing pages - so adding a single page upsets the layout all the way through the book, including all the Running Heads

The text frames will have mirrored margins because they'll be created on the master pages and linked. The objects will respect your margins because they'll all be pinned inline.

The running headers would be mirrored just like the text frames because their frames would also be on the master pages.

If you cut and paste a topic that is 1/3rd of a page, it would have no impact on other pages if you're using an inserted page break after each topic, you'd just have a gap, the same as if you moved a topic in your current setup. It would be up to you to decide what to do with that gap. If you weren't using page breaks, then moving a topic that is 1/3rd of a page would create a mess.

Cheers

[Dennison]

Thanks Mike.

Am I misunderstanding something about margins?

Left page and Right page have different margins on the Master Pages to allow for the gutter for binding

Pinning objects inline?  I'm not clear.

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Dennison said:

Am I misunderstanding something about margins?

Left page and Right page have different margins on the Master Pages to allow for the gutter for binding

Pinning objects inline?  I'm not clear.

If you create a facing pages document with different inner outer margins, draw text frames on the masters and link them together, and then base all of your pages on these masters, then all of the pages will have the correct margins. But the objects need to be pinned inline so that there X coordinate shifts if they wind up on the opposite page.

To pin an object inline, select it and click the Inline button in the Pinning panel - you could also use the Pin button in the Toolbar but then would have to change it from Float to Inline so there's no point using that. The object will now be pinned at the current cursor position. You can move the pin's anchor by dragging it to a new location. If you copy/paste a range of text that includes the pin's anchor the object will be copied/pasted along with the text.

Try playing around with this test document. There are no manual page breaks in it because I set Heading 1 to always start at the top of a new column, effectively automatically inserting a page break before it. If you edit the text so that either of the two inline objects moves to the next page, you'll find that they're aligned to the frame in the same way they had been on the previous page so they'll be properly aligned with the margins. This is a very simple setup but your document could be replicated in the same way.

test.afpub

[Dennison]

Thanks Mike.  

I don't really see advantages when dealing with my layout.  The issues I have arise with software glitches.

Here is a sample spread.

All the captions, arrows, numbers etc. are added and manipulated within APub 

[Dennison]

Hope it will be helpful to list as many of the erratic behaviours of Text Styles as possible,

Here's another:

change to Caption Text Style in one Text Frame adds 3pt superscript to random Text Frames on another page.  Text Frames not linked. 3pt Superscript is used in one Character Style only.

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Dennison said:

Thanks Mike.  

I don't really see advantages when dealing with my layout.  The issues I have arise with software glitches.

Here is a sample spread.

All the captions, arrows, numbers etc. are added and manipulated within APub 

The captions, arrows, etc would be grouped with the illustration and then you'd pin the group rather than pinning the image alone. Because you're wrapping text around the images and their accompanying arrows, captions, etc, rather than the group's rectangular bounding box you'd have to edit the text wrap outline and then float the pinned group rather than using inline. It's still easy to do.

The advantage is that you'd be using Publisher the way it's designed for creating long documents. You're using it more as a single page layout app and assembling a book from a collection of single pages or page spreads. Features like TOCs and running headers rely on Publisher knowing "what's first" in the layer stack so putting headers and paragraphs into separate frames increases the chance that you're going to experience issues because then it's up to you to manage the layer stack order. I believe you've run into TOC issues before that were caused by the layer stack order. IMO the way you're doing it is more work, not less, but we each have our own way of working so it's whatever works best for you. Just don't be surprised if you encounter issues when you try using running headers.

For the other issue you're reporting we're going to need to see a test document. Delete it down to a single page that still has the problem and then delete as much as you can so there's something we can test with. Or just send me the document privately and I'll let you know the solution.

Cheers