IDML import bug when IDML has split columns: flowed text in new frames is tiny!

[Kent Steinbrenner]

I design the Sunday bulletins for the church I work for using InDesign. The format I use for the various Bible readings in the service uses the split column feature in InDesign, which I know, along with the span columns feature, hasn’t yet been implemented by Affinity. Maybe someday! 😉 

I’ve been experimenting with trying to import IDMLs of my bulletins to use in Affinity Publisher, to see if I can get used to an Affinity Publisher workflow (I know it will be more work in creating more text boxes, and the H&J won’t be as elegant as InDesign’s Paragraph Composer, but again, Affinity may have support for those things in the future. I do like the idea of being able to edit on an iPad with Affinity Publisher, though! 

Here's the problem: if I import an IDML file that has split columns defined in it, Affinity Publisher will ignore the split columns (and also indents in that paragraph style). Oh, well, I can work around that, I figure. Let’s just move the text frames around and reflow the text into new text frames where i can tell those frames to be 2 columns, and then back to 1 column frames, and then reflow to a 2-column frame, etc. 

But what actually happens if I try to move the text frame and then flow that text block into a new frame is that the size of the type in the new frame is drastically reduced—to what a mentor of mine in the old days called “mouse type”! What was 12-point type is now 1.4 points! And changing the style doesn't have any effect, because it's the same paragraph style as in the other parts of the document. 

The size reduction is only in the new text frame I've created—once the text flows on to the existing text frames in the document, it's at the normal size.

If I'm trying to replicate my original layout, how can I do that if making new text frames/boxes is going to result in these sorts of type-size errors? Hopefully this is a bug that can be fixed in future releases until such time as they enable split/span columns.

[Hangman]

Hi @Kent Steinbrenner and welcome to the forums…

Would you be able to upload a sample IDML file exhibiting the issue so we can take a look at what might be going on here…

[Kent Steinbrenner]

Yes, of course—here is an IDML file containing 3 pages (along with a ZIP file containing the original packaged .IDML/.INDD file with links, etc., just in case you need those for testing purposes). 

—Kent2023-04-30 Easter 4A test file Folder.zip2023-04-30 Easter 4A test file.idml

[Hangman]

Hi Kent,

Thanks for uploading your files, that really helps...

This definitely looks like a bug to me, I've seen another user with an almost identical issue, though in their case they were copying and pasting text into a text frame but the outcome was identical...

Basically there is some sort of scaling issue going on here where the text and leading get scaled to 12% of their original size but to date we've yet to figure out what exactly is causing the issue.

I'm going to start a new thread raising this issue linking both posts then hopefully one of the moderators will be able to pass this on to the development team to take a look at possible causes of the issue and report back.

[Kent Steinbrenner]

Thanks, Hangman—I’m glad that I’m not the only one who‘s noticed this. Hopefully the developers will figure out a solution. It’s certainly mystified me why it behaves that way!

—Kent

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, Kent Steinbrenner said:

Thanks, Hangman—I’m glad that I’m not the only one who‘s noticed this. Hopefully the developers will figure out a solution. It’s certainly mystified me why it behaves that way!

No problem, sorry there's no obvious immediate solution but I'm sure this will be picked up and fixed in a speedy manner...

[Old Bruce]

20 hours ago, Kent Steinbrenner said:

what actually happens if I try to move the text frame and then flow that text block into a new frame is that the size of the type in the new frame is drastically reduced

Could you try using the Text > Reapply Base Styles. Do this after using the Text caret and the Select > Select All command.

One thing I have to ask is why there are so many Character Styles? Most of the ones I looked at had settings which could be set in the Paragraph Styles. Some only set the font family. 

Finally, and less importantly, the Document Swatches palette seems to have every Swatch you have ever used.

 

[Hangman]

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

Could you try using the Text > Reapply Base Styles. Do this after using the Text caret and the Select > Select All command.

This doesn't work for me, same result..., i.e. text scaled to 12% when reflowed into a newly created text frame...

1 hour ago, Old Bruce said:

Finally, and less importantly, the Document Swatches palette seems to have every Swatch you have ever used.

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see any imported swatches when opening the file...

[Old Bruce]

24 minutes ago, Hangman said:

This doesn't work for me, same result..., i.e. text scaled to 12% when reflowed into a newly created text frame...

Are you selecting everything after the text has been reflowed (and made tiny)? I really should have said that, sorry about that.

27 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see any imported swatches when opening the file...

The file is the 2023-04-30 Easter 4A test file.idml file.

[Hangman]

12 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Are you selecting everything after the text has been reflowed (and made tiny)? I really should have said that, sorry about that.

I wasn't, but having done so I'm still left with the 'opposite' issue mentioned in several posts relating to this problem where the text in the first frame then beomes disproprtionally large to the tune of 733.334% larger...

 

35 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

The file is the 2023-04-30 Easter 4A test file.idml file.

Completely missed the document palette!

[Kent Steinbrenner]

Yeah, the long list of color swatches is what happens when one's workflow is, “Open up last week’s bulletin and do a ‘Save As.’” 😉 I probably should do a pruning of that list every now and then, but I do re-use a number of the swatches on a regular basis for our announcements pages, which often have articles or ads with type on a colored background. Probably not “best practices” to have such a long list, but hey, I’m the only one who has to deal with it!

As for character styles, besides making it easier to globally change a style when needed (which has happened), the main reason for using them is to make it easier to format the people's responses, which are in Chronica Pro Bold (a sans-serif typeface), as opposed to the rest of the body copy, which is in Sabon LT Std, as you can see from the screenshot. Who wants to manually change the typeface on every line like this, scrolling through the font menu?

I would love it if a layout program could define a paragraph style as “Set the first word [or words] in a line in one font and size, and then after a tab stop, set the rest of the line in a different font and size.” That would make formatting even easier!

—Kent

[Old Bruce]

6 hours ago, Kent Steinbrenner said:

I would love it if a layout program could define a paragraph style as “Set the first word [or words] in a line in one font and size, and then after a tab stop, set the rest of the line in a different font and size.” That would make formatting even easier!

You can use a Character style for "initial Words" in a Paragraph Style. Together the Character Styles and Paragraph Styles are Text Styles.

[Kent Steinbrenner]

Really? That’s great—I shall have to try that. I’m still learning things about Affinity Publisher!

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue " Importing IDML and flowing text to new frame applies text scaling unexpectedly" (REF: AF-1342) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.5.0.2317".
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 @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.