Handling long sections of text

[AnthonyMarrian]

I'm finding some very time-consuming and frustrating errors with my project. I create single pages (not facing), use a text frame that covers most of the page, a side-bar that runs vertically down each page (the same height as the text frame), and a numbering text frame that includes section name and page number. The test originates in Microsoft Word, but I take the precaution of copying it to Notepad before then copying and pasting it into Affinity Publisher. I then use Autoflow to flow the text into the required number of pages. I then make liberal use of side-notes, which are configured to sit to the right of the side-bar.

Frustration includes hidden text i.e. text that is there (and can be searched) but which does not appear at the bottom of the frame nor at the top of the next frame. When this first happened, guidance from this forum suggested turning off widows and orphans for the text style being used. This actually cured the initial problem. However, I now have the same problem, this time in relation to text that uses a bespoke Heading text style. In addition to the hidden text, I have a text style oddity. Often, I will apply a text style to selected text without effect. I then apply a different text style, and, when I reapply the text style I want, everything works. However, I have a heading where the heading text style being applied is not taking, so I try the trick of switching text styles, at which point the entire preceding paragraph takes on the new text style, and then also takes on any further styles applied. It is as though without being instructed the heading has become attached to a preceding batch of text. I looked at the heading properties and noticed a "detach from paragraph" option but that has no effect.

Please can I have some advice as to how best to proceed (best practice) when dealing with large amounts of text.

 

Many thanks

[walt.farrell]

Without having the document it can be difficult to diagnose these situations. You could share it here publicly, or you could perhaps make a new document with just that chunk of text in it, and share that.

My initial guess: A Paragraph Text Style applies to the entire paragraph. So, if it's applying to more text than you expect, perhaps the additional text is really part of the same paragraph as the text you're applying the style to. That would happen, for example, if you used Line Breaks to cause spacing and the appearance of having separate paragraphs, instead of using Paragraph Breaks and the proper spacing controls associated with them.

[walt.farrell]

To help in diagnosis, you could enable Text > Show Special Characters and look carefully at what character(s) separate the text in the area of the problem. And you could give us a screenshot of that area, zoomed-in a bit to make the line-endings clear.

[AnthonyMarrian]

22 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Without having the document it can be difficult to diagnose these situations. You could share it here publicly, or you could perhaps make a new document with just that chunk of text in it, and share that.

My initial guess: A Paragraph Text Style applies to the entire paragraph. So, if it's applying to more text than you expect, perhaps the additional text is really part of the same paragraph as the text you're applying the style to. That would happen, for example, if you used Line Breaks to cause spacing and the appearance of having separate paragraphs, instead of using Paragraph Breaks and the proper spacing controls associated with them.

That's very, very helpful. Thank you. Pasting from Notepad does indeed give the appearance of paragraphs because of the line feeds. Providing explicit paragraph breaks between each paragraph will be time-consuming, but I can see that it might lead to much tighter control of the text.

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, AnthonyMarrian said:

Providing explicit paragraph breaks between each paragraph will be time-consuming

You can use the "Find and Replace" panel to change line breaks to paragraph breaks, if wanted for the entire document with 1 click.

Also, without knowing your situation in detail, the text style option "Next Style" can be quite helpful, but confusing, too. If setup and used correctly it can automatically switch from the headline to the body style for instance.

[AnthonyMarrian]

11 minutes ago, thomaso said:

You can use the "Find and Replace" panel to change line breaks to paragraph breaks, if wanted for the entire document with 1 click.

Also, without knowing your situation in detail, the text style option "Next Style" can be quite helpful, but confusing, too. If setup and used correctly it can automatically switch from the headline to the body style for instance.

Given that my body text style *always* follows the heading text style, setting it to be the next style looks sensible, and I've done that. Thank you