Reproduce opacity

[David Brear]

Publisher (and others) 2.1.1

The opacity setting shows no digital result. This means it cannot easily be reproduced with another eg. text box fill.

The slider is convenient but not reproducible. Could this be changed? A number box next to 'Setting' would do it.

Or am I missing something?

[GarryP]

To me that’s quite a vague description.
Can you explain it differently with a lot more detail?

[David Brear]

OK — I'm going to need a lot of text boxes. I'd like them all to have similar opacity. I do one: I set the opacity using TextFrame>General, and click on Frame Fill>Colour, with the box selected. 

The dialog has an Opacity slider at the bottom: I set the opacity: it looks OK.

Half an hour later on the next page I need another text box with similar opacity. How do I make sure it's the same? I can copy the first box and edit it, which I do, but say when I finish I think they should all be a bit darker? How do I reset them all without estimating the original opacity with the slider? It just seems to me that, if we're given RGB, RSL, CMYK digital settings the least we can expect is opacity too.

[firstdefence]

All opacity sliders have a input box where you can type in a numeric percentage.

Oops no they don't lol

You can make a text frame and then save it as an asset, then simply drag it out and resize, the "asset'ed" text frame will have all the characteristics of the original such as opacity fill colour etc but you can change any of them should you want a variation on that asset. 

[Circulus]

This one;

[GarryP]

9 minutes ago, David Brear said:

I'd like them all to have similar opacity. I do one: I set the opacity using TextFrame>General, and click on Frame Fill>Colour, with the box selected. 

Thanks for the extra information.

Are you using opacity to get a lighter shade of colour?

If so, I would not do that as you could get into problems further down the road.

It’s better to change the shade of colour rather than use opacity to do that.

Also, if you use a shade of colour you can also use Global Colours which will let you change everything using that colour at the same time.

[firstdefence]

I think some feedback on this omission wouldn't go amiss, whether it was by design or simply missed but it's not consistent with the all the other opacity sliders.

I thought at one point they were going to separate the opacity and noise slider?

[David Brear]

Thanks all. It's the later editing when this becomes a problem, for me. 

Thanks for the asset reminder — I should do it that way but I never do ('bear of little brain')!

I'm really surprised no one (me, for instance) hasn't mentioned this until now! Anyone remember what it was like on PagePlus?

[GarryP]

There might be a ‘trick’ in this particular case to do this by using Paragraph Decorations – see attached video – but that would need some experimentation and it might not work nicely everywhere.

[thomaso]

5 minutes ago, David Brear said:

I'm really surprised no one (me, for instance) hasn't mentioned this until now!

I am sure it was mentioned years ago (for V1) and, as far I remember, commented as one of the typical "by design" solutions and as a possible improvement.

But note, you can use a colour swatch with a certain opacity to maintain its opacity for all its instances.

[GarryP]

11 minutes ago, thomaso said:

But note, you can use a colour swatch with a certain opacity to maintain its opacity for all its instances.

Are you sure that the Opacity can be changed for a swatch?
I was fairly sure that Opacity was local to a specific bit of formatting and couldn’t be changed ‘en masse’.
If you can do it can you share a video showing how?

[David Brear]

Thomaso is right. If you click through the swatches AffPub has saved, and then look at the Colour, they come up with different Opacities. 

So there's my answer, and thanks Thomaso!, but I still think a digital indication would be sensible.

[Circulus]

6 minutes ago, GarryP said:

Are you sure that the Opacity can be changed for a swatch?

Yes, see video:
 

 

 

[carl123]

49 minutes ago, David Brear said:

but say when I finish I think they should all be a bit darker? How do I reset them all without estimating the original opacity with the slider? 

Select > Select Object > Frame Text 

Will select all text frames

You can then use the opacity slider to change all at once to the same value

[GarryP]

1 hour ago, Return said:

Yes, see video:

Thanks, I completely forgot about the Opacity setting being over there at the top-right.
I was trying to change the Opacity by right-clicking the swatch and then choosing Edit Fill.

However, as far as I know (and this is probably debatable too), the Opacity is set at a ‘local level’ and it can’t work at a ‘global level’, so the user can’t change the opacity in one place and have it change in other places automatically.

[Hangman]

This issue has been raised on numerous occasions, e.g., here...

The hope is that percentage values will be added globally across the UI everywhere colour can be added or edited.

[Old Bruce]

4 hours ago, David Brear said:

I do one: I set the opacity using TextFrame>General, and click on Frame Fill>Colour, with the box selected. 

The dialog has an Opacity slider at the bottom: I set the opacity: it looks OK.

Try this method of working. Set a colour with the opacity you like. Save it in a Document Swatches Palette. Choose that Swatch colour when you make your Text Frames.

Note: Name your Swatches with appropriate names, ones that describe the use and or colour. View the swatches as a list so you can see the names.

[Hangman]

39 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Try this method of working. Set a colour with the opacity you like. Save it in a Document Swatches Palette. Choose that Swatch colour when you make your Text Frames.

Hi @Old Bruce,

The 'issue' with this is as @GarryP mentions earlier...

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

the Opacity is set at a ‘local level’ and it can’t work at a ‘global level’, so the user can’t change the opacity in one place and have it change in other places automatically.

 

[thomaso]

42 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Save it in a Document Swatches Palette.

As @GarryP pointed out a document palette swatch is not really an advantage in this case because the UI lacks in an option to edit the opacity of an existing swatch.

[v_kyr]

9 hours ago, firstdefence said:

You can make a text frame and then save it as an asset, then simply drag it out and resize, the "asset'ed" text frame will have all the characteristics of the original such as opacity fill colour etc but you can change any of them should you want a variation on that asset. 

Or just make a copy (Cmd-C) of an existing text frame and then just paste it's styles over to another one (Shift-Cmd-V). The opacity and fill colour (aka all style attributes) will be taken over and applied to the other text frame here then.