Unexpected Font Size Change in Affinity Publisher While Converting A5 Paperback to A4 Digital PDF

[M1chel]

Hello everyone,

I've encountered a persistent problem with Affinity Publisher that I'd appreciate some help with. During the process of converting an A5 paperback layout to an A4 digital PDF, I'm experiencing an unexpected and inexplicable change in font size that's proving difficult to resolve.

To explain further, I have been resizing all text frames to fit the margins as part of the conversion process, which naturally creates more space to fill with text. As a result, I've removed some previously applied page breaks to allow the text to flow more freely. However, this action has led to a peculiar anomaly.

The text that was originally located after the page break, which gets moved onto the previous page once the break is removed, undergoes an unanticipated change in font size. It jumps from its original 15.6pt to 20.7pt. Although I can manually adjust the enlarged text back to 15.6pt, each time the text reflows to fill the available space, some of it enlarges again to 20.7pt.

Moreover, this issue isn't rectified even when I select the entire paragraph and try to set the font size to 15.6pt. The part of the text that had increased in size remains larger, irrespective of my attempts to reset it. I've also noticed that the leading increases along with the font size, adding another layer of complexity to the problem.

I'm at a loss as to what's causing this or how to fix it. I'd greatly appreciate any insights or solutions from the community. Thanks in advance for your help!

[walt.farrell]

It is possible that while resizing the Text Frames you've done it wrong for at least one of them.

Note the lower-right corner of that Text Frame screenshot. If you use the handle I marked in red, it will do two things:

1. Change the frame size
2. Rescale the frame content (e.g., text) to have a different size.

When you understand what you're doing, and want function 2, using that handle is appropriate. Usually, though, it isn't. You need to make sure you use the other handle.

 

[M1chel]

@walt.farrell Thanks for your suggestions. I've never used the outermost handle.

[walt.farrell]

OK. That's very easy to do, especially if you're manually resizing those frames that have it. But if you're sure you didn't, how did you do the resizing?

In any case, once you have that happening, about all you can do is select all the text, cut it, delete the misbehaving frames, recreate the frames, and paste the text. (Keep a good copy of the document first, of course.)

[M1chel]

@walt.farrell All I've been doing is adjusting the text frame to fit within the margin box. However, an unexpected resizing of the letters occurs when I eliminate a page break on a page. This action results in part of the text from the following text frame flowing back to the page where the page break was removed. It then becomes a difficult task to restore the font size and leading to their original, desired states. It's a peculiar issue.

I'm also trying to comprehend why, when I attempt to delete blank pages, they reappear (and this does not happen in all cases... but most of the time it does), or why the first page of the subsequent chapter vanishes. (I was speculating that this could be related to the type of page breaks being used.) I'm beginning to consider the option of converting the A5 version to an A4 PDF, then eliminating all the blank pages with Acrobat, and manually renumbering every page. It's an insane amount of work, much like what I'm currently grappling with. (And just accept the objects and text frames are off center -- because of the paperback format). Another odd occurrence is that when I export the A5 version to a PDF, the chapter numbers become bookmarked alongside the chapter titles, even though I only opted for the titles to have bookmarks. (Note that I manually added the chapter numbers to the Table of Contents).

Edited July 5, 2023 by M1chel

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, M1chel said:

This action results in part of the text from the following text frame flowing back to the page where the page break was removed. It then becomes a difficult task to restore the font size and leading to their original, desired states. It's a peculiar issue.

Did you create the document in Publisher, or did it originate from an IDML document? There is some speculation that there's a bug somewhere in that process that can have this effect.

Did you ever change the DPI of the document once it was created? Did you ever add a Text Frame by pasting it from a document with a different DPI, or use an Asset that was created from a document with a different DPI? There are also bugs in those scenarios that can cause this.

Other than those, the only known cause is using that detached handle to size/resize a text frame at some point in its lifetime. 

[M1chel]

@walt.farrell , thank you for your input. Currently, the DPI is set to 96 for both dimensions. I purchased a template which was available in versions compatible with Word, Pages, or InDesign/IDML. I started with the original IDML document in Affinity Publisher and used it as the basis for my work, populating it with the necessary text and images. The A5/Paperback version is now complete, and my next objective is to convert it into an A4/PDF format. Once this is accomplished and after one final proofread, I plan to transform it into an ePub. However, what I initially anticipated as a straightforward process is proving to be more challenging than expected. 🫠

[walt.farrell]

Thanks. Then, presumably, you're experiencing the issue with IDML files, or the original IDML file was created incorrectly in some way that Affinity Publisher is sensitive to.

[Oufti]

3 hours ago, M1chel said:

I'm also trying to comprehend why, when I attempt to delete blank pages, they reappear (and this does not happen in all cases... but most of the time it does), or why the first page of the subsequent chapter vanishes.

I've seen some surprising things like this happening when the page mentioned as the beginning of a section (in Window menu > Section manager) was not consistent with the actual first page of the section. 

[thomaso]

14 hours ago, M1chel said:

All I've been doing is adjusting the text frame to fit within the margin box.

Just a note: If you create the text frames for the story text flow directly on the Master Pages (as linked text frames) then a change of the page size can get set in the Document Setup (V2) / Spread Setup (V1) with its options for auto-scaling of the layout items. Master page text frames get automatically adjusted on document pages once you have set the text frame size and position on the Master Pages, and a change of the margin will auto-affect all text frames accordingly. Then a manual text frame adjustment on document pages should not be required.

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Pages/DocumentSetup.html?title=Document setup