Publisher v2 - Bookmarks improvement needed

[bbrother]

There are several issues with current Bookmark creation feature in Publisher.

Issue 1 - most important

Curently Publisher creates an anchor link at the end of paragraph or selected text and uses it as target for bookmarks.
Then it uses what i think X/Y coordinates of the page to put target text on top.
This approach generates problems when the target paragraph or text for bookmark consists of more than one line.
If you click on such created bookmark you would see only last line of the target text on top of the pdf page. 
But user expectation is to see the full text that was used as bookmark target.

Solution for Issue 1

For the best user experience when using bookmarks Publisher should use "named destinations" when creating bookmarks.
PDF "named destinations" are best for getting the correct position on page and are used by pro software for bookmarks.
If for some reason you can't use "named destinations" Publisher should create the anchor that is used in bookmarks as target loacation at the beginning of paragraph or selected text. But probably it would be best to change PDF library and use "named desitination".
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Issue 2 -  very irritating and incomprehensible

Publisher automatically arranges bookmarks created bu user in alphabetical order.
This could be an additional option but not default behavior forced by the app.
I'm working  with PDF for a long time and never needed to order bookmarks by alphabet.

Soution for issue 2

Don't change order of the bookmarks manualy created by the user.
User should have control over the bookmarks order that he creates.
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Issue 3 - curently it is imposible to change the order off the created bookmarks or creating parent/child nested bookmarks in anchor panel

solution for issue 3

Allow user to change the order of the bookmarks and allow him creating nested parent child bookmarks.

[Return]

You can use (invisible)objects as anchors and make them export as bookmarks too.
 

[bbrother]

39 minutes ago, Return said:

You can use (invisible)objects as anchors and make them export as bookmarks too.
 

This does not solve any of the above problems

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

Curently Publisher creates an anchor link at the end of paragraph or selected text and uses it as target for bookmarks.
Then it uses what i think X/Y coordinates of the page to put target text on top.
This approach generates problems when the target paragraph or text for bookmark consists of more than one line.
If you click on such created bookmark you would see only last line of the target text on top of the pdf page. 
But user expectation is to see the full text that was used as bookmark target.

If you insert an anchor by selecting a text frame with the Move tool, the anchor will be inserted at the end of the last paragraph in the frame, even if the frame is linked to another page. If you want the anchor at the top of the frame use the Text tool and place the cursor before the first character in the frame.

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

Publisher automatically arranges bookmarks created bu user in alphabetical order.
This could be an additional option but not default behavior forced by the app.
I'm working  with PDF for a long time and never needed to order bookmarks by alphabet.

Publisher arranges bookmarks in this order by searching objects for anchors from the bottom of the layer stack to the top. If a text layer is encountered, it will find all anchors in that object before going to the next layer. It does not alphabetize them as far as I know. Can you provide an example document in which the anchors are being alphabetized?

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

Issue 3 - curently it is imposible to change the order off the created bookmarks or creating parent/child nested bookmarks in anchor panel

That's right, it doesn't allow you to do that in the Anchors panel because it you're already specifying the order in the Layers panel. Re-arrange the stack order of your layers if you want to change the order of the created bookmarks.

Seeing a test document would be helpful.

Good luck

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

3 hours ago, bbrother said:

Publisher automatically arranges bookmarks created bu user in alphabetical order.
This could be an additional option but not default behavior forced by the app.
I'm working  with PDF for a long time and never needed to order bookmarks by alphabet.

Publisher arranges bookmarks in this order by searching objects for anchors from the bottom of the layer stack to the top. If a text layer is encountered, it will find all anchors in that object before going to the next layer. It does not alphabetize them as far as I know. Can you provide an example document in which the anchors are being alphabetized?

[bbrother]

4 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If you want the anchor at the top of the frame use the Text tool and place the cursor before the first character in the frame.

@MikeTO you didn't understand what I'm interested in. My interest is properly created PDF Bookmarks not making anchors to text frames. Typicaly you create bookmarks from headings in document but not always to allow easy navigation thru content in PDF. Currently the way Apub uses to create bookmarks provide bad user experience.

See attached sample document created in Publisher.

I created three bookmarks from three headings from three pages😀
I created them in the exact order listed below and wanted to be in the pdf also in the exact same order.

1. C very very very very very very long heading
2. B heading
3. A heading

What Publisher did it changed the order of bookmarks alphabeticaly based on titles. Not as i wanted.
And i had no control over it. Insane.

Look also whats happening when you are on page 1 and click on bookmark C very long...
Two first lines from the heading are not visible beacuse tha pages is scrolled to target anchor created at the end of that heading.
This is not how bookmarks should be created. The entire heading should be visible and its not.

Example.pdf

[Brian_J]

@bbrother I posted about a related issue almost a year ago. The way Table of Contents links are created in Publisher produces the same results that you described… clicking a TOC link may take you to the wrong location on the destination page.

I didn’t understand the root cause in my original post, but user kenmcd explained that TOC links use X/Y position of the current view instead of Named Destination.

The issue creates a poor user experience in PDFs created with Publisher. I hope Serif considers addressing this.

 

[bbrother]

In my opinion the way they are implemented in APub makes them useless. Thats not how pro software makes bookmarks.
I create a lot manuals in pdf format. In most cases, they are quite complex and they require well functioning bookmarks.
User must have the ability to efficiently navigate through the document content.

Even OpenOfice Writer makes beter job when it comes to bookmarks creation than APub.

[Brian_J]

1 hour ago, bbrother said:

 

In my opinion the way they are implemented in APub makes them useless.

 

I agree. I created my post in the Bugs forum because I couldn’t imagine it being intended behavior. Evidently, I should have posted it as a feature request.

[Oufti]

1 hour ago, Brian_J said:

Evidently, I should have posted it as a feature request.

What is now done here...

👍

[MikeTO]

Okay, I understand now. Yes, it could be better, especially with two-line headings.

[bbrother]

Another problem i forgot to mention is when generating bookmarks from TOC APub does't create nested bookmarks with a parent/child relationship.

Affinity it's a really poor implementation of this important functionality. Please make necessary improvements.
I know that the main purpose is to create materials for printing but the creation of ebooks, manuals, etc. is a big market.