JeremyHullah Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 Hi I'm sure there is good reason for it not following the instructions written down in Merging and Flattening, but when I select a text and an image layer, the 'Merge Selected' option is not highlighted. I just need to flatten 2 pages in my book, so that these appear 'as is' when being converted to an eBook. Example of one of the pages attached... Anyone know why this is happening and how I do this? Many thanks Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted July 7, 2023 Share Posted July 7, 2023 From your screenshot you're in crop-mode, aka the Crop tool is used, instead of the Move tool. Try with the Move tool here instead on the two selected layers! Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 Also, I suggest you enable View > Show Context Toolbar. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyHullah Posted July 8, 2023 Author Share Posted July 8, 2023 Thanks guys (and you must have very good spotting eyes v_kyr!) I had been using the Move Tool before and Crop Tool was only highlighted when I took the screen shot, as I wondered if I needed to crop the background image to within the document boundaries for it work. I still get the same greyed out options with Move Tool. I also have Contect Toolbar turned on. There is no context for Crop though, which is why it might have seemed as though I didn't. I noticed a 'group' function here (on Context for the Move Tool), but don't think this does what I am requiring. Any other ideas? If you think it should work like this then maybe one of the staffers could respond... Many thanks Jeremy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 It sounds like you want to do two things: (1) Split the text into three sections: (a) the text before “The major”; (b) the text between “The major” and “today?” (inclusive); (c) the text after that. (2) Rasterise the middle section of text (b) and then merge the resultant Pixel layer with the image behind it. Step 2 should be pretty straight forward using the merge functionality. Step 1, unfortunately, is tricky as you need to do it manually with copy/paste and you could find that other problems come up – justification, hyphenation, spelling check issues, etc. (These problems might not come up with your page but they need to be taken into consideration.) Search these forums for split text or split flow to see some possibilities and pitfalls. Note 1: It will probably be easier to do the text splitting in Publisher, rather than Photo which you are using. Note 2: The Crop Tool does have a Context Toolbar in Photo so it looks like you haven’t got it switched ON. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron P. Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 I don't know how you managed to have the Crop Tool markings (corners, sides) for Publisher show up in Photo. What your screenshot shows is not the Crop tool for Photo. Quote Affinity Photo 2.5..; Affinity Designer 2.5..; Affinity Publisher 2.5..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyHullah Posted July 8, 2023 Author Share Posted July 8, 2023 @GarryP Thanks for suggestion. It makes sense, but I don't understand how the texts are joined anyway as they are separate layers. Saying that though: I'm still a novice and there is so much that still doesn't make sense to me...! However: the guy doing my eBook version has worked out how to flatten this from his side, so hopefully I won't have to go down this route... Many thanks for all help Jeremy P.S. @Ron P. This is a publisher file not a photo file, so maybe photo treats it differently (I certainly couldn't get it to work anyway, as I couldn't see the 'apply' option anywhere) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian_J Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 The Image layer must be rasterized in order for Merge Selected to be enabled. Right-click the Image layer and select Rasterize — the Image layer becomes a Pixel layer, and now when the two layers are selected you will have the option to Merge Selected. Quote Windows 10 22H2, 32GB RAM | Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 (MSI/EXE) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepr Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 [deleted: message was of no interest to OP] Brian_J 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeremyHullah Posted July 8, 2023 Author Share Posted July 8, 2023 @Brian_J Thanks - that was simple and beautiful and added to my understanding of how all of this stuff works 👍 Brian_J 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt.farrell Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 1 hour ago, JeremyHullah said: P.S. @Ron P. This is a publisher file not a photo file, so maybe photo treats it differently (I certainly couldn't get it to work anyway, as I couldn't see the 'apply' option anywhere) Thanks. I didn't notice the Page Navigator in the Status Bar. As you're dealing with a document that is not canvas-based, you have the Vector Crop Tool like Designer uses, which explains the lack of Context Toolbar options. Quote -- Walt Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases PC: Desktop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Laptop: Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU. Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2, 16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU iPad: iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarryP Posted July 8, 2023 Share Posted July 8, 2023 1 hour ago, JeremyHullah said: I don't understand how the texts are joined anyway as they are separate layers. Apologies, I had assumed that the text flowed through the frames as that’s the ‘normal’ way to do it. If the text frame on that page has self-contained text (not flowing in or out of that frame) then you can, as Brian_J mentioned, rasterise the text frame layer and then merge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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