Affinity Publisher: How do I stop AF from capitalizing letters?

[ChristopherS]

This is my sixth post to the forums. In the past I would search the forums thoroughly and tried to search again with patience and diligence for: (see image screenshot 1, sorry I don't know how to post images inline)

I found some information about Capitalization on the Affinity website: 

https://affinity.help/publisher/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Text/capitalisation.html?title=Capitalization

Title Exceptions

"In Affinity Publisher's preferences, select Title Exceptions. The list here contains short prepositions, conjunctions, articles, and any other words you do not want to be altered when the Title Case transformation is applied.

Use the pop-up menu to set different title exceptions for each of Affinity Publisher's supported languages. The list used when the Title Case transformation is applied depends on text's language setting, indicated by the Spelling setting in the Character panel's Language section."

In another post: 

Solerous posted (see reference screenshot) 

"2) How do I choose Capitalization > Lowercase for a style? It doesn't seem to exist in the style options, though it is available to be used manually via the menu." 

Which seemed not to be answered, or it wasn't quoted to respond directly to this question similar to mine. I wasn't able to follow if the question was answered or not. 
_______
With all this said above trying to figure out the question in my subject, How do I stop AF from capitalizing letters?

I would like to make a lowercase letter into a character style to keep it lowercase and turn it red, (see screenshot 3) but every time I try to make one and press the spacebar in the beginning of a sentence, it auto-capitalizes and turns it into a capital B. 

How do I change my perspective about how AP works so I can achieve the same goal?

Edited August 1, 2023 by ChristopherS
It was my sixth post, not my first post to the forums.

[anto]

You can use regular expression.

If you want to replace all capital letters with lowercase letters at the beginning of a sentence, use a regular expression:
Find:

^([  A  -  Z  ]+   ) 

replace with: \L$0
If you want to replace all capital letters in sentences, use the following expression:
find:

([    А    -    Я    ]+) 

replace with: \L$0

 

[ChristopherS]

4 minutes ago, anto said:

You can use regular expression.

If you want to replace all capital letters with lowercase letters at the beginning of a sentence, use a regular expression:
Find:

^([  A  -  Z  ]+)  

replace with: \L$0
If you want to replace all capital letters in sentences, use the following expression:
find:

([  А  -  Я  ]+) 

replace with: \L$0

 

 

Whoa, thats amazing! I will try it and see. Does it keep it as a lowercase by default? 

[anto]

8 хвилин тому ChristopherS сказав:

Does it keep it as a lowercase by default?

Currently, regular expressions don't work directly in styles (if that's what you mean), so you have to use them through find/replace. GREP was asked to be integrated into styles so that it works by default. Maybe one day this will happen.
First, you type normally as you always do, and then you can use a regular expression to change the case of the letters.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, ChristopherS said:

I would like to make a lowercase letter into a character style to keep it lowercase and turn it red, (see screenshot 3) but every time I try to make one and press the spacebar in the beginning of a sentence, it auto-capitalizes and turns it into a capital B. 

Maybe unticking this app preference helps: 

[anto]

33 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Maybe unticking this app preference helps

I think this option should be in the style settings.

[thomaso]

7 hours ago, anto said:

I think this option should be in the style settings.

Isn't it there, too?  EDIT: sorry, the "sentence" option is not there. – This makes me wonder: When / for what texts or languages is it required or useful not to start a sentence with capitals?

Edited August 1, 2023 by thomaso

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, anto said:

I think this option should be in the style settings.

46 minutes ago, thomaso said:

This makes me wonder: When / for what texts or languages is it required or useful not to start a sentence with capitals?

It seems the "sentence" preference affects . + ! + ? only. – While capitals might be wanted also after – or : or . – or : " for instance.

 

[walt.farrell]

Note that if you're typing, and the Auto-Capitalize setting in Publisher capitalizes a letter you don't want capitalized, and you notice that right away, you can simply Ctrl/Cmd+Z to Undo. That won't fix cases where you notice it several letters later, of course.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

When / for what texts or languages is it required or useful not to start a sentence with capitals?

Another place you might not want a capital letter: lists. For example, you might have a manually constructed list with item names a, b, and c that you want to remain in that form.

45 minutes ago, thomaso said:

It seems the "sentence" preference affects . + ! + ? only.

Also Paragraph Breaks, as a new paragraph will begin a new sentence, usually. And if you have a situation where you have a Paragraph Break and a continuation of a sentence after it, you need to handle that manually. Once you're aware of how things work, you might remember to type the first letter and then hit Undo before typing the second letter. But probably you won't remember unless it happens frequently in a project.

 

[thomaso]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Another place you might not want a capital letter: lists. For example, you might have a manually constructed list with item names a, b, and c that you want to remain in that form. (…)

Also Paragraph Breaks, as a new paragraph will begin a new sentence, usually. And if you have a situation where you have a Paragraph Break and a continuation of a sentence after it, you need to handle that manually. Once you're aware of how things work, you might remember to type the first letter and then hit Undo before typing the second letter. But probably you won't remember unless it happens frequently in a project.

Good points, thank you! Especially the last part reminds me why I disabled this option on purpose years ago: It just feels too consistent AND too exclusionary to me at the same time … while I am used to automatically press shift where it's wanted (different than in my examples above), especially after typographical start and end quotation marks.

[walt.farrell]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

while I am used to automatically press shift where it's wanted

Right. It's another flavor of Auto-Correct, which some users will find useful and others won't, especially depending on how good their typing skills are.