Issue when working on publication figures and resizing with <Embedded> object page

[Hammonje]

Good morning.

When I place a PDF object in Affinity Designer, I often double click on it to adjust particular details as it expands the view to <Embedded> in a separate window which allows for adjustment of single object details. My issues arise in several ways as the <Embedded> object often remains larger than the object in the document. I adjust the object size in the document to fit dimensions required. I am adjusting fonts, line weights, point weights, etc. in the <Embedded> view. These figures are for scientific publication which have strict text size, line weight and other rules. I would like to make the sizes of these items consistent. It ruins the text size, line weight and other dimensions. When I shrink the document object the text sizes are smaller than the expanded <Embedded> object and I need to be able to assign them strict sizes in the print version. Please advise. Thank you. 

[walt.farrell]

If I understand what you've described, it sounds like your problem is that you have Placed your PDF file at less than 100% of its native size. If you want the font sizes to match what they are in the Embedded tab, then you will have to make sure that your PDF file is 100% of its native size on the document page you're putting it on.

[Hammonje]

I place it as 100% and then resize it down to an appropriate dimension. Say 20% of original. When I then double click on it, the <Embedded> window displays an item that is larger than what is displayed on document window. Document is where I compile a bunch of objects in order to publish a polished figure. Thank you Walt.

[walt.farrell]

25 minutes ago, Hammonje said:

and then resize it down to an appropriate dimension

If you resize it down, then everything that is displayed will (naturally) be smaller.

25 minutes ago, Hammonje said:

When I then double click on it, the <Embedded> window displays an item that is larger than what is displayed on document window.

Yes, and that's because you're editing the original-sized document, not the resized one you Placed.

I can see what you're trying to do, but I think your only choices are to either:

1. Recreate your original PDF file, at the size you want to use it, and Place that recreated file at 100% scale in your document. This is your best approach, as far as I know.
   or
2. You can play around with something like this, but it's tricky.
   * Place the document at the size you want it.
   * Note the Scale size shown in the Context Toolbar.
   * Click on Edit Document.
   * In the embedded tab, use File > Document Setup, and rescale the document to the size you noted above.
   * Close the embedded tab.
   * Back in the main document, you will see that your Placed file has become smaller. Click on it so you can see the Scale info on the Context Toolbar.
   * Click the pulldown for the Scale info. Making sure the aspect ratio lock (chain) is set, type 100% in one of the scale boxes.
   * At that point, the scale box will probably show a value greater than 100%. Click on Original Size. For me, that sets it to 100%. And now your edited document will be edited and the size you want, if you're lucky. You may only need to do these steps once.

[Hammonje]

That's it Walt. Thank you so much. I use R to produce the figures. The default output of these figures are PDFs that are rather large. 2000 x 2000 mm. Data is bioinformatics and high-throughput RNAseq data sets. I will need to figure out how to use the ggsave function, an R package for saving files, to save the file size close to the intended print size. Will always have to resize them a bit so the directions you wrote will be uber helpful. Thank you so much for your time Walt. You have saved me dozens of hours of frustration. 

[walt.farrell]

Happy to have helped. I hope you get it to work well.

[Hammonje]

It's already working and now I understand how the software functions. Have transitioned to AD from Adobe Illustrator. Much prefer AD for sure, but am still learning. I publish about every 2 years or so and therefore have a time gap between uses. Forget some things. You rock Walt!!!!!