Unofficial PDF Manual - Expert Guide to Affinity Publisher

[MikeTO]

Learn how to publish books and other long documents with Affinity Publisher 2.2. This in-depth manual is filled with steps, tips, and recommendations for:

• Books and Chapters
• Documents, Pages, Master Pages, Sections, and Baseline Grid
• Text Frames, Text Flow, and Stories
• Cross-References, Table of Contents, and Index
• Notes - including Footnotes, Sidenotes, and Endnotes
• Fields - including Page Numbering, Running Headers, and Custom Variables
• Anchors and Hyperlinks

This manual does not cover text formatting, graphics, printing, and many other core features. It is intended to explain the advanced features that you’ll need to publish a long document, especially the Books feature introduced in version 2.

You can find the PDF for this 140-page manual in its thread in the Tutorials area of this forum:

 

[MikeTO]

An updated version is now available with 30 more pages on printing, exporting, colour settings, and more.

 

[Archangel]

5 hours ago, MikeTO said:

An updated version is now available with 30 more pages on printing, exporting, colour settings, and more.

 

Thank you @MikeTO You are a legend.

[MxHeppa]

Thanks allready how you made mac keyboard symbols what you use? to tell keyboard keyboard shortcuts.

 

[Oufti]

24 minutes ago, MxHeppa said:

how you made mac keyboard symbols what you use? to tell keyboard keyboard shortcuts.

These characters are Unicode (Technical symbols) :

⌘ U+2318

⇧ U+21E7

⌥ U+2325

⌫ U+232B

and so on…

To introduce them, you can use the Glyph manager or type their code U+…, followed by menu Text > Activate Unicode (or ⌃U)

— Mike did some more work on it to mimic a keyboard key… 

[MikeTO]

Oufti is correct, they can be typed by entering the glyph unicode values.

Tip: If you don't do this often and can't be bothered doing it the normal way, just google the key name (e.g., "command key Mac") and Google will probably show you the glyph in the first hit. Then you can copy and paste it into Publisher.

You can use a lot of fonts to format these characters but I used SF Compact Text in the manual.

Cheers

[MxHeppa]

On 10/9/2023 at 2:54 AM, Oufti said:

These characters are Unicode (Technical symbols) :

⌘ U+2318

⇧ U+21E7

⌥ U+2325

⌫ U+232B

and so on…

To introduce them, you can use the Glyph manager or type their code U+…, followed by menu Text > Activate Unicode (or ⌃U)

— Mike did some more work on it to mimic a keyboard key… 

i think key simulation realiely easy. but huge thanks.

[MikeTO]

New version! I have uploaded a new version of my unofficial Publisher manual. In addition to being updated for the changes in Publisher 2.3, this version covers character and paragraph formatting, text styles, and all the other text-related features. It is 120 pages longer than the original.

Although it's written for Publisher, most of the text features are the same for Designer or Photo so you may find it useful for the other Affinity applications, too.

Cheers

 

[jmwellborn]

@MikeTO This is what I have been hoping for! Your manual has been absolutely terrific, but the text styles stuff has been my bugaboo since Publisher first arrived. Not that the Text Styles panel isn’t useful. Just “how in the world does it work?” As is the case with everything about Affinity, there is such a plethora of wonderful options that one can get lost in the forest when searching for a tree. Being one of those fossils who learn most quickly from reading vs watching, the Help sections have been consistently underwhelming. I am so thankful for your elegant PDF manual. In one instance, I found the solution for a problem in a matter of seconds on one of your pages for which I had searched again and again, in vain, in Publisher Help and on the forums. Can’t wait to delve into this newest iteration! Thank you so much for the massive amount of work and effort you have expended to help us all.  And Merry Christmas!

[Oufti]

Hello @MikeTO, Thank you once again for this wonderful work!

Having read the section Text styles, I have not seen in it a tip that I find very handy if you need to “transfer” formatting from a style to another. (It's useful, for example, when you copy text from elsewhere and you want to update existing styles accordingly, or when you come to juggle with predefined TOC text styles) :

When some text is selected, you can update any other style via the burger menu on its right side in the Text styles panel, so this style will reflect the current formatting.

I know you don't want to include too many or too lengthy tips but I thought this could be worth sharing it to others, in this topic at least. 

[MikeTO]

18 minutes ago, Oufti said:

Having read the section Text styles, I have not seen in it a tip that I find very handy if you need to “transfer” formatting from a style to another. (It's useful, for example, when you copy text from elsewhere and you want to update existing styles accordingly, or when you come to juggle with predefined TOC text styles) :

When some text is selected, you can update any other style via the burger menu on its right side in the Text styles panel, so this style will reflect the current formatting.

Thanks!

I'll add a tip for step 2, bullet 2 of "To update a text style to match the current formatting" on page 125 to clarify that you can update any style and not just the current style.

[Oufti]

I want to express my gratitude to you because you try to understand and then say better than I do what I intend. 😁