Publisher Book - section numbers not working

[maranatha9347]

Hi Affinity, et. al.,

I am using the Book feature in Publisher to compile several files for easy editing and styles sharing, and each file has two sections with independent page numbering. I want the page numbering to stay the same so I had to adjust the page numbering options to reset the page numbering for the Book chapters to always start at "1". This seems to work for the first section in every chapter, however, the second section always continues numbering and does not allow me to reset the page numbers—it automatically resets back to the number after the first section.

See pictures of one of my chapters: the first section has the correct numbering ("4 of 4"), but the second section should say "1 of 3" but instead it continues with "5 of 7". When I try to change the "Restart page numbering at..." field in the Section Manager, the number just resets back to "5"...

I think this is a bug because this effectively makes the "Restart page numbering at..." option useless; it is basically locked in the "Continue page numbering" setting.

 

 

Edited September 21, 2023 by maranatha9347
Edited text for emphasis.

[MikeTO]

In the Section Manager, ensure you press tab after typing 1 in the Restart page numbering field. The change will not be accepted until you press tab. Once you press it, section 2 in the left list should read "Pages 5-7          1-3". I tested it and couldn't duplicate your issue if I pressed tab.

I've attached a test book and associated documents that show this working correctly. The book has 2 identical documents and each document has 7 pages divided into 2 sections, with the pages numbered 1-4 in the first section and 1-3 in the second section.

Archive.zip

Note that the Books panel's page numbers get a bit confusing when you have multiple sections in a chapter with different page numbers. The page numbers shown are the first and last page numbers of the chapter but they're relative numbers and not absolute. Typically it would show something like i-vi for the front matter chapter, 1-23 for the first chapter, 24-37 for the next chapter, etc.

Publisher does the best it can - it shows the relative page number of the first page of the first section and the relative page number of the last page of the last section. There's not much else it can do. But for the test book I've uploaded it's a tiny bit confusing because you'd think looking at it that these chapters have 3 pages each when in reality that is page 1 of section 1 and page 3 of section 2.

[maranatha9347]

I confirmed that this issue only occurs when the files are loaded in an open Book... When I open the files individually I can successfully change "Restart page numbering at..." to "1" for the second section. (Like it was before...)

[MikeTO]

36 minutes ago, maranatha9347 said:

I confirmed that this issue only occurs when the files are loaded in an open Book... When I open the files individually I can successfully change "Restart page numbering at..." to "1" for the second section. (Like it was before...)

Oh I see the bug now.

If I set it correctly, save the chapters and the book, and then reopen the book and open both chapters, the first chapter is fine but chapter 2, section 2 won't start at 1. No matter what I do now, I can't change the starting page number of section 2 while the book is open.

Archive 2.zip

[Hangman]

16 hours ago, maranatha9347 said:

I confirmed that this issue only occurs when the files are loaded in an open Book... When I open the files individually I can successfully change "Restart page numbering at..." to "1" for the second section. (Like it was before...)

For me, this only works if 'Update Page Numbers Automatically' is disabled so a very temporary and therefore not very helpful workaround is to disable both 'Update Page Numbers Automatically' and 'Update Numbers Before Output' which will allow you to edit the section numbers in Section Manager and export with the correct numbering but as soon as the Chapters are re-opened it reverts back to using incorrect numbering...

[maranatha9347]

18 hours ago, MikeTO said:

In the Section Manager, ensure you press tab after typing 1 in the Restart page numbering field. The change will not be accepted until you press tab. Once you press it, section 2 in the left list should read "Pages 5-7          1-3". I tested it and couldn't duplicate your issue if I pressed tab.

I've attached a test book and associated documents that show this working correctly. The book has 2 identical documents and each document has 7 pages divided into 2 sections, with the pages numbered 1-4 in the first section and 1-3 in the second section.

Archive.zip 51.7 kB · 0 downloads

Note that the Books panel's page numbers get a bit confusing when you have multiple sections in a chapter with different page numbers. The page numbers shown are the first and last page numbers of the chapter but they're relative numbers and not absolute. Typically it would show something like i-vi for the front matter chapter, 1-23 for the first chapter, 24-37 for the next chapter, etc.

Publisher does the best it can - it shows the relative page number of the first page of the first section and the relative page number of the last page of the last section. There's not much else it can do. But for the test book I've uploaded it's a tiny bit confusing because you'd think looking at it that these chapters have 3 pages each when in reality that is page 1 of section 1 and page 3 of section 2.

1) I am using Tab. 👍

2) I opened up your file and as soon as the chapters synchronized the pages changed and I had the same problem trying to update the section page numbers (using Tab, of course)...

The solution offered by Hangman seems to work as he stated. I will either have to forsake this strategy or remember to update the section page numbers, until they get around to fixing this.

All, thanks for your help!

Edited September 22, 2023 by maranatha9347
Removed images.

[NathanC]

Hey @maranatha9347,

I've replicated your issue and it has now been logged with the developers.

Many thanks @MikeTO and @Hangman for providing a sample file and a workaround.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Book Chapters fail to update the 'Restart Page numbering at' field in Section Manager" (REF: AF-386) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.3.0.2106".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.