DPI change in Document Setup messes up the Text Styles

[Raptosauru5]

First of all, I am not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour, but I would like to bring it to devs' attention, because it confused me and at first I did not understand what was going on.

After I changed the Document's DPI, all the texts in my document that were linked with a Text Style got resized. This means the document still looks right, however the Text Styles now sees it as if I would manually re-size these texts.

Example above: The "NavBar 2" became "NavBar 2+" where the "+" indicates a modification to a style.

 

Fixing this was fairly easy: 

1. Select text on your document, it will get selected in the Text Styles window.

2. Right-click on it in the Text Styles window and click [Update "NavBar 2"].

3. Do this for all your texts so all your Text Styles get updated.

 

However, I can imagine an user getting super-frustrated if they could not figure out what is going on or if they would not notice this for a longer period of time.

Perhaps there should be a popup dialogue, asking user what to do with fonts when changing DPI, or maybe the fonts should be updated automatically to fit new DPI? 

Thanks for your work, developer team!

[MikeTO]

Hi, I don't believe this is due to changing the DPI - I tested it and couldn't duplicate that problem.

What you describe does happens when you change the page size and rescale the objects and text. Did you change the page size and choose rescale when you were changing the DPI?

[Raptosauru5]

Thanks for your response!

Interesting... it seems like this problem is specific to Windows system.

All it takes is to change this DPI value, press OK and it will brake the Text Styles.

[MikeTO]

Ah, that's because you're using Pixels for the units.

Why are you using Pixels for Publisher? I know it's an option but generally those who use pixels in Publisher are creating single-page documents and then don't use text styles.

When you change DPI for a normal document (inches, picas, mm...), you're really not changing anything because the DPI is used only for placing images and setting the default resolution at export. It works a bit differently with Pixels.

[Raptosauru5]

@MikeTO Thanks for clarifying.

I am actually using Affinity Designer, not Publisher.

I use Pixels, because I am designing app UI and the developer is working with pixels in his code, so it is best that we use the same units.

I think in my case using pixels does make sense, so perhaps it is a bug?

[MikeTO]

Sorry, I assumed you were using Publisher.

From your Document Setup screenshot I can see that you're using an artboard and I think this is related to that but I don't know enough to answer properly.

If you weren't using an artboard, changing DPI with "Anchor to Page" selected would not change the text size. Changing DPI with "Rescale" selected will result in the text style text size being redefined and then the size being overridden back to what it was. This doesn't seem right so maybe there is a bug there.

When using an artboard, Anchor to Page/Rescale are disabled and although it looks like Anchor to Page is selected, it operates more like Rescale is selected so the same thing happens, the text style text size is redefined and then the size is overridden back to what it was.

Serif may have to review this if somebody else doesn't have a better answer.

Good luck

[Raptosauru5]

Thanks for your insight.

You are right, I actually can't even set DPI with "Rescale" selected - this option is greyed out and only becomes available if I am not using multiple Artboards.

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

If you weren't using an artboard, changing DPI with "Anchor to Page" selected would not change the text size.

I can confirm this is true as well.

It seems like there is something tricky happening under the hood when working with multiple artboards, because the behaviour differs.

Either it is a bug, or it is an intended workaround.

[DWright]

Hi @Raptosauru5,

This is strange as on my Designer on Windows I am able to enter aa DPI value with the Rescale option selected, Can you please try starting Designer while holding down the CTL key and when the Clear User Data screen appears click the Clear button without selecting any additional options and this will rebuild the apps settings.

[Raptosauru5]

On 10/25/2023 at 4:20 PM, DWright said:

Hi @Raptosauru5,

This is strange as on my Designer on Windows I am able to enter aa DPI value with the Rescale option selected, Can you please try starting Designer while holding down the CTL key and when the Clear User Data screen appears click the Clear button without selecting any additional options and this will rebuild the apps settings.

I would really like to help, but can we perform some test without changing my settings?

Can I for example have your exact file and follow your reproduction steps?