Text on page unable to be edited

[Charlie Bucket]

Hello.

I have Affinity Publisher 2. There is one page with the text frame linked to the previous and following pages. I cannot type on this page because there is no cursor blinking, neither will the Move tool move the text frame. Also various things are greyed out at the top such as Columns, Edit Wrap Outline, Move to Back etc. If I type at the end of the previous text frame, the text appears there but after a certain number of letters, all this new stuff suddenly appears on the dud page along with the cursor and the page is now normal. However if I then go back to the last page and click in there, the dud page then goes back to being unresponsive.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Charlie

[GarryP]

Can you give us a full-screen screenshot where the Layers Panel is visible and the ‘problem layer’ is selected and fully visible on the canvas?

[Charlie Bucket]

Hi Garry

I can see now that the problem page has in the Layers Panel the Frame Text box coloured whereas the "good" page hasn't.

I've never used layers so don't know how this came about or what it means.

I have found other pages like this.

[Charlie Bucket]

The right hand page is a problem, the left is fine.

[GarryP]

Thanks for the screenshot.

The Frame Text layer which is selected is on a master page, which is fine, but it looks like (I can’t be sure) that there may be two Frame Text layers almost on top of each other on that page– I can see a ‘double outline’ on your page.

If the selected Frame Text layer is on top of the Frame Text Layer which contains the text then you might be selecting the upper 'empty' one, which could account for you not being able to edit the text which is in the lower layer.

Try making each Frame Text layer hidden in turn to see what’s going on – you may just need to delete one layer (the empty one) to get back on track.

[Charlie Bucket]

Thanks for the reply.

If I hide the lighter coloured layer, the text on both pages disappear. I assume the text is on this layer.

I can't hide the darker coloured layer underneath it  - nothing happens, the circle on the right stays the same. How do I delete this layer?

[GarryP]

If the layer is on a master page and you want to edit that master page – e.g. remove a layer from it – then you will need to be editing the master page itself, rather than the ‘normal’ page.

To do this you can either right-click the master page in the Layers Panel and choose “Edit Linked” from the menu (then later pressing the "Finish" button - top of document window - when done), or double-click the master page in the Pages Panel (there may be other ways).

See attached video.

Note: There’s also the Toggle Master View option via the button near the left-hand side of the Status Bar.

Edited November 9, 2023 by GarryP
Added video.

[Charlie Bucket]

Thank you very much Garry. I'll continue working on this tomorrow.

Now the original problem page, which is not the one above, is now behaving impeccably, without me doing anything.

What this means I don't know.

Charlie

[GarryP]

If you are okay with everyone being able to open the document then you can upload it here so we can experiment with it to, hopefully, see what’s wrong (it’s usually easer to diagnose problems if we can ‘get our hands dirty’).

If you don’t want to share the document in public for any reason then a staff member might be able to provide you with a private dropbox link you can use to share it with the staff but it might take longer for you to get a reply.

If the document isn’t very large, and you want to share I with me personally, just send me a DM via the forums and I’ll have a look at it.

It’s probably a simple fix but finding what needs fixing may take longer than the fix itself.

[Charlie Bucket]

Will do so tomorrow.

Many thanks.

[Charlie Bucket]

Document attached.

The problem pages are 11, 13, 35, 49, 52 and 67.

ForumCopy.afpub

[MikeTO]

The problem is that you have an empty text frame on a master page and that frame is higher in the Layers pane than the text frame with the actual words on the document page. FarmEric is your master page and the first selected frame in the master page layer (group) is the text frame that is obscuring the frame with your text, which is at the bottom of the layer stack.

If you're not going to use the master page then it would be better to right click the page's thumbnail in the Pages panel and choose Clear Masters. That will allow you to type in the frame you have drawn on the document page.

But of course it's a good idea to use master pages and to avoid drawing frames directly on document pages, especially for a long document. But either way will work.

Cheers

[Charlie Bucket]

Taking some time I managed to do a fix or fixes of sorts.

With 49, 52 and 67 I dragged the FarmEric master page over the thumbnail and this worked. 

It didn't work with 11, 13 and 35 so I did the Clear Masters thing and this worked. The page numbers disappeared but I can reproduce those.

I really need to understand some of the basic workings of Affinity Publisher.

Thanks MikeTO

Anyone else's thought on theses problem pages would be welcome in case my fixes don't keep working.

[MikeTO]

7 minutes ago, Charlie Bucket said:

Taking some time I managed to do a fix or fixes of sorts.

With 49, 52 and 67 I dragged the FarmEric master page over the thumbnail and this worked. 

It didn't work with 11, 13 and 35 so I did the Clear Masters thing and this worked. The page numbers disappeared but I can reproduce those.

I really need to understand some of the basic workings of Affinity Publisher.

Thanks MikeTO

Anyone else's thought on theses problem pages would be welcome in case my fixes don't keep working.

Please check out the description of master pages and documents in the free PDF manual for Publisher that I've shared in the forum - the link is in my signature below. It's a limited manual but it covers documents, pages, and master pages, as well as the advanced features for publishing long documents. A new version is in the works for 2.3 and will include a lot more.

Cheers

[Charlie Bucket]

I have downloaded the PDF manual and find it very good. Clearly written and easy to follow.

What I'm not sure of is what I did to cause the problem in the first place and why there are two separate fixes.

Thanks for your help, GarryP and MikeTO.

Charlie

[GarryP]

You're welcome.

[bwob]

What worked for me was right-clicking on the problematic text frame, then choosing "Release Linked Text Frame." If it's still giving you trouble, check for any master page elements or layering issues that might be causing the problem.

[markw]

10 hours ago, MikeTO said:

A new version is in the works for 2.3 and will include a lot more.

You are a star!🤩

[Charlie Bucket]

Hi bwob

Thanks for those suggestions but whatever I right click on I don't get "Release linked text Frame".

What am I doing wrong?