Embarrassing question: How do I add more pages to an existing novel layout...?

[Carl Michael]

Hi, 

I working on a novel in Affinity Publisher and the file was created by someone else who has left the project and I can’t figure out who to add more pages with the same document properties and look as the previous page. Both the Add page or Add Page commands creates pages which are different to the precious pages. 

 

Between the pages there is a diagonal line which seems to tie them together some way, but this line is not created when I am to create additional pages. 

 

Any ideas? (I am attaching screen dumps of existing pages, the result of when using the "Add page" command and "Add pages" command)

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

BTW: It’s a project to publish printed issue of a never before published novel written by my favourite author. This is the second novel I am publishing and like the previous project it’s a non-profit project to save a novel which may otherwise be lost and unpublished, which is why i don’t have budget to pay a professional to do the layout work. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Old Bruce]

19 minutes ago, Carl Michael said:

I working on a novel in Affinity Publisher and the file was created by someone else who has left the project and I can’t figure out who to add more pages with the same document properties and look as the previous page. Both the Add page or Add Page commands creates pages which are different to the precious pages. 

 

Between the pages there is a diagonal line which seems to tie them together some way, but this line is not created when I am to create additional pages. 

Go to the last page with text and you should see a little red triangle instead of a red dot. This indicates that there is extra text that is not showing, also known as Overflow text. Shift click on the little red triangle and the program will generate pages with text frames that are linked (your "diagonal lines"). Do the Shift + Click when you see the little icon which looks like a ... old telephone handset, barbell, something from a chem textbook, ... three links in a chain.

 

 

[Carl Michael]

Thanks! 

When following your instructions I made some progress, but the new added pages seems to have completely different page properties.

 

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, Carl Michael said:

... the file was created by someone else who has left the project ...

Your best bet will be to start over. The tiny type indicates that at some point the person who has left altered the size of the text frames or the Paragraph Styles somehow. It would take more time and effort to correct the mistakes in your current document than it would if you were to simply start over. The reason for starting over is that the type size difference could be caused a variety of settings and to track them down and correct them would be very time consuming and could also introduce new problems.

I would suggest you simply enter your text caret somewhere in the text and select all of the text by using Command + A (Control + A on Windows) or Edit > Select All. Then paste the text into a new document based on one of the enclosed Publisher files.

I would open the No Text Styles file and save it as First Try.afpub then paste the copied text from your current document into the frame on page one. Hopefully there are going to be text styles in the current document. They will be made available after pasting the text into the newly made First Try document.

Starters.zip

[Catshill]

I’d create your own empty template/document using master pages, linked text frames and a base text style with sub styles for headings etc. Copy all the source text into this new template, using paste as plain text. Finally apply your text styles as required. It sounds a longer way round but in my experience starting with clean text is much quicker than trying to find and fix the cause of broken bits of formatting.

[Carl Michael]

13 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Your best bet will be to start over. The tiny type indicates that at some point the person who has left altered the size of the text frames or the Paragraph Styles somehow. It would take more time and effort to correct the mistakes in your current document than it would if you were to simply start over. The reason for starting over is that the type size difference could be caused a variety of settings and to track them down and correct them would be very time consuming and could also introduce new problems.

I would suggest you simply enter your text caret somewhere in the text and select all of the text by using Command + A (Control + A on Windows) or Edit > Select All. Then paste the text into a new document based on one of the enclosed Publisher files.

I would open the No Text Styles file and save it as First Try.afpub then paste the copied text from your current document into the frame on page one. Hopefully there are going to be text styles in the current document. They will be made available after pasting the text into the newly made First Try document.

Starters.zip 27.93 kB · 1 download

Thanks. Since I don't know how to set up a new document scratch with all the right setting required by printing house, I tried something else. I made a copy of the book which file (or document) to use as a template for the last three chapters (chapter 34-36). I pasted the rest of the text in and edited away the pages in the beginning and the end. 

Then I went back to the document containing the novel (chapter 1-33) and used the "Add pages from file" command. This worked and I could generate a PDF for the proof reader. The printing house expects a PDF, so I supposed that this work around will work well enough to complete this project.  

But thank you very much for the advises.

[Carl Michael]

2 hours ago, Catshill said:

I’d create your own empty template/document using master pages, linked text frames and a base text style with sub styles for headings etc. Copy all the source text into this new template, using paste as plain text. Finally apply your text styles as required. It sounds a longer way round but in my experience starting with clean text is much quicker than trying to find and fix the cause of broken bits of formatting.

Thanks. It sounds like something similar to what I did to solve the problem. (Which I just posted about when you wrote your post.   )