1 Bug, 3 Suggestions

[Joe Swann]

Hello,

First of all, I am thoroughly enjoying Publisher! Thank you for producing it.

Bug Report

I installed the latest maintenance release of Publisher (v2.3.0) a day or two ago, and I believe there is a bug. I am working on a document that is set up for a book. One master page in this document is a two-page spread with large text boxes, both named "Body," on each page for the main flow of the book's content. The body text box on the left page it linked to its counterpart on the right page.

I was trying to add another chapter to my book when I noticed the quirky behavior. Here's what I did:

1. I added two pages to the end of the book based on the master page described above to give me a place to start my new chapter.
2. I cleared the master page on the left page because I want my chapter to start on the right.
3. I placed the text for the new chapter into the text box on the right page. The text appeared and overfilled the box as expected.
4. I shift-clicked the link handle on the lower right edge of the text box to auto-flow the text.

Publisher did create the number of pages needed to auto-flow all the text in my chapter. It did not link the right body box on each spread to the left body box on the next spread. When I linked them manually the text flowed correctly for the two pages on that spread. This was working correctly before the update.

I did repeat this process, but pasting my text in as described in step 3 rather than placing the text; same results.

Feature Requests

1. Picture captions: It would be nice to have a checkbox for a picture that turned on a ready-made caption text box below the picture. Refer to Apple's Pages for my inspiration for this feature.
2. Apply style preference: I like defining a keyboard shortcut to a text style and assigning it that way. What I wish I could do is set a preference for how that behaves. Often, I would like to preserve character formatting to avoid losing text I have italicized for emphasis or because it is a title. I can't do that when I use the keyboard shortcut.
3. Printer's spreads: I work on a small newsletter that is a 20-page booklet that is saddle stitched. My printer would find it helpful if I could generate what he calls "printer's spreads" rather than what he calls "reader's spreads." The spreads Publisher makes on exporting have the mages in numerical order. He needs a set of spreads where the pages are sorted by signature. So the spreads would be something like 1/20 and 2/19, 3/18 and 4/17, 5/16 and 6/15, etc. If I could generate that with printer's marks it would be most helpful.

[MikeTO]

Hi @Joe Swann and welcome to the forums.

It's best to suggest features here as you've done but to report bugs separately in the bugs forum. I think it helps Serif with their workflow. I'll re-post the bug report now as I've seen it too and have been meaning to figure this one out. I replicated it just now and created a test document for it. Cheers.

[MikeTO]

Bug report: