Trouble printing in Affinity Publisher 2.3.1

[Pensketch]

I have a document that I created with two pages. I have content on both pages. When i try to print it, the preview shows no content on the 2nd page, and it's not selected. (see 1st screenshot)

If I set the "Range" to Selection" and force it to choose the 2nd page, it blanks out the first page and then nothing at all will print. (see 2nd screenshot)

The 3rd screenshot shows that there is information on the 2nd page and the 4th shows my document settings,

This problem also happens if I try to export it as a PDF with the default settings.

[Lee D]

@Pensketch Setting the Range to Selection requires an object to be selected on page for the Print preview to show what's selected.

When exporting to PDF, are you using File > Export?  as this should be a possible workaround. If you are, which default PDF preset are you selecting?

Can you provide a copy of your .afpub file so I can take a look?

[Pensketch]

Restarting my Mac made the problem go away for a while, but then it came back. Then I restarted just the application, and once again it has fixed it for now.

This doesn't make sense to me: "Setting the Range to Selection requires an object to be selected on page for the Print preview to show what's selected." Mainly because it starts as "Entire Document" and the pages after the first one are still grayed out and can't be selected. If I go to "Selection" I can pick the pages in the print preview window, but nothing appears on them when I do, and the content on page 1 disappears.

And I tried exporting it as a PDF both through "File > Export" and through "PDF" at the bottom of the print preview window.

I don't imagine a copy of my .afpub file will help since it is happening to any file that I have that is more than a single page. I just made a new 10-page file and the same thing happened - every page after the first wouldn't print and wouldn't save to a PDF. That's when I tried to quit and restart, and then I was able to get it to print. If it were a document problem, I don't see how restarting Publisher 2 would make the problem go away. But there you go. Please delete it if you can once you've downloaded it.

 

[DMY1000]

I am having exactly the same issue. The screenshots match what I see too. Thanks for posting that restarting the app made a difference. That allowed me to print. I am using Affinity Publisher 2.3.1 on a MacBook Air M2 running macOS Sonoma 14.2.1

[Lee D]

@Pensketch 

This is how the Selection option is designed to work. Try selecting a single object on your page first, then go File > Print and set the Range to Selection, only the object you selected will show.

I wanted to check the document setup, just in case as you're also reporting issues exporting to PDF.

The Print window/interface is provided by macOS so using the PDF option at the bottom isn't using our app to generate the PDF file. Can you do a screen recording (full screen) showing you using File > Export > PDF in Publisher so I can confirm the workflow. Also show opening the exported PDF in Preview or Acrobat (PDF viewer) showing the missing content. As your file printed fine to one of our printers and exported to PDF with no issues using File > Export.

See screenshot of print settings (red highlight is due to difference in paper sizes)

 

[Pensketch]

8 hours ago, Lee D said:

Try selecting a single object on your page first, then go File > Print and set the Range to Selection, only the object you selected will show.

So to be clear, you are saying to print more than a single page, I would have to select an item on the other page(s) before choosing to print? If so, that is bizarre. A 50-page document would take ages to print. I must be misunderstanding you.

 

8 hours ago, Lee D said:

Can you do a screen recording (full screen) showing you using File > Export > PDF in Publisher so I can confirm the workflow.

I will try, the next time I see this is happening. I needed this files printed for a meeting that I am having tonight, and it will be a day or two before I need to print anything else.

[Lee D]

9 hours ago, Pensketch said:

So to be clear, you are saying to print more than a single page, I would have to select an item on the other page(s) before choosing to print? If so, that is bizarre. A 50-page document would take ages to print. I must be misunderstanding you.

Take a look at my last screenshot. The range is set to Entire document, that's how it should be set to print all the pages as I did with your test document. If you select something on your page first then go File > Print and set the range to Selection, only the object you selected would be printed.

Issues exporting to PDF are different, which is why we could do with a screen recording showing you exporting to PDF using File > Export and then opening the exported PDF to show the issue, if any.

[DMY1000]

My experience was that there was no way to print anything but the first page. The thumbnails for all pages other than the first page were blank (as in Pensketch's very first post), and selecting them (using any of the options) would just print a blank page. Restarting the app fixed the problem, but I don't know for how long, as I haven't needed to use Publisher since printing the document.

I am a software developer, and this definitely feels like a bug rather than user error. As a temporary bug, it is hard to replicate and hence will be hard to pin down. I will report back if the bug reappears after I update to the latest version of Sonoma.

[Ken Hjulstrom]

I came here because I ran into somewhat similar printing issues as what have been reported here, and here are my thoughts and comments:

1. What I did learn from the other posters here is that using the "Selection" option of the "Range" requires that I make my selection by clicking the page labels in the preview pane of the Print dialog.  This may seem intuitive, but I don't recall using the preview pane to make page selections in any other app that I've used, and I was going to the "Pages" display in the left sidebar and selecting the pages that I wanted to print from the "Pages" thumbnails, and then wondering why Publisher put up a message box stating that "No pages from the document were selected to be printed".  Personally, I'd prefer an option to be able to print pages based on selections made in the "Pages" sidebar listing as an additional means of page selection, as it can often be more convenient to make complex selections there, especially for longer documents.
2. The Print dialog "Range and Scale" dropdowns seem to influence each other in unexpected ways, such as in this scenario, using a four-page test document:
   1. Open the Print dialog and select "Entire Document" in the "Range" option.  All four pages appear in the Preview pane, as expected.  I click on each of the page labels so all four of them are selected.
   2. Then, I change the "Range" option from "Entire Document" to "Odd pages".  The pages that are displayed in the Preview pane are now pages 1 and 3, both still selected, as expected.
   3. Now I change the "Range" option from "Odd pages" to "Selected".  The Preview pane only shows two pages, both of which are blank, so I have no idea what those two pages are.  I would have expected that the switch from "Odd pages" to "Selected" would have restored the complete list of document pages in the Preview pane, which I can accomplish by changing the "Range" option back to "Entire document", which will restore the entire list of pages in the Preview pane, and *then* selecting "Selected" again, which will present the full set of four pages to select from.

Thanks,

Ken

 

AffinityPublisherPrintCurrentPageIssue_22Feb24.afpub