Forum for typesetting issues

[philipt18]

Can you add a forum for discussing typesetting issues in Publisher? Most typesetting sites online assume InDesign. It would be nice to have a place to discuss typesetting where everyone is using Publisher. Thanks.

[Komatös]

17 minutes ago, philipt18 said:

Can you add a forum for discussing typesetting issues

I don't see why we need an extra forum section for questions and problems with typesetting.

The forum area we are currently in is perfectly suited for this.

If you have questions or problems on the iPad, there is also a forum area for this. 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Komatös said:

I don't see why we need an extra forum section for questions and problems with typesetting.

The forum area we are currently in is perfectly suited for this.

I agree, but I would like to add that it is a good idea to to make sure the title of any topic you start about typesetting is descriptive enough to let others know what it is about typesetting you are commenting about.

[Alfred]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

it is a good idea to to make sure the title of any topic you start about typesetting is descriptive enough

It’s a good idea to make sure the title of a topic about anything is descriptive enough! Far too many people resort to topic titles that are too vague or (at the other extreme) comprise a lengthy description that properly belongs in the body of the first post to the thread.

[William Overington]

12 hours ago, philipt18 said:

Can you add a forum for discussing typesetting issues in Publisher? Most typesetting sites online assume InDesign. It would be nice to have a place to discuss typesetting where everyone is using Publisher. Thanks.

Yes, that would be good. I second the proposed addition of a forum for discussing typesetting issues.

All posts about typesetting would be all together in one forum rather than mixed in with posts about other topics and thus not so easily noticed.

William

 

[Alfred]

3 minutes ago, William Overington said:

All posts about typesetting would be all together in one forum rather than mixed in with posts about other topics and thus not so easily noticed.

Where do you draw the line? I don’t see typesetting as a special case: if you want to read previous posts about typesetting, you can search for it like anything else.

[William Overington]

14 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Where do you draw the line? I don’t see typesetting as a special case: if you want to read previous posts about typesetting, you can search for it like anything else.

Well possibly.

A suggestion has been made. I opine that it is a good suggestion and I have seconded it.

In Pledge 4 Affinity and Canva constructively invite ideas.

So here is an idea for @Ash to consider please.

William

 

 

[thomaso]

17 hours ago, philipt18 said:

Most typesetting sites online assume InDesign. It would be nice to have a place to discuss typesetting where everyone is using Publisher.

Don't most typesetting issues have the same solutions in ID and APub, simply because most text attributes are app independent?

Currently I can only think of a few differences among the over 100 possible text attributes:

• Different interface: Leading Override | Baseline Grid | text object scaling
• Missing features: Span Columns | Grep Styles

Also, a special APub or Affinity typesetting subforum would exclude or conflict with AD + APh whenever an issue is caused by a Text Frame Panel property, TOC, foot-/sidenotes, … , or by IDML conversion (BTW: AF-1324, AF-1288 are noted by Serif Info Bot to be fixed in version 2.5.0.2317).

Furthermore there would be a range of questions or issues with ambiguous topics, e.g. 'Place' vs. 'Paste' text files | Font file or Export issues | Data Merge settings | Artistic Text | Curved Text | Contour Tool | Text Warp | … .

Finally every subforum increases the requirement for discipline + knowledge of forum members to choose "the correct" subforum for their questions and thread creations. – The current subforum "Pre-V2 Archive" in "Questions…" demonstrates the conflict: Although its threads were created for V1 their questions, issues and bugs may still occur in V2 and thus this V1 subforum gets used for questions regarding V2 … with no obvious reason or advantage to be visually kind of 'hidden' in an archived subforum of "Questions…".

[philipt18]

The reason I'd like a forum specifically for typesetting issues is there is no forum for it. It's not a bug, it's not a feature request, it's people with everyday issues like how to best get rid of orphans, widows and runts. How to format a table of contents. Certainly these issues come up with many people. They're not feature issues. It would be helpful to be able to go through the issues others have had, and see how they solved those issues. Search is nice, and of course people should properly title their questions, but it doesn't replace being able to scroll through all typsesetting issues and seeing how those issues are solved. Sure, one can go on other forums for this, but I just thought it would be helpful for Affinity Publisher users to have a place to share their issues. It would also probably help the developers to see the ways people are dealing with the issues, what workarounds they need to use, and see if they can make people's lives easier.

[William Overington]

@philipt18

Yes, I agree.

@Ash I hope that the new forum for typesetting issues becomes established promptly please.

William

 

[debraspicher]

I agree with @philipt18 on the benefits but the site needs a professionals area, in general. Typesetting (but a bright broader?... print design maybe?) could be one sub in such an area.

May I also point out to staff it would not only better show to you how your users actually solve their daily problems, make proper use of the suite, but show painpoints and room for improvement in a more straightforward way. Right now we can only assume how others actually work. Anyway, it woukd show to everyday visitors the software and its real world usecase beyond just the occassional tutorial.

Also, it allow users to interact more one on one without being lost in technical support jargon and exchange critical insights. Right now that energy is wasted because it often gets hidden in offtopic dialogue. The prominence of which just shows the community is being underutilized.

[Catshill]

It might help to distinguish between sharing best practices that can be non software specific (what are the recommended bleed and margin set ups for a DL booklet) and software specific practices (how do set a bleed and margin setting in Affinity Publisher).

I am not sure what folk here are asking for or perhaps it’s both?

[thomaso]

20 hours ago, philipt18 said:

it's people with everyday issues like how to best get rid of orphans, widows and runts. How to format a table of contents.

While the forum is mainly used to report + discuss issues, the large range of existing tutorials may be a shorter and smarter way to learn or understand basics of typography, typesetting and object styling. Also, trying / experimenting with the various tools & menu commands together with the Help articles may shed light more directly on certain workflows than the forum may do.

19 hours ago, philipt18 said:

Search is nice, and of course people should properly title their questions, but it doesn't replace being able to scroll through all typsesetting issues and seeing how those issues are solved.

A forum search for "text" limits the displayed threads quite well to topics regarding "typesetting" (which is a rather seldom keyword).

Nevertheless, not all threads offer solutions or workarounds and thread titles may be misleading, in particular if a reader has a certain feature or workflow in mind while a previous thread creator had no idea of the related terms when creating the thread, e.g. "The text is invisible" if another object got Text Wrap activated or "Page 10 doesn't show a page number" if its frame is too small, etc.

Also the thread history demonstrates that existing threads, tutorials and help files often don't get read (or searched or found) before a thread is started, even for simple, well known tasks/solutions, which results in multiple threads for identical issues, e.g. "Text size changed" caused by dragging the outer frame handle… / "Paragraph leading does not work" caused by leading override or baseline grid… / "White is not white but yellowish" for confused colour profile settings… / "Text does not export as black" if K only is expected but not set or exported accordingly, etc.

For such reasons of ambiguity, a further forum split could not be able to result in the wanted ability just "to scroll through all typsesetting issues and seeing how those issues are solved" or to discover effectively "how to best get rid of orphans, widows and runts" (btw., these keywords are seldom, too).

[philipt18]

16 hours ago, debraspicher said:

I agree with @philipt18 on the benefits but the site needs a professionals area, in general. Typesetting (but a bright broader?... print design maybe?) could be one sub in such an area.

May I also point out to staff it would not only better show to you how your users actually solve their daily problems, make proper use of the suite, but show painpoints and room for improvement in a more straightforward way. Right now we can only assume how others actually work. Anyway, it woukd show to everyday visitors the software and its real world usecase beyond just the occassional tutorial.

Also, it allow users to interact more one on one without being lost in technical support jargon and exchange critical insights. Right now that energy is wasted because it often gets hidden in offtopic dialogue. The prominence of which just shows the community is being underutilized.

 

I think a professional design area would be great. Print Design would be fine as well. If there were a bunch of sub-forums then Book Design might be good as well, as it has its own challenges.