Affinity breaks lines before tabs instead of after

[MikeTO]

I'm not sure if this is by design or a bug but it feels like an oversight if not a bug. Affinity breaks lines before a tab instead of after like most apps.

Below is Publisher (left) and Microsoft Word (right) - Publisher wraps after [corrected] the tab between the TOC entry and page number while Word breaks before the tab which creates a correct dot leader.

This came up in this thread:

 

Edited April 18 by MikeTO
corrections in red

[Seneca]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Below is Publisher (left) and Microsoft Word (right) - Publisher wraps before the tab between the TOC entry and page number while Word breaks after the tab which creates a correct dot leader.

This is probably a bug.

However, in general, it's considered bad typography to leave text so close to the numbers.

InDesign and Publisher have a way to define a standoff between the text and the numbers.

Publisher accomplishes this by setting the Right Indent and Last Line Outdent Paragraph Options.

A possible bug I discovered quite a some time ago is that if the line just fits in with the page number Publisher will try to leave it alone, irrespective of the stand off defined in the paragraph style.

I've included a small sample file and a short video demonstrating it.

TOC Length of Entries.afpub

 

 

[bbrother]

1 hour ago, Seneca said:

However, in general, it's considered bad typography to leave text so close to the numbers.

I agree, it doesn't look very nice whether the text or "Tab stop leader character" almost touches the page numbers.

[MikeTO]

8 hours ago, Seneca said:

However, in general, it's considered bad typography to leave text so close to the numbers.

I agree, I was just demonstrating the issue with Affinity breaking before a tab instead of after which shouldn't happen.

I don't think I provided a tip in my manual on using last line outdent in a TOC so I'll add one. For those unsure what we mean, it's easier to see with really long and justified TOC headings. The left column below is how a TOC would look with Right Indent and Last Line Indent set to 0. But if you set Right Indent to where you want the TOC headings to end and Last Line Outdent to 0 then the page numbers will hang outside of the paragraph as shown in the right column.

8 hours ago, Seneca said:

A possible bug I discovered quite a some time ago is that if the line just fits in with the page number Publisher will try to leave it alone, irrespective of the stand off defined in the paragraph style.

I'm not sure that it's a bug but I agree that it looks bad and there should be a way to do this. I found this interesting so I'm glad you raised it. The second heading in the right column below is another example, although even the first heading slightly exceeds the Right Indent setting. Publisher doesn't distinguish between the heading text, tab, and page number, it's all just paragraph text, and the screen recording below shows that it's working as advertised.

But there aren't very many uses for Last Line Outdent - it's mainly used for TOCs and things like price lists - and they usually end with a tab and then a number, so even if this is correct it's not what the user would want. I don't know how ID handles it, other than its Last Line Outdent equivalent (Last Line Right Indent) requires a negative value of the Right Indent value. Do you know what it does? I think FrameMaker handled it the same way that Publisher does now.

Perhaps one solution would be that if there's a tab in the last line, the text preceding the tab should not exceed the Right Indent value even if the rest of the paragraph would fit on the line. That would fix the issue for TOCs and menus without breaking the current behaviour for the handful of people who use Last Line Outdent for some other purpose without tabs and numbers at the end of the paragraph.

 

 

 

[Lee D]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

I'm not sure if this is by design or a bug but it feels like an oversight if not a bug. Affinity breaks lines before a tab instead of after like most apps.

Below is Publisher (left) and Microsoft Word (right) - Publisher wraps before the tab between the TOC entry and page number while Word breaks after the tab which creates a correct dot leader.

This came up in this thread:

I've logged this to be confirmed if by design or a bug.

[Oufti]

17 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Affinity breaks lines before a tab instead of after like most apps.

Below is Publisher (left) and Microsoft Word (right) - Publisher wraps before the tab between the TOC entry and page number while Word breaks after the tab which creates a correct dot leader.

I don't want to be unpleasant, and perhaps is it me that doesn't understand well, but I would have said that Affinity Publisher breaks after the tab when other apps break before it. 

At least this is what I see when I reproduce it manually:

1) Tab + Line break: like Affinity

2) Line break + tab: with dot leader and page number well aligned on right side (what I would expect)

[MikeTO]

10 minutes ago, Oufti said:

I don't want to be unpleasant, and perhaps is it me that doesn't understand well, but I would have said that Affinity Publisher breaks after the tab when other apps break before it. 

Thank you for the correction, I worded it backwards. Publisher breaks after the tab while other apps such as MS Word break before the tab. @Lee D Please note my mistake.