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Publisher merge filenames with '+' character not working


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I've data in a spreadsheet that is being used as a source for a data merge in Publisher. I also have a bunch of icons and other graphic files, some of which have a plus ('+') character in the name. These filenames appear in the source data. None of these files are able to be merged, the picture frame for them remains empty. Any other file targeting the same picture frame without the plus works fine. Manually editing the filename to use a minus/dash instead also works. Is there any way around this?

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The first thing that pops into my head is that your spreadsheet is using the + as a plus for a formula. Try exporting the spreadsheet as a CSV file and using that. Try explicitly formatting the cells with the file name/file path as text and using the spreadsheet or CSV export.

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Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Can you show us the exact file names, and how they appear in your spreadsheet?

-- Walt
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14 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

The first thing that pops into my head is that your spreadsheet is using the + as a plus for a formula. Try exporting the spreadsheet as a CSV file and using that. Try explicitly formatting the cells with the file name/file path as text and using the spreadsheet or CSV export.

That is a good point. Shouldn't the '-' fail in the same way though if that is the case?

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14 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Can you show us the exact file names, and how they appear in your spreadsheet?

image.png.5bb503e329f733bba60c814de88cfda8.png

And I end up with this:

image.png.ea404742b8a8cf7692fea481f7ab95b0.png

It should be something like this:

image.png.276eeba9d28ae7baa488cfdcc7b8524e.png

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1 hour ago, Paul Mc said:

That is a good point. Shouldn't the '-' fail in the same way though if that is the case?

Good point, too. Possibly it is (also?) related to critical characters in file names (which concerns + but not - or – or _ ).

https://www.mtu.edu/umc/services/websites/writing/characters-avoid/

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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Hi @thomaso I'm not sure where MTU got their information from but no OS I know of outlaws the + character in filenames. Also, I'm familiar with interacting with Excel and there is a clear distinction between the formula mode of accessing a cell value and the evaluated mode. It could be that Excel is doing something that it's not been asked to do (e.g. stripping leading zeros etc.) and this is just one of those things that the MS devs know better than the user how things need to be done. A more intriguing thought is whether there is code in Affinity that allows for some kind of formula in this context. If not that would be a really cool addition! In any case I'm stuck with this at the moment and have decided (due to deadlines and pressure) that I need to work around it. For now I'm renaming all the graphics and editing all the spreadsheets to use minus instead.

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This must be the first time I have ever used a + in a filename but I can report that it works fine in both xlsx and csv generated by LibreOffice in Publisher V1. Image shows the preview, generated file is fine. Weird or what?

PlusMerge.png

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
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Hi @David in Яuislip

Thank you for going to the trouble of testing this. That's reassuring if not a fix. In my case the + is part of a product name and I get the xlsx data from the client and that isn't going to change. I have tested this in a normal data field (not a filename) and it all works fine. 

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1 hour ago, Paul Mc said:

I'm not sure where MTU got their information from but no OS I know of outlaws the + character in filenames.

It seems that ‘+’ is a reserved character in some file systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename#Comparison_of_filename_limitations

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
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10 minutes ago, Alfred said:

It seems that ‘+’ is a reserved character in some file systems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename#Comparison_of_filename_limitations

Believe it or not @Alfred I did read that page previously but disregarded that point because it was referencing FAT disk structures. It could be that Affinity have taken a conservative approach and just outlawed certain characters in filenames across the board? What is puzzling is that this looks like the software doesn't try to open the file (which is fine on NTFS). Perhaps it is an overzealous validation function.

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Just noticed that you're using svg, I've never used those in data merge before
If you go down onto the Image layer in the preview it shows Embedded Document
If you double click on that it opens in a new window and the size is 1x1px
Change those to sw & sh and the image shows
Close the embedded window, do a generate and any pixel image sizes are screwed
Too late now, need another beer, but that looks like the reason
Whether it's screwed by the dpi palava I don't yet know but I think that the plus sign is a red herring

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10

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I don't think what you are doing is directly related to my issues. I don't have pixels, everything is vector (hence the SVGs). The plus is definitely the trigger in my situation.

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19 hours ago, Paul Mc said:

The plus is definitely the trigger in my situation.

It works for me. The only problem I get is if a svg is built so Affinity can't read it eg

<svg width="100%" height="100%" viewBox="0 0 1600 1600" version="1.1" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xml:space="preserve" xmlns:serif="http://www.serif.com/" style="fill-rule:evenodd;clip-rule:evenodd;stroke-linejoin:round;stroke-miterlimit:2;">
    <rect x="0" y="0" width="100%" height="100%" style="fill:#f00;"/>
</svg>

There are no actual height/width dimensions for  both the image and the rect so Affinity reads it badly and you'll get the effect in the embedded document that I mentioned above, Chrome and Inkscape will display it though as they have the brains to recognise 1600x1600

If that's the case you have two options
 i) repair the files
ii) use a procedure to convert the svgs into another vector format say pdf or wmf and use those instead

If you post a problem file I'll take a look at it

PlusMerge.png

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10

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Thanks David, but I'm not doing it this way. All the barcodes and other graphics are using well formed SVG files and they work fine apart from the one related to the one product in the set that has the + character in the name. I understand what you are saying here but it isn't the issue I'm dealing with. I am convinced the filename has been  outlawed because of the plus character and doesn't try to load the image file. I might be wrong but I've had to move on because of deadlines and stuff. I can't afford to give this any more time. Sorry.

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  • Staff

If you have time you can try using the TEXTJOIN function rather than CONCAT function in the spreadsheet as this is designed to combine fields that contain delimiter symbols.

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On 4/29/2024 at 1:35 PM, Paul Mc said:

Believe it or not @Alfred I did read that page previously but disregarded that point because it was referencing FAT disk structures. It could be that Affinity have taken a conservative approach and just outlawed certain characters in filenames across the board? What is puzzling is that this looks like the software doesn't try to open the file (which is fine on NTFS). Perhaps it is an overzealous validation function.

FAT is still used a lot on USB sticks, micro SD cards, etc. So perhaps that is why.

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24 minutes ago, kenmcd said:

FAT is still used a lot on USB sticks, micro SD cards, etc. So perhaps that is why.

In addition, FAT still appears to be the only format to read AND write on Windows AND mac. In macOS the only available option to format a drive with Windows compatibility is FAT (and ExFat).

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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10 hours ago, DWright said:

If you have time you can try using the TEXTJOIN function rather than CONCAT function in the spreadsheet as this is designed to combine fields that contain delimiter symbols.

The problem appears after this point as the column is already populated. The other posts here on FAT usage seem to suggest that it's just a safe choice to not allow + in the filename. In any case I've moved on. It was a showstopper for a few minutes but there's a workaround. 😊

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