Word and Letter Spacing Values Inconsistent Between the Paragraph Panel and the Text Style Editor

[Hangman]

Using the Paragraph Panel to set justification values for Word and Letter Spacing correctly prohibits entering values higher than the preceding value, i.e., you can't enter a Minimum value higher than the Desired value and likewise you can't enter a Desired Value higher than the Maximum value...

Using the Text Style Editor you can freely set any Minimum, Desired and Maximum justification values irrespective of the values set in the preceeding field.

Note: This affects both the 2.4.2 Retail and 2.5.0 Beta versions...

With the 2.5.0 Beta using the Text Style Editor, assuming a value other than [No Change] is set for all three values, Minimum, Desired and Maximum, dragging the Minimum Word and Letter Space sliders adjusts both the Minimum and Desired values when increasing the value (which it shouldn't). If you then reduce the Minimum slider value say from 100 to zero (you can't go beyond zero owing to another bug prohibiting negative letter spacing justification values in the 2.5.0 Beta), adjusting the Desired slider will jump to the same value as the Minimum Value not set with no increments in between...

[MikeTO]

@Hangman I think it's sort of okay that it works this way. I assume Serif didn't enforce the rules in edit text style because if style A inherits the Desired value from style B, the user could later change style B's Desired value to lower than style A's Min, violating the rule. There are only two solutions for this.

The simple solution which other apps have used requires that <no change> must be for the entire set of word and letter spacing options, not for each individual option. If you edit Min, Desired would no longer be inherited from the parent style, making it easy to enforce the rules.

To keep the flexibility of the current design and to enforce the rules, the app would have to check all styles based on a style when you edit it. But then the user would be confused why they couldn't set an otherwise 'legal' value. The app would need some sort of feedback along the lines of "To set Desired to less than X you must edit styles A and B which inherit from style C". Ick.

[Hangman]

Hi @MikeTO,

It makes no logical sense that you could or would have a 'Minimum' value greater than the 'Maximum' value, a 'Maximum value less than a 'Minimum' value or a 'Desired value less than the 'Minimum' or greater than the 'Maximum value...

The main issue here is how being able to set incorrect justification values in the Text Style Editor impacts the values shown in the Paragraph panel...

Try the following in 2.4.2 (Note: There's a bug in the current 2.5.0 Beta which prevents negative values from being set for Letter Spacing)...

1. Create a New Document, add some default text to a Text Frame and apply the default 'Body' Text Style
2. Edit the 'Body' Text Style in the Text Style Editor
3. Change the Letter Spacing Justification values to 'Minimum 80%, Desired 20%, Maximum -50%'. Note these values are reflected in the Paragraph Panel
4. Close the Text Style Editor and try to edit the 'Minimum' value in the Paragraph Panel, it will freeze and flicker at -50%
5. Do the same with the 'Maximum' value, it will freeze and flicker at +20%
6. Now the values in the Paragraph Panel have changed to 'Minimum -50%, Desired 20%, Maximum 20%', change them to 'Minimum -20%, Desired 30%, Maximum 80%'
7. Create a new Paragraph Text Style based on 'Body' and name it 'Body Two', Click OK
8. Edit the 'Body Two' Text Style, the Letter Spacing justification values show 'Minimum -20%, Desired 30%, Maximum 80%'
9. Click OK and now Edit the original 'Body' Text Style, the Letter Spacing justification values show 'Minimum 80%, Desired 20%, Maximum -50%'

[Hangman]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

To keep the flexibility of the current design and to enforce the rules, the app would have to check all styles based on a style when you edit it. But then the user would be confused why they couldn't set an otherwise 'legal' value. The app would need some sort of feedback along the lines of "To set Desired to less than X you must edit styles A and B which inherit from style C". Ick.

I'm not sure I follow...

The default text styles, Body, Bullet 1, Heading 1, Heading 2 and Numbered 1 are all based on the 'Base' body style, the other default styles are all based on either Body or each other, e.g., Numbered 2 is based on Numbered 1 and Numbered 3 is based on Numbered 2...

The values for any style based on another style can be fully edited, there are no restrictions on the values but being able to set 'incorrect' values, i.e., a 'Minimum' value higher than a 'Maximum' value and vice versa causes the same issues described in the previous post...

I would consider this a bug personally...

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

I'm not sure I follow...

Consider:

• Style 1 with Minimum spacing of 10.
• Style 2 based on Style 1 with Minimum spacing set to No Change.
• Style 3 based on Style 2, with Desired set to 5.

I think that kind of setup, which is theoretically possible unless the application were to do all the analysis in real-time, is what @MikeTO was thinking of.

As they all can be specified individually, or not, in every style, the analysis when you're making changes would be very complex in Text Styles. But it's trivial if you're looking directly at the Paragraph panel, where all the actual values are visible in all cases.

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Justification Min spacing values can be set higher than Max spacing in Text Style Editor") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AF-3062). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[Hangman]

27 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Consider:

• Style 1 with Minimum spacing of 10.
• Style 2 based on Style 1 with Minimum spacing set to No Change.
• Style 3 based on Style 2, with Desired set to 5.

I think that kind of setup, which is theoretically possible unless the application were to do all the analysis in real-time, is what @MikeTO was thinking of.

As they all can be specified individually, or not, in every style, the analysis when you're making changes would be very complex in Text Styles. But it's trivial if you're looking directly at the Paragraph panel, where all the actual values are visible in all cases.

Hi @walt.farrell,

I understand what you are saying but there is a bit of a disconnect between the values you can currently set in the TSE and those in the Paragraph panel. Technically in the example you cite the TSE should not allow Style 3 to set a Desired value of 5 which I get is Mike's point as well and I get why this 'could' be confusing for people but in reality when you do set these values as per you example you run into the issue mentioned above if you want to edit the values further in the Paragraph panel, i.e., you can't...

• A Minimum value should never exceed the Desired or Maximum value
• A Desired value should never be less than or greater than the Maximum value
• A Maximum value should never be less than the Desired or Minimum value

[MikeTO]

I agree it makes no logical sense, I'm just pointing out that it's complicated so I understand why it is the way it is. The clean solution is to not allow setting N/C for individual spacing options and to instead make that an attribute of the group of options, but that could impact existing documents, albeit an edgy edge case.

[Hangman]

30 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I agree it makes no logical sense, I'm just pointing out that it's complicated so I understand why it is the way it is. The clean solution is to not allow setting N/C for individual spacing options and to instead make that an attribute of the group of options, but that could impact existing documents, albeit an edgy edge case.

How does InDesign handle it?

[MikeTO]

13 minutes ago, Hangman said:

How does InDesign handle it?

I =think= it doesn't let you set N/C at the individual spacing option level. This is the way older apps worked which avoids the UI issue.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Justification Min spacing values can be set higher than Max spacing in Text Style Editor" (REF: AF-3062) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.5.0.2467".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.