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Posted

Hi! So the latest complication in my ongoing efforts to move some files for an RPG rulebook I'm writing from Adobe to Affinity is this:

The file has a number of tables in it, as such rulebooks will. I'm having a tough time with the formatting of them in terms of things like text colour, background gradients, etc. It's not consistent (my fault, this problem is in the original and not an import issue) and I would like it to be, among other reasons because some of them are unreadable when printed in black and white.

Unfortunately I can't figure out how to edit this in my existing tables, or even see what the CMYK values or whatever are for the colours they're currently using so I can at least manually apply consistent ones. I know how to apply a gradient to a table I've just created (though even in that case, how to apply it to some cells and not others eludes me). But on tables that already exist, at least ones imported in this fashion, I can't even figure out how to see this information, much less change it. The gradient tool doesn't seem to do anything when I select these tables.

Ideally I'd like to have Affinity memorize a "table style" analogous to a paragraph style that "remembers" the strokes, background colours/gradients, text styles, and so on that I need, that I could just apply to other tables to guarantee a consistent look. In a perfect world this would be sophisticated enough to handle things like alternating row styles (a pain point for me in Indesign, incidentally - one of the few things Word handles better!) But I'm not even sure where to begin manually editing the styles on these ones, much less setting up these sorts of semi-automated tools. There is an option to remember a table format but it doesn't seem to do much, certainly only a small fraction of what I want.

Basically, what's the right plan of attack here? I'm confused as to where to even begin, short of creating new tables, copying in the content, and then setting up the formatting I want, separately for each one. Hopefully that isn't necessary!

Posted

As a supplement to this I just tried to import another .idml document I hadn't previously worked with in Affinity. This one features several tables that span more than one page. In Indesign, they would flow from one frame to the next in much the same way as text would. It wasn't always fun or intuitive to deal with but at least it could be done. If there's a way to get tables in Affinity Publisher to flow in this way, I'm not finding it. I have a table that goes way off the bottom of a page (actually, way off the right side of a page - that's where the bottom of the table is because these sections have a different text direction from most of the book) followed by two pages of blank text frames that the lines across the screen seem to say the table should be flowing into.

Basically, HELP!

Posted
6 minutes ago, Philosoraptor - Jeff H said:

This one features several tables that span more than one page.

That is not supported in Affinity Publisher yet. Perhaps someday.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted

I think that's something you would do in the originating program, e.g., InDesign, and I can't help there. Sorry.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

Posted
12 hours ago, Philosoraptor - Jeff H said:

Ideally I'd like to have Affinity memorize a "table style" analogous to a paragraph style that "remembers" the strokes, background colours/gradients, text styles, and so on that I need, that I could just apply to other tables to guarantee a consistent look

Could you perhaps build a collection of Tables saved as Assets?
Once you have a Table looking how you want it too, you could save it as an Asset in the Assets Panel and then it’s just a matter of Drag & Drop when that style of Table is needed in future documents.

macOS 12.7.6  15" Macbook Pro, 2017  |  4 Core i7 3.1GHz CPU  |  Radeon Pro 555 2GB GPU + Integrated Intel HD Graphics 630 1.536GB  |  16GB RAM  |  Wacom Intuos4 M

Posted
51 minutes ago, markw said:

Could you perhaps build a collection of Tables saved as Assets?
Once you have a Table looking how you want it too, you could save it as an Asset in the Assets Panel and then it’s just a matter of Drag & Drop when that style of Table is needed in future documents.

Okay, I'll look into that further - it sounds like it would go a long way toward what I want.

Posted

Does the Table Formats panel help at all for your needs?

Help: https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/pages/Panels/tableFormatsPanel.html

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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