Book Feature in Affinity Publisher

[fitzj]

With over 250 pages in my book which includes many graphics I am finding that managing the layout   not so easy when you add new content.

I would like to use the Book feature   and work with  chapters  instead which would make it more manageable. Is there an easy way to  convert the  existing document  into chapters?

I tried to select  the pages from a  chapter and save as a new  file but it included all the pages.

Would be a nice feature if you could select pages and make a chapter directly in publisher.

[MikeTO]

I suggest reading the Books chapter of my free Publisher manual (you can download it from this forum using the link in my signature below) before splitting your book into separate chapter documents. Some books aren't ideal candidates for the Books feature and separate chapter documents adds complexity with syncing changes because some changes can't be synced and result in multiple master pages and text styles.

It sounds like you have all the pages in your book in a single story which I don't recommend. (A story is the text in a series of linked frames.) Before splitting your document into multiple chapter documents, you must first split the story into multiple stories, one for each chapter, or as you've said you wil find each chapter includes all pages. After you've split your story into one story per 'chapter', you will likely find that you don't need to use the Books feature at all. Managing a complex project as a single document is much easier when each chapter is a separate story.

Splitting a story is time consuming and a bit difficult. Please refer to the Basic Text > Flowing Text > "To split a story when unlinking frames" section of my manual. Tip: It's always a good idea to back up your document before and after making a major change such as this.

This Publisher manual that you can download has thousands of images and is a very complex document but it's a single document. Dividing it into chapter documents wouldn't make it easier to manage or improve performance so there's no need for it to be created with the Books feature.

[fitzj]

Thanks again MikeTo. Downloaded you  free pdf document. Very  well presented. Reading it through. On page 61 it gives a shortcut for Move Story End and Move Story Begin. Have they changed the software as I cannot find that?? Only Text no Text Input?

[MikeTO]

2 minutes ago, fitzj said:

Thanks again MikeTo. Downloaded you  free pdf document. Very  well presented. Reading it through. On page 61 it gives a shortcut for Move Story End and Move Story Begin. Have they changed the software as I cannot find that?? Only Text no Text Input?

I don't know if you're on Mac or Windows but on macOS, Text Input is toward the bottom of the list. The order may be different on Windows but it should be there somewhere.

[fitzj]

Using the windows10 version. No option called Text Input option only Text. It's not listed there either.

[MikeTO]

2 minutes ago, fitzj said:

Using the windows10 version. No option called Text Input option only Text. It's not listed there either.

It would appear that you can't change the text input shortcuts on Windows which seems like a bug. Here's an earlier report.

 

[fitzj]

Thanks for the update.

Spoiler

 

update.