Why does Publisher Have to Make the Simplest Things so Complicated!

[Ryan Clarke]

Having spent the last week trying to input a Word document into Affinity Publisher 2, I am close to giving up. No matter how I format it, cut and paste it, place it...it doesn't matter. Afffinity will find a way to mess it up.

The lastest thing it has decided to do is ignore indents on paragraph styles. When I select the paragraph style that has been imported with the Word document and try to change the indent, it makes no difference. It won't do anything. I have to select the text, change it to a style I don't want it to be and then change it back to the imported style to get it to work.

This wouldn't be a problem, (although it is clearly an error) but Publisher won't even allow you to select all of the text using a paragraph style in one go. I have to do one paragraph at a time. And there are thousands of them!

Right click the paragraph style and select all? No, it doesn't exist. I thought at the very least that if I try to delete a paragraph style that is in use, Publisher would ask me if I want to replace it with something. No. It just deletes it. Then opts for no style!

I have looked everywhere to try and find the answer to such an obvious question.

The only answer I have found was on these forums:

"Use the Find and Replace panel,

    Find

Wrong font

    Replace

Right font

Then go to the Hamburger menu in the Text Styles panel and choose delete unused styles."

This doesn't work for me. Nothing selects and the last line of those instructions make no sense.

Why is something so obvious so impossible in Publisher?

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, Ryan Clarke said:

but Publisher won't even allow you to select all of the text using a paragraph style in one go. I have to do one paragraph at a time. And there are thousands of them!

You can use Fine & Replace for that, but you would want to select by Text Style, not Font:

• Click the cog icon for the Find field, and specify the current Text Style.
• Then click the cog icon for the Replace field, and specify the desired Text Style.

You're not deleting Text Styles, so you don't (for now) need to worry about the "Delete unused styles".

If this doesn't work for you, it would be useful to share a sample document. Ideally a Word document you've imported into a sample .afpub document, and the .afpub document. And perhaps a screen recording of it not working when you try to follow that procedure.

[Felix Kasza]

Hi Ryan,

Is there a possibility that your imported text has direct ("local") formatting that initially just looks like the style you want? Because if you then change the style, the direct formatting will override that change – until you reapply the style, overwriting the local formatting. Anyway, here, text that is styled but has no direct formatting changes just fine when the style changes, both in Word and Publisher.

So, my suggestion:

In Publisher, import some text from Word. Verify that it does _not_ follow style changes. Then, apply the intended style (with "Apply <style> to Paragraphs and Clear Character Styles") and verify that the text now _does_ follow style changes. 

If this works as I described, take a _very_ close look at your Word document: Make the Styles panel visible (en-US: Alt, H, F, Y); at the bottom, click the magnifier button to enable the Style inspector panel (screenshot below left). On the Style Inspector panel, click the A-with-eye button to show the "Reveal Formatting" panel (screenshot below, centre). Once there, tick the two boxes at the bottom (screenshot below, right).

    

Here is a word that I just "manually" boldfaced:

Or, as Walt suggested, just post both files and let us have a look. I may be a dumb n00b with Publisher but I can make Word sing and dance.

Cheers,
Felix.