What is going on with column widths?!? [BUG, probably]

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

Okay, here's the latest completely bonkers thing I've found with trying to make tables work in Publisher. This time it's with changing column widths.

Good news first, you can drag the edge of a column easily enough; that works the way you'd intuitively expect.

(Actually, I should caveat even that. It changes the width of the next column over, while keeping the overall table width the same. You can make a pretty good case for the reverse. But that's not my focus in this post.)

But suppose you need to fine-tune them in a more precise and less error-prone way. You're in for a rough time, I'm sorry to say.

The obvious way is to open up the Table window and edit the column width in there. But this works... not as expected. If I type in a specific number, say 0.92 inches, the column does not become 0.92 inches wide. Instead of the number I typed appearing, it shows a completely different number, in this case 0.558. This is a real effect, not just a bug in how the number displays.(1) The column actually shrinks to about half an inch in width, instead of growing slightly as I told it to. A bit of quick testing suggests that the number I end up with is usually about 60% of what I actually typed in, though I think I've seen a couple exceptions to even that.

Using the arrows next to that box to change the width is also screwy. Clicking up makes it narrower and the number smaller, rather than making it wider and the number bigger as expected. But clicking down also makes it narrower/smaller. The only way to make a column wider is to drag it manually.

One other observation here, which, though it's been very convenient for me in this situation, also strikes me as a possible bug. The standard Ctrl-Z Undo command works here. But it works maybe a little too well. One undo sets it back to the way it was before you started messing around - regardless of how many changes you've made since. That's worked in my favour in this case, but it could just as easily be another big pain in the butt if the situation were just slightly different.

This feels surreal, and rather demoralizing. Every time I think I've got a strategy for making tables work for my use case Affinity throws another stupid, worse-than-pointless obstacle in my path. My current theory is that a table killed the devs' parents, and as a result they hate and have sworn revenge on all tables and those who use them.

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(1) Though even a mere display bug here would be pretty bad, given that (per my most recent thread besides this one) you also can't copy or save things like column widths so they can be reused! Combined with that, and of course the fact that you can't make a table span more than one page, this issue means there's no reasonable workflow for getting consistent column widths and similar table formatting niceties.

[stokerg]

On 9/30/2024 at 10:13 AM, Philosoraptor - Jeff H said:

The obvious way is to open up the Table window and edit the column width in there. But this works... not as expected. If I type in a specific number, say 0.92 inches, the column does not become 0.92 inches wide. Instead of the number I typed appearing, it shows a completely different number, in this case 0.558. This is a real effect, not just a bug in how the number displays.(1) The column actually shrinks to about half an inch in width, instead of growing slightly as I told it to. A bit of quick testing suggests that the number I end up with is usually about 60% of what I actually typed in, though I think I've seen a couple exceptions to even that.

Can you attach an afpub file that shows this issue?  Just i've tried several PCs and Macs and haven't been able to replicate this.

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

Sorry for the belated response. I'd rather not do so publicly but will follow up in a PM if that's possible. If not I'll edit a request into this post for a Dropbox link or something; that's something I've seen you guys do before.. EDIT: It doesn't look like I can attach a file to a PM, only an image that's already online somewhere. Could I get a link?

One thing you should perhaps be aware of is that the ones I'm having trouble with are rotated 90 degrees, i.e. for that bit of the book you have to read some pages sideways. It was the only way to get enough width at the digest-sized form factor I'm using. I tried it on a couple of tables that are in the normal orientation and didn't seem to have the same problems.

[stokerg]

Hi @Philosoraptor - Jeff H,

I've created you a Private Dropbox link here to upload the file to  

11 hours ago, Philosoraptor - Jeff H said:

One thing you should perhaps be aware of is that the ones I'm having trouble with are rotated 90 degrees

That was the key to replicating this! and on checking this issue is already logged with the Developers to resolve  

I've left a link on that report so the Affinity Info Bot can update here when this has been resolved.

[Philosoraptor - Jeff H]

18 hours ago, stokerg said:

Hi @Philosoraptor - Jeff H,

I've created you a Private Dropbox link here to upload the file to  

That was the key to replicating this! and on checking this issue is already logged with the Developers to resolve  

I've left a link on that report so the Affinity Info Bot can update here when this has been resolved.

Okay, that's good. I see the link still works despite the strikethrough - would sending my affected file be helpful or are you guys already on top of this? Sounds kind of like the latter but I'm still prepared to do so if you want (though it may take up to 24 hours depending what else is going on with me).

That said tables seem to need a from-the-ground-up overhaul more than they do individual bug fixes, though I'll happily take the latter in the meantime.