Jump to content

Advanced Page Management: Multiple Pages Feature


Recommended Posts

  • Staff

Apps: Affinity Publisher
Platforms: All

IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ FIRST

The implementation of this feature (and the many associated improvements listed at the bottom of the post) involved a rewrite of much of the existing page, spread and master code, as such 2.6.0 cannot support backward compatibility to 2.5 for page operations. Any undo history saved with a document that was created in 2.5.5 or earlier, which involves page or spread manipulation, will be truncated. You won't be able to undo back past the last page operation you did. If your 2.5.x document was saved with history and it includes any page action you will be told when you open in 2.6.0 that the history has been truncated. Any changes made using 2.6 will save and load their history going forward, and this restriction only relates to page functions whose history was created in earlier versions. Additionally you should take particular care to backup your old documents when trying them out in the new beta in case there are bugs converting from the old file structure to the new.


Multi-page spreads

Spreads can now contain more than two pages, making it easy to create trifold, gatefold, accordion fold and other page arrangements.

A new option when adding pages

When adding pages to a document, the new Spread Wrapping setting determines how existing pages flow to accommodate the newly added pages.

add-pages-dialog.png

 

Exactly how pages are arranged depends on the number of pages added and where they are inserted.

To show how the setting’s three options work, we’ll start with two facing pages and show the resulting page arrangement you’ll see when inserting two new pages in the middle of the existing spread and after the existing spread’s last page.

In the illustrations below, grey pages are the existing pages, and green pages are the newly added pages.

To help you confirm the spine’s position within any spread, look for small notches that protrude above and below the page thumbnails. You’ll see this on the updated Pages Panel in the beta app, too.

Flow Pages reflows other pages just like you’re used to in earlier versions of Affinity Publisher.

(A) The result of using Flow Pages to add two pages after the existing spread.

flow-pages-insert-after-page-1.png

(B) The result of using Flow Pages to add two pages in the middle of the existing spread.

flow-pages-insert-after-page-2.png

Extend Spread literally extends the spread at your specified position. No other spreads are affected.

(A) The result of using Extend Spread to add two pages after the existing spread.

extend-spread-insert-after-page-1.png

(B) The result of using Extend Spread to add two pages in the middle of the existing spread.

extend-spread-insert-after-page-2.png

New Spread always creates a new spread (or spreads) containing new pages, and if the insertion point is within an existing spread, that spread’s pages will be broken apart into two separate spreads.

(A) The result of using New Spread to add two pages after the existing spread.

new-spread-insert-after-page-1.png

(B) The result of using New Spread to add two pages in the middle of the existing spread.

new-spread-insert-after-page-2.png

Where an existing spread is split, two ‘ghost’ pages are shown opposite the original pages. These are fainter in appearance to indicate your pages no longer conform to the document setup. Affinity Publisher creates the exact number of pages you’ve instructed it to add; it’s left to you to resolve such deviations.

Example: Creating a gatefold

Here’s how you could use the Extend Spread option to create a gatefold. Start with a two-page spread like this one:

example-gatefold-1.png

On the Pages Panel, select Add Pages, apply the following settings on the dialog, then select OK:

  • Number of Pages: 2
  • Insert: After
  • Page: 2 (our right page’s number)
  • Spread wrapping: Extend Spread

The Pages Panel should now show a four-page spread, with the spine shown between the original pages, which are the two on the left.

example-gatefold-2.png

On the panel’s preferences menu, disable Page move options > Reflow Pages. This allows you to drag and drop page thumbnails without Affinity Publisher automatically reflowing other pages.

Drag the rightmost of the four pages to the left of the spread. Drop it when you see a blue line at the edge of the leftmost page.

While dragging, observe that we’ve introduced various new cursors that indicate the result to expect if you were to drop the thumbnail at various positions.

example-gatefold-3.png

The dragged page is moved to the left of the spread, giving us a gatefold arrangement.

example-gatefold-4.png

Another way of making this would be to make a four-page master. On the Pages Panel, select Add Master, apply the following settings on the dialog, then select OK:

  • Page Layout: Facing
  • Page Count: 4
  • Spine Location: After Page: 2

You can then make a new four-page spread by dragging the master thumbnail from the top half of the panel to the bottom.

You can also convert an existing two-page spread, right click on a spread and select Apply Master, choose your 4 page master and set Conform Pages to Size & Count and select OK. The spread will be converted from two pages to four pages.

New option when applying a Master to fully conform the target spread to the master's page count and layout

When applying a master page, you can now choose “Size & Count” which will ensure the number of pages of the spread it is being applied to will match the master page

initial-spread.png

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Known Issues in this feature
A list of unresolved issues for this feature, reported by users

  • AF-4722 - Localisation - Add pages - Dialogs button Truncation(win)
  • AF-4764 - Add Page > New Spread button cut off in German
  • AF-4765 - Ghost pages not removed when applying different page count master pages
  • AF-4766 - Crop marks aren't exported for spreads that contain more than 2 pages
  • AF-4767 - Double clicking a spread label to view spread always views the right spread
  • AF-4768 - Dragging a multi page master of the spine of a page should apply the whole master
  • AF-4770 - Clicking the spine of a 3+ page spread doesn't select the whole spread
  • AF-4779 - Page drawn too large after moving facing pages page positions
  • AF-4811 - Picture Frame's scale slider appears in the incorrect position for multi-page spread
  • AF-4834 - When Repositioning Master Pages in a Multipage Spread the Spread Properties Panel Shows Incorrect X and Y Coordinates for the Respective Pages
  • AF-4835 - Master Page Properties dialog is too short in German
  • AF-4836 - Master Page Properties dialog cuts of 'Scale' options
  • AF-4837 - The square bracket 'Reflow Through Spread' indicators get cut off with extra large thumbnails on vertical spreads
  • AF-4841 - Making Updates to a Multipage Master Spread Fails to Show the UI Background Once Pages Have Been Repositioned
  • AF-4847 - Apply Master to Selected Spread When a Master Page is Selected Fails to Dismiss the Apply Master Panel When Clicking OK
  • AF-4883 - Margins for Centre Pages of a Multipage Spread Don't Reflect the Values Set in the Spread Properties Panel
  • AF-4890 - Cross Reference Hyperlinks Always Lead to the First Page of a Chapter When A Multipage Spread is Exported Using Chapter as Pages
  • AF-4903 - Placing a Multipage File into a Multi Row, Multipage Publisher Spread Positions all Pages on the First Row
  • AF-4896 - Page content and origin moved incorrectly when using range select and move following pages at the same time in Spread Properties

Released Fixes
A list of issues for this feature, available in the current beta build

  • AF-4703 - Layer panel page order can end up incorrect when switching between multi and non multi spreads
  • AF-4747 - Applying an alternative Master to a Multipage Spread Causes the Master Page Content to be Removed from the Non-selected Pages
  • AF-4782 - Crash changing margin colours on a ambidextrous master
  • AF-4790 - Exporting a Book using Multipage Spread Chapters to PDF with Area set to All Chapters exports every other page in each Chapter
  • AF-4809 - The 'Duplicate Selected Pages' and 'Delete Selected Pages' Icons Remain Inactive When Page(s) are Marquee Selected
  • AF-4817 - Crash closing a document using small page thumbnails
  • AF-4818 - Publisher Crashes When Dragging the Default Master Over a Multipage Spread on the Canvas
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Applying an alternative Master to a Multipage Spread i.e., a spread with more than two pages causes the Master Page content to be removed from the non-selected pages...

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Create a new Publisher Document (facing or non-facing) using the default Master, Master A
  2. Add a second Master, Master B with three pages
  3. Add three new pages to the document using Master B with Spread Wrapping set to Flow or New Spread
  4. Right-click the centre page of the new spread, i.e., page 3
  5. Select Apply Master
  6. Select Master A with Specified Pages selected, Replace Existing checked, Content set to Migrate and Conform Pages set to Size then Click OK
  7. The Master content from the unselected pages is completely removed

Note: This will happen with a second spread of three or more pages...

Expectation
Applying Master A to the selected pages using Replace Existing would apply Master A to the selected pages, leaving the unselected pages untouched. Master B would still be applied to the unselected pages with the Master B content intact in the same way it does when using a two-page spread…

Note: This affects both Mac and Windows...

The screen recording demonstrates Master A being applied to alternate pages of two ten-page spreads which use different Master Pages to show the issue clearly...

Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5
MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff
5 minutes ago, Return said:

I know one can create a template

Agreed, but for now we wanted to see how discoverable the feature is. That is not to say 2.6.0 will not ship with other built in templates

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

Spreads can now contain more than two pages, making it easy to create trifold, gatefold, accordion fold and other page arrangements.

I'm not sure how that will be possible in practice. The internal folds in some arrangements need to be slightly smaller than the other folds and I don't see an option to modify page sizes. 

2017 27” iMac 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 • Radeon Pr 580 8GB • 64GB • Ventura 13.6.4.

iPad Pro (10.5-inch) • 256GB • Version 16.4

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Seneca said:

I'm not sure how that will be possible in practice. The internal folds in some arrangements need to be slightly smaller than the other folds and I don't see an option to modify page sizes. 

Right-click the spread in the Pages panel, select Spread Properties and then select the relevant page or pages where you adjust the page size/s...

Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5
MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Multi-Page Spreads

2 is more than one so technically we already had multi-page spreads, but yes, Publisher has also already supported multiple pages, even in a single document, so the name of the thread doesn't really convey what is being added.

Multi-page spreads is better, but perhaps Arbitrary-page-count spreads would be a bit more precise?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, fde101 said:

2 is more than one so technically we already had multi-page spreads, but yes, Publisher has also already supported multiple pages, even in a single document, so the name of the thread doesn't really convey what is being added.

Multi-page spreads is better, but perhaps Arbitrary-page-count spreads would be a bit more precise?

I was just referring to the title of this page which is a bit confusing.

The industry has long used the multi-page spread term to mean spreads that don't reflow but it's a poor term because you can also create single-page spreads that don't reflow automatically.

Adobe uses the terms "multiple-page spreads" and "island spreads" equally to refer to these. "Fixed spreads" is another decent term.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Would be nice if there were options to:

  1. Set different sizes for different pages of the spreads. For instance when the inside flap of a trifold is not as wide as the other 2 parts.
  2. Set a spacing between pages. For instance when printing for ring binders. Now the bleed uses the part of the other page in the spread. If there will be a space of 6mm between the final printed pages, the bleed should use whatever falls in that gap.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @Peter van Westen,

6 minutes ago, Peter van Westen said:

Set different sizes for different pages of the spreads. For instance when the inside flap of a trifold is not as wide as the other 2 parts.

Right click the spread in the Pages panel, select Spread Properties and then in the Spread Properties panel select the relevant page or pages and you can adjust the page size there…

Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5
MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse
HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmmm...

I expected something more intuitive and easier like in ID. Like, drag and drop an existing page between two existing pages and that's it.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

Hmmmm...

I expected something more intuitive and easier like in ID. Like, drag and drop an existing page between two existing pages and that's it.

You can, but the new mouse pointers make it a bit obscure, as the target is actually at the bottom of the pointer (the crosshairs) instead of the top (the papers) where it looks like it should be.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Love this 👍  👍  👍-- created templates for trifold leaflets, book jackets and 6 panel large format exhibition display boards and works and exports great, although, still no way of exporting manual fold marks as we still don't have a printable / exportable slug area which is quite frustrating as when you open a pdf, that has been created with fold marks, the fold marks are there but masked off so still have to add manual trim and fold and change the bleed from 3mm to 24mm to get a usable PDF 

Also would have thought they would have added a right click option to move a page for big documents - even so this is a great start  

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.4.3 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.3, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.4.0 Betas 2.5.0(2430)

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

EDIT: I found the problem. When changing the width the "chain" icon must be changed to "unchain".

  1. I added a page between 2 and 4;
  2. Selected the page 3 in Page panel;
  3. Remove margins;
  4. Set the width from 210 mm to 10 mm;
  5. I got that black rectangle between page 2 and 4 (see the attachment);

Now, I can't select it in the Page panel to work additionally on it (resizing, margins...).

 

3 pages spread.png

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, fde101 said:

You can, but the new mouse pointers make it a bit obscure, as the target is actually at the bottom of the pointer (the crosshairs) instead of the top (the papers) where it looks like it should be.  

I can't do it.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I can't do it.

You cannot create a multi-page spread just by dragging a page into a facing-page spread. You must first right-click the facing-page spread, choose Spread Properties, and deselect Reflow Through Spread to create a multi-page or island spread. Once you've done that you'll be able to drag a page into it. I agree that it's not as intuitive as I'd like but perhaps this will help the 99% of users who will never use multi-page spreads from creating them by accident.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a really welcome feature, you can see how it can nicely tie in with book cover designing with a spine:

image.thumb.png.6f48bd7bdfcfdc47f9b9a1f60dec0b97.png

A really neat feature request would be to incorporate this in a dedicated book export:

  1. Designate a front cover page & a back cover page
  2. Designate a spine page
  3. On export, Publisher will correctly arrange the content (clipped to the page or bleed bounds) in this order: front cover > book content > back cover
  4. It could also have options to export a separate spine file or another file with the whole spread (back cover, spine, front cover)

Even better (but perhaps wishful thinking) would be the addition of a spine calculator where you could enter the page size, number of pages, paper weight, and publisher would calculate an estimated spine width (which you can override). When ready, Publisher would create a layout based on the information provided like in the above screenshot. Perhaps too niche an ask but worth asking all the same!

2021 14" M1 Pro Macbook Pro, 16GB RAM
2024 M4 iPad Pro 11 inch

Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Current Beta versions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

island spread

What kind of spread is this?

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

You cannot create a multi-page spread just by dragging a page into a facing-page spread.

But when I try that, I get a blue vertical line next to the page (or between pages) which symbolize like it can be created with drag and drop.

All the latest releases of Designer, Photo and Publisher (retail and beta) on MacOS and Windows.
15” Dell Inspiron 7559 i7 Windows 10 x64 Pro Intel Core i7-6700HQ (3.50 GHz, 6M) 16 GB Dual Channel DDR3L 1600 MHz (8GBx2) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 500 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD UHD (3840 x 2160) Truelife LED - Backlit Touch Display
32” LG 32UN650-W display 3840 x 2160 UHD, IPS, HDR10 Color Gamut: DCI-P3 95%, Color Calibrated 2 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort
13.3” MacBook Pro (2017) Ventura 13.6 Intel Core i7 (3.50 GHz Dual Core) 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3 Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB 500 GB SSD Retina Display (3360 x 2100)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

What kind of spread is this?

An island spread is just another term for a multi-page spread, any combination of pages in a single spread that floats in the normal page flow.

1 minute ago, Petar Petrenko said:

But when I try that, I get a blue vertical line next to the page (or between pages) which symbolize like it can be created with drag and drop.

You've always gotten a blue bar when dragging a page into a facing page spread to let you know that the page will be moved there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.