Advanced Page Management: Multiple Pages Feature

[Petar Petrenko]

I just wonder, why manipulating pages isn't as easy as artboards in Designer?

[Hangman]

15 hours ago, MikeTO said:

The reason I created my cross with a document page instead of the master like you did was so I could see which page of the master spread was where in the document page. But since the content ended up being scaled and offset it didn't help much.

It turns out the same issue exists even when creating the cross as you have, i.e.,

 

Your cross uses 300 mm x 300 mm panels (mine uses 150 mm x 150 mm), but that makes no difference.

If you look at the X and Y coordinates for each panel, they are shown correctly in both layouts. The issue comes when you start to resize the panels, which you'd need to do to accommodate the folds. As soon as you do that, regardless of the page configuration, Publisher incorrectly identifies the X and Y coordinates for the selected panels...

The reason I didn't spot it with your sample file is because there are no adjustments to any of the page sizes... If you want to test for yourself try the following:

• Create the cross as a Master Page using a page size of 150 mm x 150 mm
• Adjust the page positions as per your layout (or any layout, it doesn't matter) but include numbers on the respective pages so you can track them
• Adjust the page sizes and positions to reflect the change in page size
• You should notice that the page selected in the Spread Properties panel list no longer matches the page being adjusted

The page widths and heights should be sized as follows and their positions adjusted based on the change in page size:

• Page 1 - 148 mm x 150 mm
• Page 2 - 148 mm x 149 mm
• Page 3 - 150 mm x 150 mm
• Page 4 - 148 mm x 148 mm
• Page 5 - 150 mm x 150 mm

Steps to Take

1. Change Page 1 to W: 148 mm, H: 150 mm with Move Following Pages checked
2. Change Page 2 to W: 148 mm, H: 149 mm, X: 149 mm, Y: 0 with Moving Following Pages Unchecked

If you now select Page 2 in the Spread Properties Panel it shows the X and Y Coordinates for Page 3 which you can test by adjusting the page dimensions. Page 3 shows the properties for Page 4, Page 4 for Page 2 and Page 5 for Page 5 which means if you now want to adjust the position of Page 3 in the Spread Properties Panel you have to select Page 2 and so on...

So while it is perfectly possible to adjust the respective page sizes to match the requirements you can only do so by selecting the incorrect page in the Spread Properties Panel...

Of course, the other issue is that adjusting the Master isn't reflected in the Pages Panel thumbnail that the Master is applied to meaning you have to reapply the Master after you've made your adjustments which potentially suggests Reapply Masters under Page Move Options isn't working correctly, certainly in this scenario....

This is also the case with the 12-panel Cross Fold... To clarify whether or not this would be considered a bug, clarification on feature expectations would be required...

[Seneca]

15 hours ago, Hangman said:

I’m not entirely sure what the full extent of the feature is but if this isn’t intended to be supported it makes little sense that we can adjust the X and Y coordinates for every page…

I'm not sure. I think this is a very powerful feature and I for one would make extensive use of it and would be sad if this was removed. I agree, that it would be great to hear more from the Affinity team regarding this.

EDIT: A number of people complained that the slug area is still not there. A bottom panel could be used as a slug and saved as a template to solve this. There is currently a bug that doesn't display crop marks properly on layouts like the one below but once fixed it could work very well.

[Hangman]

Just now, Seneca said:

I'm not sure. I think this is a very powerful feature and I for one would make extensive use of it and would be sad if this was removed. I agree, that it would be great to hear more from the Affinity team regarding this.

Absolutely, this is a feature I will make a great deal of use of... it finally opens Publisher up to a wide range of artwork creation possibilities (other than books) that was previously not possible or only possible by manually dividing up a single page spread...

I'm hoping the issue is purely a bug, it certainly feels like one...

I also hope that a page restriction per spread isn't introduced or if it is that it's not restricted to 10 pages as that would severely limit numerous artwork projects. I'm happy with the page limit as it is since the user can decide even if I'm never going to be creating a 1,000 page Spread or Master...

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Hangman said:

I also hope that a page restriction per spread isn't introduced or if it is that it's not restricted to 10 pages as that would severely limit numerous artwork projects. I'm happy with the page limit as it is since the user can decide even if I'm never going to be creating a 1,000 page Spread or Master...

@Hangman Jon said they're happy to allow you to bypass the dialog and add more than 10 pages so don't worry. I think this is a great approach, it avoids the majority making a mess but still supports niche use cases.

[MikeTO]

@Hangman We'll have to see what they say, but I think if multi-directional spreads were going to be supported now it would have been announced.

I've had such a blast playing with spreads this week. The design and implementation is amazing. Fantastic work!

Now I want to add fold-out maps to my history book.

[Hangman]

On 10/23/2024 at 2:50 AM, MikeTO said:

Master Properties: Three little issues:

• The spinner controls don't work in Master Properties, at least on macOS

I have to say I'm slightly unsure how this panel is designed to work or what it is designed to do, the 2.5.5 Help file simply mentions that Master page properties include page dimensions, object scaling and margins. I didn't see it mentioned in your manual either...

While true I don't see how page dimensions or margins can be adjusted via the Master Properties panel, it appears to only accommodate scaling and I'm slightly unsure how this can directly affect the Master applied to the selected page...

Can you enlighten us as to how you would use the panel in practice...

The point of the post however was that you mentioned the spinner controls don't work on macOS in the 2.6 Beta. They're working for me even if I'm unsure what they're actually doing so I just wanted to check if you're still seeing the same issue...

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, Hangman said:

I have to say I'm slightly unsure how this panel is designed to work or what it is designed to do, the 2.5.5 Help file simply mentions that Master page properties include page dimensions, object scaling and margins. I didn't see it mentioned in your manual either...

While true I don't see how page dimensions or margins can be adjusted via the Master Properties panel, it appears to only accommodate scaling and I'm slightly unsure how this can directly affect the Master applied to the selected page...

Can you enlighten us as to how you would use the panel in practice...

It's described on page 28 of my manual's 2.5 edition but it wasn't indexed so I'll do that now. This dialog allows you to specify which side of a spread a master is applied to (facing pages only) and how the content should be scaled.

For example, you could apply masters A and B to a spread and then use this panel to specify that master A should apply only to the left side and master B only to the right side. You could accomplish that with the Pages panel, too, but this is easier.

It needed a revamp for 2.6 because instead of saying that it applied to the left, right, or both, you can specify which page of the spread the master starts on (a relative page number), how many pages it applies to (up to the length of the spread less the start page), and which page of the master is the first page applied to the spread. It's a wee bit complicated but nobody is going to be able to complain that they can't do what they want with this thorough implementation.

The spinners are working for me now so I'm unsure why I couldn't get them to work before. Let's park that unless we see it again. However, the Source name is definitely changing from the master page name to "Source" for both of us so that's a bug.

Cheers

[MikeTO]

Master Properties dialog is too short: More controls were added without increasing the dialog height from 2.5 and now the Anchor control is below the Close button. It also needs a localization review for German and French.

  

Edited October 28, 2024 by MikeTO
added note about French

[MikeTO]

Selecting Reflow Through Spread when Reflow Pages is off:

1. Create a facing page doc with several facing-page spreads based on the default master A
2. Turn off Reflow Pages for the document - all the spreads now have Reflow Through Spread turned off and are shown with brackets.
3. Select two spreads in the middle and with Spread Properties turn back on Reflow Through Spread - the brackets disappear - see left screenshot
4. Delete the left or right page from the first of those spreads, the pages don't reflow - see the middle and right screenshots

If I can select Reflow Through Spread and the brackets disappear it seems that the pages should flow. But they shouldn't flow if reflow is off at the doc level. Perhaps Reflow Through Spread should be disabled if it's off at the doc level?

  

Brackets for vertical spreads: The brackets for vertical spreads are mostly cut off with XL thumbnails unless you scale the panel fairly wide. When they are visible, their thickness combined with their length for longer spreads can be rather heavy. Might they be thinner or lighter?

 

[Hangman]

9 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Master Properties dialog is too short: More controls were added without increasing the dialog height from 2.5 and now the Anchor control is below the Close button.

That's weird, for me the dialog can't be resized and this is how it appears to me...

 

[fde101]

To me it looks like this when the extra controls are present:

 

I don't see a way to resize it either.  macOS 14.6.1.

[Hangman]

Hi @fde101,

Weirdly I'm now seeing the same issue, I'm trying to figure out why I didn't before and what's triggering it...

[Sean P]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Selecting Reflow Through Spread when Reflow Pages is off:

1. Create a facing page doc with several facing-page spreads based on the default master A
2. Turn off Reflow Pages for the document - all the spreads now have Reflow Through Spread turned off and are shown with brackets.
3. Select two spreads in the middle and with Spread Properties turn back on Reflow Through Spread - the brackets disappear - see left screenshot
4. Delete the left or right page from the first of those spreads, the pages don't reflow - see the middle and right screenshots

If I can select Reflow Through Spread and the brackets disappear it seems that the pages should flow. But they shouldn't flow if reflow is off at the doc level. Perhaps Reflow Through Spread should be disabled if it's off at the doc level?

  

 

Hi Mike,

This is intentional. Turning off Reflow Spread in the Document Setup will disable the 'Reflow Pages' option in the Pages Panel, and also set all your existing pages to not Reflow Through Spread, to ensure any existing pages are protected from reflow if you decide to enable it at a later date. In your recipe, the option is still disabled, so in Step 4 it is correct to not have them reflow. If after Step 3 you first go to Page Preferences > Page move options > Reflow pages and re-enable it, then deleting the page in Step 4 will cause them to reflow.

[Hangman]

Pages associated with a multipage Master Page don't update to reflect the Master Page Changes resulting in the Master Page having to be reapplied...

[Hangman]

Making updates to a Multipage Master Spread fails to show the UI background once a page has been repositioned; instead, it shows the white page background...

[Seneca]

One thing that bothers me a bit from the UX standpoint is that if you select a page or pages on a given spread, this selection is be reflected in the Properties Dialog. At the moment the Dialog defaults to spread but really it should switch to selected pages when it opens. 

EDIT: Sorry, this was already mentioned by @MikeTo upthread.

 

[Hangman]

6 minutes ago, Seneca said:

One thing that bothers me a bit from the UX standpoint is that if you select a page or pages on a given spread, this selection is be reflected in the Properties Dialog. At the moment the Dialog defaults to spread but really it should switch to selected pages when it opens. 

@MikeTO mentioned that earlier in the thread... it's getting difficult to keep up with everything that's already been covered in this thread...

[Petar Petrenko]

29 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Making updates to a Multipage Master Spread fails to show the UI background once a page has been repositioned; instead, it shows the white page background...

It would be more intuitive (and much faster) if we can reposition pages by drag and drop instead with absolute values.

[Hangman]

I appreciate this is unlikely to happen and I believe this has been mentioned already but it would provide more flexibility if the Master Page Spread Properties included the ability to adjust both the Page Count and Spine Position...

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, Sean P said:

This is intentional. Turning off Reflow Spread in the Document Setup will disable the 'Reflow Pages' option in the Pages Panel, and also set all your existing pages to not Reflow Through Spread, to ensure any existing pages are protected from reflow if you decide to enable it at a later date. In your recipe, the option is still disabled, so in Step 4 it is correct to not have them reflow. If after Step 3 you first go to Page Preferences > Page move options > Reflow pages and re-enable it, then deleting the page in Step 4 will cause them to reflow.

Thanks Sean. But why turn off the brackets in step 3 (when I turned on reflow for a spread in a document with reflow off) if it won't do anything? Or why not disallow turning on reflow at the spread level when it's off at the doc level? Not a big deal though.

36 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I appreciate this is unlikely to happen and I believe this has been mentioned already but it would provide more flexibility if the Master Page Spread Properties included the ability to adjust both the Page Count and Spine Position...

Yes, it's on page 2 but it bears repeating. You cannot adjust page count or spine location after creating a master so you must delete it and start over. Nor can you adjust them via properties for a document spread, just by dragging pages in or out, and adjusting spine location visually is a bit painful.

I also pointed out in that post that I'm unsure of the benefits of spine location for a master. The only thing it does is set the spine location for a document spread when the master is applied and "Size & Count" is selected. Applying a master without choosing Size & Count will not change the spine location. It seems more trouble than it's worth to have it at the master level, because if you have two document spreads that are mirror images of each other with mirrored spines then you'd need to override the master for one of them. And right now, it's difficult to move the spine visually.

[MikeTO]

Apply Master vs. Apply Master to Pages: When you right-click a master, you can choose Apply Master (left) or Apply Master to Pages (right):

 

Apply Master applies a master to the master you clicked on while Apply Master to Pages has nothing to do with what you clicked on and is the same as right-clicking a document page and choosing Apply Master. This has always been rather confusing, but there's a new bug and I think Apply Master for a master needs an enhancement.

Bug: If you choose Current Spread when a document page is active, the change will be applied to it. If a master page is active, clicking OK will not close the dialog. The app isn't locked up, you just have to make another choice. This is regression from 2.5.

Enhancement: I think it would be nice if Apply Master to Pages was removed since its irrelevant to a master page, and if Apply Master for a master was beefed up to more closely resemble it.

• Apply Master doesn't let you choose how pages will conform so the checkbox should be replaced with the 3 options.
• Apply Master doesn't offer to migrate content, it's always cleared, so the two options should be added.
• Apply Master doesn't let you choose which pages of a master to apply a master to, something that wasn't an issue in 2.5. I can drag Master A onto one page of Master B, but if I want to apply A to 3 pages of B, I have to drag it 3 times. Perhaps Apply Master should have a "To" group with two radio buttons labeled All Pages of the Master and Specified Pages of the Master, with the latter providing the ability to enter master page numbers.
• Apply Master also defaults to None instead of the current master like Apply Master to Pages which is inconsistent.

[bbrother]

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Apply Master applies a master to the master you clicked on while Apply Master to Pages has nothing to do with what you clicked on and is the same as right-clicking a document page and choosing Apply Master. This has always been rather confusing, but there's a new bug and I think Apply Master for a master needs an enhancement.

Nothing confusing for me. `Apply Master` is for creating hierarchical master pages and `Apply master to pages` is for applying selected master to document pages. 

 

11 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Bug: If you choose Current Spread when a document page is active, the change will be applied to it. If a master page is active, clicking OK will not close the dialog. The app isn't locked up, you just have to make another choice. This is regression from 2.5.

I think this is not a bug. In version 2.5 (Win) the dialog simply closes without applying master page, which is bad because it misleads the user into believing the operation was successful. In beta version 2.6, the application avoids this behavior by not allowing you to confirm and close the window for an operation that cannot be performed. 

 For me it's an improvement versus 2.5 😉

[Sean P]

15 hours ago, Seneca said:

One thing that bothers me a bit from the UX standpoint is that if you select a page or pages on a given spread, this selection is be reflected in the Properties Dialog. At the moment the Dialog defaults to spread but really it should switch to selected pages when it opens. 

EDIT: Sorry, this was already mentioned by @MikeTo upthread.

 

spread.mov 9.1 MB · 1 download

 

15 hours ago, Hangman said:

@MikeTO mentioned that earlier in the thread... it's getting difficult to keep up with everything that's already been covered in this thread...

It doesn't default to Pages as such - it will default to the last option that was selected. If you go into the dialog, select Spread and cancel out the next time you go in there it will still be set yo Spread.

 

[Hangman]

4 hours ago, bbrother said:

I think this is not a bug. In version 2.5 (Win) the dialog simply closes without applying master page, which is bad because it misleads the user into believing the operation was successful. In beta version 2.6, the application avoids this behavior by not allowing you to confirm and close the window for an operation that cannot be performed. 

This only happens when the Master Page itself is selected in the Master Pages panel, i.e., when the Master Page is double-clicked. This means the OK button should perhaps be greyed out when 'Current Spread' is selected because none of the publication pages form the current selection...