Can't move or delete text box in publisher

[buttercup75]

I opened up an IDML document into publisher, and I don't know why I can't delete, move or resize text boxes on the Pages. They have 'X's in the corners which I've never seen before & they are linked together so it can overflow from one page to the other I don't think that's the issue though. How can I move these boxes or delete them and not have to re-create the whole document again?

 

[buttercup75]

I figured out it has something to do with the parent page. When I right clicked edit detached on the parent layer, it showed the regular handles and I could edit it. What does this mean?

[Hangman]

Hi @buttercup75 and welcome to the forums,

This simply means the text frame is located on a Master Page...

If you hover your mouse over the page shown in your screengrab in the Pages panel you should see a tooltip showing which Master Page is applied to the respective pages.

If you then double-click the Master Page in the Master Pages section at the top of the Pages panel you can edit the text frame size and/or delete the frame itself but bear in mind if you delete the frame on the Master page it will delete all frames on Publication pages that use that Master...

Alternatively, you can right-click the Master page in the Layers panel for the selected page and select Edit Detached from the context menu. This will allow you to adjust the size of the text frame or delete it but again bear in mind that the text frame is linked to the text frame on the next page so you would likely want to unlink it before deleting anything...

Edit: It looks as though you've figured it out...

[buttercup75]

Thank you for explaining this for me. Is there a way to unlink it from the master page but yet still keep the text boxes on the pages with the content inside them so that I don't have to keep going to the master page? This seems to work a lot differently than what I'm used to in InDesign.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, buttercup75 said:

so that I don't have to keep going to the master page?

You don't have to "go to" the master page. You stay on the document page, but use Edit Detached to allow editing the position/size of objects inherited from the master page.

[buttercup75]

Right I guess what I was really asking is there anyway I can just convert it to a regular text box that I don't have to do that extra step with or is it stuck being attached to the parent text Box now?

[Hangman]

Are you not using Master Pages in InDesign?

The practical thing to do is to adjust the size of the text frames on your Master Page/s which should automatically feed through to your Publication pages

If you don't wish to use Master Pages and assuming all the pages are linked throughout your document you could create a new single-page Publisher file, add a text frame on Page 1, click in the main text frame on the first page of the original document, Cmd A to select all the text, paste it into the text frame on Page 1 of your new document which will give you overflow text and then Shift-Click the red Overflow text icon at the bottom right of the text frame to automatically create new pages based on Page 1 which will all then be fully editable without needing to edit the Master Page but realistically things like your header and page numbering you'd want to use a Master Page so the header appears automatically on the respective pages and page numbers are updated automatically...

You may be interested in @MikeTO free unofficial Publisher Guide which explains many of Affinity Publisher's concepts... you can download it here...