Text field aligned in Master page not aligned anymore when changing content

[vronizor]

Hi,

I have a master page with a text field which is aligned with the top-left corner of my margins. When I apply the master to a page and change the content of the field, the text box moved. How can I prevent the text box to move, or "anchor" it to the top left x-y coordinates. (I realize that anchor might not be the right keyword, but do not know of the proper one in this context). I have tried "alignment" but that just sent the text box against the edge of the document. Below is a video of my issue.

Thanks

vroni

[Hangman]

Hi @vronizor and welcome to the forums,

Perhaps check which glyphs are included by default in the Optical Alignment section of the Character Panel and either adjust accordingly by removing certain characters or by setting the Type to None...

[vronizor]

Oh! so you're saying this comes from the typeface designer who adjusted the alignment of each glyph for optimal optical perception? Thanks a lot for showing me this, I had no idea this could be built into the font and dictate the position of a text box. If this is a deliberate decision of the typeface designer, I might reconsider my need to align the edge of the box with the margins.

However, I was not completely able make it disappear, even playing with the optical alignment settings (see screen recording)... It seems like there should be a way to force a box to a specific X-Y coordinate. I also tried to set the Transform Origin to the top-left corner, to no avail. Any thoughts?

 

 

 

[MikeTO]

Could you please share a test document?

I don't think this has anything to do with optical alignment.

[MikeTO]

Cross linking two threads:

 

[lacerto]

I think it is simply related to the way Affinity Artistic Text boxes behave (= badly). I tested this with a "Test" version of Söhne Breit Dreiviertelfett Kursiv ("Test" versions probably have some features disabled), but also with other fonts, and this happens more or less with any font, and much depending on the first glyph to be used in text.

I tested this with Windows version 2.5.6 just to make sure it is not a macOS/Win thing, and not fixed in the just released new version of Publisher.

A simple workaround: use Frame Text instead of Artistic Text.

[Hangman]

I don't believe this has anything to do with Artistic vs Frame Text, it is specific to the font.

If you switch between Söhne Breit Extrafett and Söhne Breit Extrafett Kursiv using both Artistic Text and Frame Text you will see identical optical alignment most likely because the glyph has been designed with a negative left side bearing.

The Artistic Text frame moves to accommodate the negative left side bearing of the glyph which prevents it from being cropped as it likely would be in some applications.

Artistic Text vs Frame Text

[lacerto]

27 minutes ago, Hangman said:

I don't believe this has anything to do with Artistic vs Frame Text, it is specific to the font.

Well, I showed how the same text stays put when the content is changed whenever it is contained in Frame Text, but the X-coordinate is changed when contained in an Artistic Text Frame. For most fonts that I tested this can be consistently reproduced, but I, too, noticed that it does not happen with some other style within Söhne Family (even when the text is contained within an Artistic Text frame). 

I have not been able to reproduce the frame position change with any font contained in a Frame Text so therefore I offered it as a solution. But I have not of course gone through all fonts of the world to "prove my point". But IMO the fact that the frame is repositioned, is a clear flaw, and unwanted behavior. But that's perhaps just me.

[Hangman]

6 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I have not been able to reproduce the frame position change with any font contained in a Frame Text so therefore I offered it as a solution.

If the Artistic Text frame didn't move it would, I assume, crop the glyph with the negative left side bearing which would not be good and everyone would be complaining. The Artistic Text frame is moving to accommodate the negative left side bearing and match the optical alignment of the Frame Text. They both align perfectly so my assumption, rightly or wrongly is that this is intentional otherwise you'd have issues with the optical alignment...

Due to the difference in the way Artistic and Frame Text are designed to work, I wouldn't expect any movement in the Frame Text position, that really would be a disaster...

10 minutes ago, lacerto said:

But IMO the fact that the frame is repositioned, is a clear flaw, and unwanted behavior. But that's perhaps just me.

If the text frame isn't repositioned you'd have misaligned text with the Artistic text indented rather than the perfect alignment we currently have when using both Artistic and Frame Text which makes far more sense to me... Artistic Text can't exceed the bounds of its text frame unlike Frame Text so without this movement nothing would be aligned if combining both so you'd have to manually reposition your Artistic Text frames throughout your document which makes absolutely no sense at all...

[lacerto]

8 minutes ago, Hangman said:

The Artistic Text frame is moving to accommodate the negative left side bearing and match the optical alignment of the Frame Text.

You are of course entitled to your opinion. I do not think that Artistic Text Frame does NOT behave "as designed", so it is not necessarily a bug, but I do not want the frame to be repositioned horizontally (from left) depending on its content. I assumed that OP was surprised by this behavior, as well. The way to avoid this is to change to Frame Text.

[Hangman]

16 minutes ago, lacerto said:

I assumed that OP was surprised by this behavior, as well. The way to avoid this is to change to Frame Text.

I completely agree with you, if the intent is to keep the text frame position the same then absolutely Frame Text is the way to go...

[vronizor]

I am, by far, not an expert on publishing software, but I feel like the user should be able to control, for Artistic Text, (1) whether optical alignment should be strictly enforced (or, equivalently/alternatively, should be able to enforce the "pin down" of a vertex of an Artistic Text to a precise X-Y coordinate), and (2) fine tune optical alignment built into the font. (2) appears to be possible with the optical alignment menu under the character window, but it does not seem to remove "all" of the negative left side bearing.

Switching to Frame Text does solve the issue, so I'll go with that. I'll leave to the devs and more experienced users to decide whether this is a bug or not!

Thanks both for your insights 🙂

Edited November 28, 2024 by vronizor

[lacerto]

17 hours ago, vronizor said:

Switching to Frame Text does solve the issue, so I'll go with that. I'll leave to the devs and more experienced users to decide whether this is a bug or not!

I checked behavior in Illustrator (CC2025), and the same happens there, so the point is really to "just" be aware of this. The behavior is totally logical, but probably not "expected" by most of us. It was good that you pointed out this so that the reason for the behavior is now exposed. Personally I, too, would prefer the text frame to be stayed put, but adjusting the enclosing frame depending on the glyph is of course a valid reason.

UPDATE: The behavior is identical also in CorelDRAW. In apps like CorelDRAW and Illustrator, where it is possible to convert artistic/point type of text to frame/paragraph/area type of text, and vice versa, it is also obvious that this "unexpected" behavior is actually more logical, even desired behavior, because when this happens, the changed content in both kinds of frames stays aligned (the same glyphs are aligned), while the the bounding box is repositioned. This is because in frame text kind of container the shape of the glyph can extend beyond the bounds of the container, while in artistic kind of container the bounds are determined by the shape side bearings of the object/glyph itself. This is less obvious if it is not possible to convert the type of the text object (as I believe it is still the situation within Affinity apps? UPDATE: No longer, as shown in later posts within this thread, so this is possible now also within Affinity apps.)

[vronizor]

Thanks @lacerto for the update, it does make more sense now. In Affinity Publisher, it only seems possible to convert from Artistic to Frame Text, and not the other way around (which could make sense: may be a bad idea to convert a whole paragraph to an artistic text).

1. From Artistic to Frame

 

2. No option to convert Frame to Artistic

[HCl]

.

 

[MikeTO]

On macOS, you can convert back and forth with the same commands in the Layer menu, but for some reason that doesn't make sense to me, you can't go back and forth with the right-click context menu. This has been previously reported as an issue.