Publisher Notes: Document-wide Initial Advance is not saved

[mwdiers]

I have discovered this in Sidenotes in particular.

When I set the Document-Wide Initial Advance setting for a document in Publisher, the setting is not saved, and reverts to Leading after the document is re-opened.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a sidenote.
2. While editing the sidenote, change Document-Wide Initial Advance to Ascent.
3. Save the document.
4. Quit Publisher.
5. Restart Publisher, and reload the document.
6. Add a new sidenote. Initial Advance will have reverted to Leading.

Note that the previous notes do not visually change their Initial Advance. However, when entering those notes again, the Document Wide as well as Custom settings will show "Leading" rather than "Ascent" even though the initial advance of that note visibly is still "Ascent." This is particularly noticeable when a sidenote appears at the top of the page margin.

Any new sidenotes that are created will have an Initial Advance set to Leading and appear so visually until the setting is changed back to Ascent.

It is also somewhat annoying that it is not possible to change Document-wide notes settings unless the text cursor is currently in a note of that type.

[MikeTO]

Good catch. It's not just document-wide, it's custom, too. The Initial Advance field values work only as long as the document is open. When you save, close and re-open it, all notes will be reverted to Leading, whether they are document-wide or custom.

I checked all the other fields in that section of the panel and they all saved properly. It's just the Initial Advance field. It was this way in 2.5.7, too.

2 hours ago, mwdiers said:

It is also somewhat annoying that it is not possible to change Document-wide notes settings unless the text cursor is currently in a note of that type.

I find the way document-wide and custom works rather confusing, too, but you can also change document-wide settings when the text cursor is not in a text object. Just click on the page background and you'll be able to change the settings.

[mlanger]

I'm thinking I found a related bug?

I'm adding sidenotes to my document. I can't seem to set Document-wide settings, but that's not what I'm reporting.

I want my sidenote to appear in a narrow column on the outside edge of the pages. So I'm setting Note Position to Away from Spine. I then need to change the width and distance from frame. I have no problem when I change the distance from frame, but when I set the width of the note on the Recto page to .875 inches, the entire thing shifts up in that little column so it no longer aligns with the note indicator in the text.

What's weird about this is that the first sidenote I created with basically the same settings is fine. It's on a verso page.

I attached a screenshot. I'm wondering if that image has anything to do with it?

[MikeTO]

22 minutes ago, mlanger said:

I'm adding sidenotes to my document. I can't seem to set Document-wide settings, but that's not what I'm reporting.

To set document-wide settings, either click in a sidenote and choose document-wide or click on a blank area of the page to remove the text cursor from the text frame. The latter is the easier approach.

As for the vertical position of the right sidenote, that is very curious. I tried to duplicate it just now and it worked correctly for me. In fact, I wish there was a feature to allow sidenotes to start higher up vertically to make room for other sidenotes but it doesn't offer this, so I'm curious what settings are causing this to happen. Any change you could share a test document for just the right page?

[mlanger]

On 2/26/2025 at 6:05 PM, MikeTO said:

As for the vertical position of the right sidenote, that is very curious. I tried to duplicate it just now and it worked correctly for me. In fact, I wish there was a feature to allow sidenotes to start higher up vertically to make room for other sidenotes but it doesn't offer this, so I'm curious what settings are causing this to happen. Any change you could share a test document for just the right page?

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner. I decided to put off using Publisher to lay out the book until the manuscript was done, mostly because I was having problems with it.

This is a very weird problem and it's definitely related to the image inserted above it. When I use a sidenote on a page without an image above it, this does not happen.

Again, I'm not working with Publisher until I finish the manuscript so I can't provide more tests at this time. I hope someone can duplicate it and get it reported to the folks who can fix it.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Note > Initial Advance not saved with document" (REF: AF-5976) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.2.3213). The fix is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.