Poorly understood guidelines and undeletable ghosts

[pagelayoutt]

I am appending the first 80 pages of my AfPub file to help debug my persistent problems.

1 How can I make the page numbers appear
in the gap between the two columns?

2 What are the red guidelines for?
Can I / Should I delete them?

3 Why does the blue guideline come so
close to the gutter only on the left side?

4 How do I delete the misplaced text box?

5 Why the ghost image? How can I delete it?

***

Puzzle 108B (Mon. 31 Mar, 2025).afpub

After coughing for over a month, I have developed a vision problem (AMD), so I now have trouble seeing the tiny text in the helpful videos. Could I trouble the generous AfPubbers to please add annotations or blownup screen sections so that I can clearly see which section of which menus they are pointing at?

[AllanP]

Quick answer to your Question 1 - use a page number field on your master page.

See the "Perfect Page Numbers in Affinity Publisher" video tutorial by Elaine Giles at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P24I7CdlbP4&t=328s

This is one of Elaine's many highly informative tutorials on using Affinity Publisher.

I'll see if I can answer the other questions once I've downloaded your sample file.

regards!

[AllanP]

Question 2 - The red lines are the margins set on your Master Page.

Go to File -> Document Settings -> Margins for more info on the values.

Noremally, I'd expect any text frames to be sized/aligned with the document margins as part of the layout guide.

[AllanP]

Question 3 - the blue guideline (for the text frame) is close to the gutter because that's how the text frame is set up on the Master Page.

View your Master Page to see how the document layout is set up.

[AllanP]

Question 4 - again it's a Master Page thing - go to your master page, select the specific text frame and remove it

The video tutorial "Mastering Master Pages in Affinity Publisher" from Elaine Giles may be of help to explain how to use Master Pages - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr5je_swyJU&list=PLsCMmKpreBWJAShgi8vchMtwTzBnDk4Bc&index=65

 

[AllanP]

Question 5 - I'm guessing you mean the text frame that's partially shown on the edge of the right-hand page. Once again that's something that's on your Master Page. Go to the Master Page and remove it.

Hope the above helps

regards!

[pagelayoutt]

31 minutes ago, AllanP said:

I'd expect any text frames to be sized/aligned with the document margins

A4 --> 8.5" x 11" (SNAFU)

Inspired by color paperbacks I had bought, I intended to publish my book as an A4 Standard Color (= less expensive) paperback on Amazon. However, when the manuscript was nearing completion, I was dismayed to discover that Amazon only prints color for 8.5" x 11" manuscripts!

I set up a new blank document reformatted as 8.5" x 11" and inserted my old content. This is probably the reason for the mismatch between text frames and document margins. Some of the old formatting must have carried over. 

QUESTION: Is there any way to non-destructively* remove the inappropriate guidelines?

*Without losing my bolding / italicized text in multiple fonts (Latin, Cyrillic, IPA, Chinese) and without massive page shifts that make pinned images unstable (certain image locations cause AfPub to crash: I've never been able to figure out why. Resizing, repositioning or image substitution sometimes helps: no discernable rhyme or reason).

 

[pagelayoutt]

1 hour ago, AllanP said:

Elaine's many highly informative tutorials

Yes, indeed. I love her teaching style and content, but I ca not successfully reproduce her results. Thanks for the links. I'll review the relevant videos.

[Petar Petrenko]

Is this OK to you? Of course, you will have to continue with working on it.

Puzzle.afpub

[AllanP]

30 minutes ago, pagelayoutt said:

A4 --> 8.5" x 11" (SNAFU)

Inspired by color paperbacks I had bought, I intended to publish my book as an A4 Standard Color (= less expensive) paperback on Amazon. However, when the manuscript was nearing completion, I was dismayed to discover that Amazon only prints color for 8.5" x 11" manuscripts!

I set up a new blank document reformatted as 8.5" x 11" and inserted my old content. This is probably the reason for the mismatch between text frames and document margins. Some of the old formatting must have carried over. 

Aha! Yes, moving the content from A4 to 8.5" x 11" would cause problems in terms of how objects sit on the page.

I'm not familiar with printing via Amazon, but I'm surprised they don't provide color printing for A4-size paperbacks. Over the last 3 years or so, I've used Lulu https://www.lulu.com/ to print A4 paperback-style publications (between 180 and 280 pages) produced from Affinity Publisher, and :ulu offers standard and premium color options for its A4 paperbacks.

40 minutes ago, pagelayoutt said:

QUESTION: Is there any way to non-destructively* remove the inappropriate guidelines?

*Without losing my bolding / italicized text in multiple fonts (Latin, Cyrillic, IPA, Chinese) and without massive page shifts that make pinned images unstable (certain image locations cause AfPub to crash: I've never been able to figure out why. Resizing, repositioning or image substitution sometimes helps: no discernable rhyme or reason).

Unclear what you are referring to as "the inappropriate guidelines". Without experimenting, I'm not sure I can give an answer. I think I'd start with a fresh blank document of the desired size and then set the Master page up with the margins and guidelines that are appropriate. Then copy/paste content from your source and place it accordingly. But I'm not sure how this would work across all the 120+ pages in your document.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

regards!

[thomaso]

52 minutes ago, pagelayoutt said:

I set up a new blank document reformatted as 8.5" x 11" and inserted my old content. This is probably the reason for the mismatch between text frames and document margins. Some of the old formatting must have carried over. 

Instead of creating a new document with the new page dimensions you can change the format of the existing document via the document setup, for instance without scaling the objects and with the anchor aligned to a page or spread edge or centre.

54 minutes ago, pagelayoutt said:

Is there any way to non-destructively* remove the inappropriate guidelines?

You can hide guides in APub without deleting them a.) view the View menu and b.) via the Preview Mode (Toolbar). In the View menu various guides have separate options (e.g. guides, columns, margins, bleed etc.)

(FWIW: in your screenshot the left text frame for page number is slightly rotated. / The page number '80' is not centred because of the tab between 'A:' and the number.)

[Petar Petrenko]

5 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Instead of creating a new document with the new page dimensions you can change the format of the existing document via the document setup, for instance without scaling the objects and with the anchor aligned to a page or spread edge or centre.

I opened his document and it is all messed up. Tried to do something but I am not sure if it is going to help him at all. Your suggestion won't help him either. It is much better to start from scratch.

[pagelayoutt]

21 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

continue with working on it

The cleaned-up result is beautiful. I've been struggling on my own for over a year (getting discouraged and laying the manuscript aside for months at a time). I'll do my best to copy the Master Page settings, and coaxing the manuscript into shape by adding two or three more master pages for the four sections. Thank you so much for helping me out in this unexpected way!

[thomaso]

6 minutes ago, Petar Petrenko said:

I opened his document and it is all messed up. Tried to do something but I am not sure if it is going to help him at all. Your suggestion won't help him either. It is much better to start from scratch.

Well, the screenshot and the OP's other thread let me assume this, too. – I just wanted to mention the alternative way and feature of resizing a document. Using this feature may be easier than the OP's workflow of "inserted my old content", moving or rescaling objects individually or per page might not be required with the right setting.

[pagelayoutt]

22 minutes ago, thomaso said:

with the anchor aligned to a page

Sorry: which "anchor" is that? Do you mean pinned images?

[pagelayoutt]

25 minutes ago, AllanP said:

"the inappropriate guidelines"

"the inappropriate guidelines" = My less than successful attempt to tweak poorly understood settings. I love AfPub, but I still haven't mastered the basics.

[thomaso]

Just now, pagelayoutt said:

Sorry: which "anchor" is that? Do you mean pinned images?

The mentioned anchor is a parameter when resizing a document. Just take a look at this feature's interface. Here a screenshot of V1 (V2 may look different):

[pagelayoutt]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

The mentioned anchor is a parameter when resizing a document

I always found that tab puzzling. I love to explore rabbit holes, but I didn't think it was relevant to the task at hand: producing a publishable, finished document sometime in this decade I'll explore the topic further. Thanks!