Text or rectangle fill not showing

[Patrick Bell]

I imported a graphic from my clipboard and drew a rectangle underneath it. Fill does nothing with it. The I added a text frame ontop of the rectangle and typed text but although I can see the underlined "corrections" it doesn't show either, just the outline frame but the text stays invisible whatever I set the fill or stroke to.  I'm a newbie coming from Coreldraw and this seems the intuitive way to proceed, tutorials don't show this starting point so where have I gone wrong?

[Gabe]

Hi @Patrick Bell,

 

Welcome to the forums. 

 

Can you attach the .afdesign or .afphoto file so we can have a look?

 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[Patrick Bell]

See attached. I am certain this is my misunderstanding so I welcome any guidance and expect a d'oh moment :-)

 

tia

test.afdesign

[Gabe]

Thank you for your file. 

 

A better practice wold be to work on art boards if you're not sure how big your image is going to be, as the art board can easily be modified to fit the canvas. In your example, your canvas is only as big as the original image you imported. Do the following to get everything on the canvas: 

 

1. Select the group from the layer panel

2. Select the Artboard Tool > Size : Selection > Insert art board. 

 

This will insert an artboard with the size of your current selection ( the group in your case ) 

 

Have a look here for more tutorials:

 

 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

 

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

A better practice would be to work on artboards if you're not sure how big your image is going to be, as the artboard can easily be modified to fit the canvas. In your example, your canvas is only as big as the original image you imported.

 

A simple alternative that will also work in Affinity Photo (which doesn’t have artboards) is to resize the canvas to make it taller.

[Patrick Bell]

I think d'oh is appropriate!

 

Many thanks

[Patrick Bell]

Yes interesting, I have both Photo and Designer but hadn't grokked the overlapping possibilities.

[Alfred]

6 minutes ago, Patrick Bell said:

I think d'oh is appropriate!

 

Be my guest: 

[toltec]

42 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

A simple alternative that will also work in Affinity Photo (which doesn’t have artboards) is to resize the canvas to make it taller.

 

"also"?

 

How do you "resize the canvas" in Designer? 

[MEB]

For regular non-artboard documents go to menu File ▸ Document Setup... and set the dimensions you want (note the options for Objects will Rescale and Anchor to Page) or alternatively turn the canvas into an artboard and resize it as you do for regular objects with the Move or the Artboard Tool (both will do). You have to tick Lock children when using the Move Tool otherwise the contents of the artboard will also be resized.

[toltec]

Ah, but menu options are very different. In Designer it is File > Document Setup > Dimensions. No mention of "canvas" as opposed to in Photo Document > Resize canvas.

 

My question was rhetorical in nature. There is no mention of "canvas" in Designer which might be somewhat confusing for a newbie looking to "resize canvas" in Designer.

 

As a former newbie myself, I used to get very confused if the terms I am looking for are not there, or are called something else. Perhaps I'm just a bit dense 

 

Look at my recent problems with Styles 

[MEB]

The apps are also different and intended to be used differently. In image editing the canvas is usually limited to the size of the image itself while on design/illustration apps it's usually a mix of objects where the canvas size is not tied to any of them specifically. Nothing extraordinary or different here: other apps, including Illustrator/Photoshop - to mention the most used - also work this way and set their canvas sizes in similar ways - there's no Document menu (or Image in this case) in Illustrator for example.

[toltec]

14 minutes ago, MEB said:

The apps are also different and intended to be used differently. In image editing the canvas is usually limited to the size of the image itself while on design/illustration apps it's usually a mix of objects where the canvas size is not tied to any of them specifically. 

 

That is a very good description. I like to describe the difference between the two by saying that Designer is a page based program, whereas Photo is a canvas based program. Which says pretty much the same thing as you did.

 

They are both great apps (I'm a big fan of both), but as you said, the intended use is different.