Text Frames, Text Cursor, Changing Pages, End Para Marks

[TraceyW]

Hi

I've only had a quick cursary look at Publisher and have some comments to make on what I have found so far.

Text Frames
This was the first problem I found in that text I entered in a frame was too much for the frame. Nevertheless, It was still visible below the text and I could change the size of the frame and no matter how small I made it, ALL imported/pasted text was visible. In PPX9 anything outside of the frame is hidden until you either make the frame larger or create another frame and then link them.

Text Cursor
I have also tried setting up a new publication complete with margins. However, 'I thought where the hell is the cursor.' I eventually found it but because it is so very fine and thin it was very difficult to see. Thing is, it gets lost on the line indicating the margin. Yes, it becomes more obvious when you import text but was still not easy to find (I much prefer the slightly emboldened cursor of PPX9). However, my husband (a big user of PPX9) would have extreme difficulty finding it due to his failing sight - in fact when I asked him find it he completely failed to do so, but he has no problem using PPX9 on a very regular basis. I am therefore fully of the opinion that the text cursor needs emboldening or something else being done to make it more obvious for all of us.

Changing Pages
I have this afternoon imported multi-page PDF files and tried moving through the document using the pagedown and pageup keys. No can do!!! The only way I could do this was to double click the pages required in the Page panel.

End Paragraph Mark
I've again just tried pasting text into a new document and realised there are no End Paragraph Marks - but do you think I can see how to display them if its even possible. As far as I'm concerned I want paragraph marks displayed as it helps to know where there are empty paragraphs and also helps with the setting up of styles, e.g. spacing, indent etc. Also, when you insert a new text frame in PPX9 you finish up with an end of story mark to indicate where the cursor is. Currently with AF Pub there is no such mark and haven't so far found any way of turning it on!!!

Generally
I'm not finding the program as intuitive as I would like but I acknowledge that it is still very much in Beta at present. However, I do feel there is a great deal of work yet to be done before going commercial with the program. As to whether we will get a copy? Well that remains to be seen for the future. Seeing as we're into our 70s we may well leave it be and persist with PPX9.

These are my comments up to now but I'm sure more will follow in due course.

Tracey

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, TraceyW said:

Text Frames
This was the first problem I found in that text I entered in a frame was too much for the frame. Nevertheless, It was still visible below the text and I could change the size of the frame and no matter how small I made it ALL imported/pasted text was visible. In PPX9 anything outside of the frame is hidden until you either make the frame larger or create another frame and then link them.

Not a bug; it just works differently than you're used to. When you paste in text that's too long for the frame, you'll see an "eye" icon on the lower right, next to the triangle icon used to link the text to the next text frame. If you click the eye it will hide the overflow text.

 

5 minutes ago, TraceyW said:

Changing Pages
I have this afternoon imported multi-page PDF files and tried moving through the document using the pagedown and page up keys. No can do!!! The only way I could do this was to double click the pages required in the Page panel.

Also not a bug; just something else to get used to. The shortcut key for moving from one page to the next is ctrl+PageDn. You can probably change that via Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts if you really want to.

 

7 minutes ago, TraceyW said:

End Paragraph Mark
I've again just tried pasting text into a new document and realised there are no End Paragraph Marks - But do you think I can see how to display them if its even possible> As far as I'm concerned I want paragraph marks as it helps to know where there are empty paragraphs and also helps with the setting up of styles, e.g. spacing, indent etc. Also, when you insert a new text frame in PPX9 you finish up with an story mark to indicate where the cursor is. Currently with AF Pub there is no such mark and haven't so far found any way of turning it on!!!

Text > Show Special Characters should do it for you. It's near the bottom of the list.