Text frames from master pages - not working, maybe?

[AgileMktg]

This may be a bug, may be something that's changed or simply doesn't work the way I expect/want it to.  Basically, if I create text frames on the master pages of a doc, I can paste into them on a doc, but I can't control the frames, get frames to spawn onto new pages, or even see the text if it's there.  See the attached vid clip.

[narrationsd]

Have a look here -- it's got things I discovered also about this; your issue first among them.

I think I'm finding there are further issues in this area of the early beta, but this will get you started on the  path...

In some summary, what you see is how it's intended to work, differently from InDesign, and then you use the triangle-'eye' symbol to hide the overflow and prepare to flow it to another frame.

 

[AgileMktg]

Yes, possibly.  However, if you look at the video, I think the resolution is high enough to show I'm not getting the triangle symbol.

[walt.farrell]

Text Frames on a Master Page, when intended to contain document text, is not an intended workflow at this point. If you look at the tutorial videos, the suggestion is to place Guides on the Master Page, then create Text Frames on the document pages based on those Guides.

There are several forum topics talking about workarounds to enable the workflow you're trying to use, which all involve playing around in the Layers panel to unlink each document page from the Master Page, and all of which (I think) have their own quirks about how they work.

Another user came up with a different, and to me simpler, suggestion.

1. Create the Master Page, with the Text Frame that will hold document text.
2. Create  1 document page (page 1).
3. On page 1, create a new Text Frame exactly overlaying the frame it inherited from the Master Page. Changes to this frame (such as adding text) won't affect the master.
4. You can duplicate page 1 to create page 2, 3, etc. Or you can add text into the frame on page 1 until it overflows, and shift-click the text-link button to create page 2, etc.

[MikeW]

There is no point to add any text frame on a master page that is not intended to be on every page that the master page will be applied to. So skip the step 1 part about creating a text frame altogether. At least until/if Serif make that master page text frame a primary text frame. 

[Bad_Wolf]

It is possible to release the text frame from the Masterpage, however, it will remove the textframe completely from the masterpage.

I think the simplest way is putting guides on the Masterpage where your text frames should be. On the page itself, then place a textframe on it.

I am also using RagTime, a document processor. If you place a text frame onto the Masterpage, when you use that Masterpage and want to type text into the text frame, you also have to unlink that textframe from the Masterpage. For the unlinked textframe, it still keeps the formatting from the Masterpage, however if you change the formatting on the masterpage, it does not change any longer in the unlinked text frame.

I think what we experience here, is intended and not a bug. If you see the video tutorial about Masterpages, the teacher also use guides and place the actual text frame on the page itself.

Maybe a nice feature request to Serif, like MikeW explained, making a primary text frame too where we can type text on a page.

I did not tried this yet but if you copy the page with the empty text frame, you can just paste the page wherever you intend to use it and have the text frame in place. If necessary, you can link those text frames with each other to let the text flow.

If I understand correctly, those Masterpages are intended for objects which are static on every page which is depending on that master.

Despite its shortcomings, I like Publisher already.

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, MikeW said:

There is no point to add any text frame on a master page that is not intended to be on every page that the master page will be applied to. So skip the step 1 part about creating a text frame altogether. At least until/if Serif make that master page text frame a primary text frame. 

Good point, Mike, you could simply start with the text box on page 1, and that would work for the simple scenario I described.

I can envision some scenarios where you might want to create another page similar to page 1 later, and by having the frames on the Master you would have less work to do. (Yes, you could duplicate page 1 again, moving that page to where you need it, but then you'd need to delete the content of the text frame before using that new page. Having the Master available you could just create the new page and apply the Master.

[AgileMktg]

On 9/2/2018 at 4:23 PM, walt.farrell said:

Good point, Mike, you could simply start with the text box on page 1, and that would work for the simple scenario I described.

I can envision some scenarios where you might want to create another page similar to page 1 later, and by having the frames on the Master you would have less work to do. (Yes, you could duplicate page 1 again, moving that page to where you need it, but then you'd need to delete the content of the text frame before using that new page. Having the Master available you could just create the new page and apply the Master.

Well, I'm laying out a book so. . . yeah, the format from page 1 is going to repeat.  Which is why I attempted to put the text frames on the facing master pages.  And yes, for now I can just create guides on the master pages where I want the frames to go, but the point is: it doesn't currently function the way I would logically think.  "If I can put a text frame on the master page, and all other items I put on that master page are duplicated (like the page header and page numbering), then I can logically assume that the text frame will be duplicated and work like a text frame that I create once, manually."

I guess my question is, will it eventually work the way I expect it to, or is my reasoning on the way it should work faulty?

[narrationsd]

A lot of useful thoughts are collecting  here.

I've noticed some quite buggy things about text frames and master pages, so I think Walt's advice about doing things another way for now is good.

Appreciating also the extensions to that others have added...

[PMan]

AgileMktg

Items on a master page are only shown as an uneditable image on a page which the master applies to. Therefore the image of a text box seen on your page(s) cannot have text inserted.  You actually have to physically put a text box on an actual page.  That has always been the case from PagePlus's early days (and other programmes too)

However you can autoflow text quite simply into new identical  text frames  by drawing a text frame  on a page and inserting your text from an original document.

Then HOLD DOWN THE SHIFT KEY and next click on the Flow button (towards the bottom right

New text frames of identical size and properties will be inserted and filled until no more text remains

 

 

 

[Tan]

Thank you PMan, for your answer. Me too, I was looking for an option to insert existing text and didn't know of this solution. This helped me greatly. 

[Bad_Wolf]

Works great PMan, learned something new today. Thank you very much.

However I have a warning. When having an overflowing text, succesfully flowing in automaticly created text frames, when repeatedly pressing CTRL-Z (undo), I got a failure (see the attached file) which crashed Publisher. I am on Windows 7.

[John49]

Picture frames suffer from the same issues. You can create a master containing them and apply it to a page, but the frame loses all functionality and cannot be resized/moved.

I'd like the ability to build masters with text boxes having defined text styles and flows, together with picture/photo frames. Obviously you'd only spend time doing this if you knew you were going to need multiple occurrences of those layouts, but doesn't that make the case for having this ability even more valid? Once you've finished the draft of your document and, inevitably, wonder if it might look better slightly increasing the photo size and changing the text from 3 to 2 columns, you're rather more likely to try it knowing that you need do it only once if you're using a master rather than having to do it 50 times for each occurrence of that layout!

Otherwise, Affinity Publisher is looking very promising. Keep up the good work, guys!

[bahstudios]

Have to add to the chorus here on it would be a useful feature to have; I lay out a fair amount of books with chapters/sections that have repeating image and text layouts, so the ability to put photo frames and formatted text boxes in the master to just apply to later pages is a BIG timesaver compared to the workarounds.

After the beta update, things are more stable so far and I'm still getting the hang of quirks, so I imagine there will be a learning curve and I'll need to get used to some processes - overall loving the program, just missing a few things like this that would really kick it up for me.

[Bart BE]

I agree. I would like to use Publisher (together with Designer and Photo) amongst others to produce photo albums with some texts. To be able to prepare master pages with picture and text frames would really be useful. Great software btw!

[Bad_Wolf]

True, editable text frame on masterpages will be a very usefull feature.

However, like I found out on this thread, shift clicking the overflow icon (bottom right) gives you a new linked text frame with the layout of the linked masterpage.

Publisher has a kind of a learning curve. However, the more practice the easier Publisher becomes. Keep learning and sharing experiences.

[John49]

I have already seen and tried "shift-click on flow icon" and think it's great for heavily text oriented content, where the text box occupies the bulk of the page. However, it does have some significant limitations in other circumstances: I created a facing page layout, placed a small text box on the left hand side of the left page and a picture frame on the right hand side of the right page. (Sure, it's not a particularly realistic layout, but it does serve to illustrate the point). I then pasted a chunk of text into the text box and then shift-clicked the flow icon. The image below shows the result: no text box appeared on the first right hand page, even though there was room for it; the text boxes are created in a mirrored layout - not unreasonable considering a facing page layout was chosen. But, what if I did want a text box on the first right hand page along with the image? What if I always wanted the text box on the left hand side of the page? It's all fixable of course - it just takes a good bit longer.

As I said in my earlier post, the best feature with templates is being able to quickly change something globally throughout the document - a tweak only to the appropriate template and the job's done. Remember the very earliest word-processing software before "search and replace" was properly implemented?!

Maybe what I'm requesting is unreasonable. I'm not a developer, so maybe don't understand that highly customisable templates might need very complex coding that bloats the software or makes it run unacceptably slowly. Still, requests and comments have been requested....  :-)

Again, a big shout out to the Affinity team. I'm very impressed with the Mac versions of Designer and Photo and absolutely blown away by the iPad implementations of both.

 

[Neolino666]

I do books (novels) as well and I would be curious, which workflow the Affinity Team has in mind for the final version for doing stuff like this?

regards

[Patrick Connor]

On 9/2/2018 at 4:14 PM, MikeW said:

At least until/if Serif make that master page text frame a primary text frame.

Try now please....

The readers of this thread would like to try our initial attempt at adding the Master Page text frame and picture frame behaviour and features discussed here.

• Affinity Publisher for Mac: build 1.7.0.221
• Affinity Publisher for Windows: build 1.7.0.221

Please create new bugs forum threads for any bugs you find or post in this discussion/suggestions forum for missing features.